98 Fun Facts About Howard Stern

In which New York City borough was Howard Stern born in January 1954?

Queens: he was born in Jackson Heights, though some references give Roosevelt, the Long Island town the family moved to a year later, where he grew up as one of the few white pupils at his school.

Stern's father Ben worked as a radio engineer and co-owned what kind of business in Manhattan?

A recording studio: visiting it, the young Howard watched Don Adams and Larry Storch voice the Tennessee Tuxedo cartoons and decided theirs was the job he wanted.

As a boy, Howard Stern staged lewd shows for friends using what?

Marionettes: he named the act The Perverted Marionette Show and later said he had taken something innocent and ruined it.

Howard Stern began in radio at the campus station of which university?

Boston University: he worked at its student station and cast his future wife in one of his student films.

Which practice does Howard Stern say he turns to after every show to switch off?

Transcendental Meditation: he took it up as a student at his parents' urging, credits it with helping him quit smoking, and once made a student film about it.

Where did the young Stern rent a room to save money while working at WRNW?

A monastery in Armonk, New York: his first full-time radio job paid just $96 a week, so he lived there until a morning show in Hartford hired him away.

Which game did Howard Stern study so obsessively for three years that he treated it like a job?

Chess: he said he pushed everything else aside for it, then set it aside in 2011 and took up photography.

Which longtime writer and sound-effects man did Howard Stern first meet at Hartford's WCCC in 1979?

Fred Norris was a college student working at the station; two years later, when Stern's ratings took off at another station, Norris was the first person he was allowed to hire.

Stern left Detroit's WWWW in 1981 after the station abruptly switched to which format?

Country: nine months into the job he woke one morning to find the station had changed format. He said he had no tolerance for the music and quit rather than play it.

In which city did Howard Stern first team up with newsreader Robin Quivers, in 1981?

Washington, D.C.: Quivers took the job at WWDC after hearing a tape of his show, without having met him, and expected simply to read the news.

Before radio, Robin Quivers served as a nurse in which branch of the military?

Air Force: she left as a captain, retrained at a broadcasting school in Baltimore and was reading the news on local radio when the offer came to join a new morning show.

In 1984 Howard Stern made the first of his many guest appearances on which host's late-night show?

David Letterman had him on Late Night in May 1984, when Stern was still an afternoon host on New York radio; the spot and a People magazine feature brought him to a national audience.

With which WNBC morning host did Stern begin a long-running feud in the 1980s?

Don Imus held the morning slot, so Stern was given afternoons; after moving to a rival station he switched to mornings to take Imus on directly, and within a year led him in the ratings.

Stuttering John Melendez left the Stern show in 2004 to become the announcer on whose late-night show?

Jay Leno made him The Tonight Show's announcer after 16 years on the Stern show, which he had joined as an intern, hired sight unseen because of his stutter.

After WNBC fired him in 1985, Howard Stern resurfaced on which New York FM station, his home for 20 years?

K-Rock (WXRK) put him on in the afternoons that November, then within months moved him to mornings so he could go head to head with his old station.

Howard Stern's show was first syndicated in 1986 to a station in which city?

Philadelphia's WYSP began carrying the New York show; once he had overtaken the city's top morning host, he went there to stage a mock funeral for his beaten rival.

At its peak, roughly how many listeners did the syndicated Howard Stern Show reach?

20 million was the late-1990s estimate, though such figures were loose guesses: in 1994 the numbers quoted for his audience ran anywhere from 4 million to 16 million.

Gary Dell'Abate's nickname Baba Booey came from mangling the name of whose cartoon sidekick?

Quick Draw McGraw's sidekick is Baba Looey; Dell'Abate got the name wrong in 1990 while describing his cartoon-art collection, and fans have been shouting "Baba Booey" into live broadcasts ever since.

Which band did Howard Stern induct into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018?

Bon Jovi: in his speech Stern said you can't go anywhere in the world without hearing one of their songs, and thanked the band "from the bottom of my heart".

Which stand-up comedian was Howard Stern's in-studio joke writer from the 1980s until 2001?

Jackie Martling, "the Joke Man", got in by mailing Stern his comedy albums in 1983; for years he fed him handwritten gags across the desk while the show was on the air.

Staffer "Stuttering John" Melendez became known for doing what?

Asking celebrities awkward questions: the gag relied on stars being too polite to brush off a reporter with a stutter, and the questions were written for him by Stern and his writers.

Which venue sold out in four hours for the 1989 Stern vs. Dell'Abate tennis match?

Nassau Coliseum: all 16,000 seats went in four hours for the match, staged as U.S. Open Sores. Stern lost, then sold the videotape to tens of thousands of listeners.

