Bryan + Teresa (Carolla Classics)

Giovanni (0:18)

Welcome to Corolla Classics, I'm your host superfan Giovanni. This is the podcast where we play the best moments, highlights and fan selected clips from all 17 years of the Adam Carolla Show. If you'd like to gain access to the ad-free archives of the Adam Carolla Show, the Adam Carolla Dr. Drew Show, as well as the newer podcast, Beat It Out, make sure to check out Adam Carolla's sub stack, adamcarolla.substack.com, sign up, listen ad-free. If you'd like to request a clip, please email us, classics at adamcarolla.com.

Let's get to the clips. In a very sad turn of events, Bryan Bishop's wife, Christy Bishop, shared the news on their GoFundMe for Bryan's care that actually reached its goal. I'm sure they could still use extra funds, especially with the latest update. Christy said that Bryan is now unresponsive for taking audio messages and texts and emails to have her read to him. It looks like he's not coming out of this, unfortunately, as we all hoped. He was still talking a couple days ago. It's devastating news for Christy and Tessa, Bryan's family, and for all of us listeners and everybody who loved him on the show, and for everybody who had worked with him on The Adam Carolla Show.

The Adam Carolla Show is now approaching 4,500 episodes. Bald Bryan was on over 3,000 episodes. So that's how intrinsic Bald Bryan was to this podcast. That doesn't even count the radio show. Bald Bryan first began as a phone screener back in 2002 on Loveline, and he worked there with Tara, don't call me Tara, god damn it, as Adam and Drew referred to her alongside engineer Anderson. Bryan is responsible for a lot of the most infamous calls from 2002 to 2005, that were selected for air on Loveline. He was a legend to all the fans, he participated and shared on a Loveline companion fan blog, where he give updates real time about the show, ultimately leading to him being fired for just simply saying something to the effect of, Oh, Adam and Drew were saying less of this kind of call tonight. Somebody saw it, caught wind, lost his employment. That was 2005, a few months later, Adam Carolla was left the show, and he had two consecutive shows he was working on, The Adam Carolla Project on TLC and Too Late with Adam Carolla.

He got Bald Bryan a gig over on Too Late with Adam Carolla on Comedy Central, working behind the scenes. Then when Adam Carolla's radio show started up in 2006 in January, Bald Bryan was working behind the scenes on that as well. I think he was doing some phone screening again. Mike Lynch, the writer for the show, had a stern type vibe for him, like a morning crew and get a little bit of a whack-pack vibe. Not derivative, but just in that same vein.

Mike Lynch went on his honeymoon and Bald Bryan, Bryan Bishop filled in on the drops, and he was so fast and so quick, perhaps due to all the time spent next to Anderson, or just listening to Love Line as a fan. He understood how to weave drops in perfectly with Adam Carolla specifically, and also the format of the show. When Mike Lynch returned from his honeymoon, there was just no option for him to keep going. I think even Mike agreed, Bryan had to keep the job. So from early 2006, not the very beginning, but very early, he was on every episode of the KLSX Morning Show, which ran for 715 episodes from January of 2006 all the way until February of 2009 There was multiple cast and format changes. The first news girl, Rachel Perry, left the show. Then they had a replacement search, and they hired Teresa. Teresa was on the show throughout 2006 with Adam, Dave Damashek, Bryan on sound effects, and of course Teresa Strasser is the news girl, Dave the sports guy. 2007, there was a cast shakeup. Danny Bonaducci was hired. It was now Adam Carolla, Danny Bonaducci and Teresa Strasser. With Bald Bryan's drops, particularly on Friday episodes with Joel McHale being so cutting and witty, they were used to such great effect. They're almost the voice of the fans, the listeners, and even the cast members getting tired of Danny Bonaducci having to be around him. So it was this great rebuttal to Danny every time he would say something stupid or insane or otherwise derail the show.

Bryan always had the perfect retort to be a drop ready and could almost effortlessly defuse Danny, make him laugh at himself or get pissed off and just go quiet. It was a miraculous thing. A lot of people don't go back to the Adam Carolla Show 2007 and listen to it. I'm currently remastering it.