Stern's 1990-92 WWOR-TV variety show regularly out-rated which NBC program in New York?

Saturday Night Live: his cheaply made Channel 9 show often drew the bigger New York audience. It still ended in 1992, when the station said it cost more than it earned.

Which mock-regal title has Howard Stern given himself since 1992?

King of All Media began as a boast, but within five years he had a No. 1 book, a No. 1 film and a No. 1 soundtrack album to back it up.

In October 1992 Stern became the first to top morning radio in both New York and which city?

Los Angeles: just over a year after his debut there he unseated a morning team that had led the market for three years.

At which 1992 awards show did Howard Stern appear on stage as his flatulent superhero, Fartman?

MTV Video Music Awards: he presented an award in the costume with Luke Perry, and a Fartman feature film was announced, only to collapse the next year in rows over its rating and merchandise.

Which publisher released Stern's first book, Private Parts, in October 1993?

Simon & Schuster saw the first printing of 225,000 copies vanish within hours; five days after publication it was the fastest-selling title in the firm's history.

Howard Stern's 1993 New Year's Eve pay-per-view special was a parody of what kind of event?

A beauty pageant: some 400,000 homes paid to watch contestants compete in stunts such as eating live bugs, making it the biggest pay-per-view yet outside sport.

After Stern backed her 1993 campaign, Governor Christine Todd Whitman named what after him?

A highway rest stop on Interstate 295: Whitman was repaying the airtime he gave her during the race, and her party, not the taxpayer, paid for the plaque.

On which party's ticket did Stern announce a run for Governor of New York in March 1994?

Libertarian: he won the party's nomination promising to bring back the death penalty and then resign, but quit the race rather than disclose his income as candidates must.

The "Howard Stern Bill", signed by New York's governor in 1995, brought in what?

Road work at night: it was a plank of the run for governor he had abandoned, and George Pataki signed it into law at a gas station on the Grand Central Parkway with Stern looking on.

Which cable channel aired nightly highlights of Howard Stern's radio show, filmed in his studio, from 1994 to 2005?

E! Entertainment simply put cameras in the radio studio. The channel had already given him a weekly celebrity talk show in 1992, and the nightly programme ran for eleven years.

Stern's second book, Miss America, was published in 1995 by which imprint?

ReganBooks was the HarperCollins imprint of Judith Regan, who had edited his first book at another house; the book entered the bestseller list at No. 1 and sold 1.39 million copies in 1995.

Who directed Howard Stern's 1997 film Private Parts?

Betty Thomas got the job on the say-so of producer Ivan Reitman, who had just made The Late Shift with her; Stern had wanted Reitman himself to direct.

Who played the program director Pig Vomit in Private Parts?

Paul Giamatti beat Philip Seymour Hoffman to the part, his breakout film role; Stern used his radio show to campaign for him to get an Oscar nomination.

Which band plays the outdoor thank-you concert for fans in Private Parts?

The scene was shot in New York's Bryant Park in July 1996. Stern recorded a soundtrack song with Rob Zombie.

Son of the Beach, the FX sitcom Howard Stern executive-produced from 2000, parodied which show?

Baywatch: the joke was that its star lifeguard, Notch Johnson, is pale, balding and pot-bellied, yet everyone treats him as a hunk; the spoof ran for three seasons.

Which comedian joined the Howard Stern Show in 2001 and stayed as Stern's sidekick until 2009?

Artie Lange had been a Mad TV original and, before that, a taxi driver; he took the seat left empty that year by the show's longtime joke writer.

A crackdown after which 2004 broadcast pushed Howard Stern to satellite radio?

The Super Bowl halftime show: Janet Jackson's exposure brought heavy fines and nervous station owners, and Stern, saying the government was ripping his show apart, signed with Sirius eight months later.

Stern's 2004 deal with Sirius Satellite Radio was reported to be worth how much over five years?

$500 million over five years, though not all of it was pay: the sum also covered the show's studio, production budget and staff salaries. Sirius had about 600,000 subscribers when he signed.

Which rock singer took over Howard Stern's New York morning slot in 2006?

David Lee Roth lasted less than four months: the Van Halen singer lost much of Stern's audience and was dropped that April for low ratings.

What were the names of Howard Stern's two dedicated channels on Sirius?

Howard 100 and Howard 101 ran side by side for two decades, the first carrying the show itself. The second was dropped in September 2026 as he cut back to one new show a week.

Stern replaced which judge when he joined America's Got Talent for its seventh season?

Piers Morgan had quit to concentrate on his CNN show; to get Stern, who would not leave his radio programme, NBC moved the live rounds east to the New York area.

Which network was behind the late-night TV show of Howard Stern radio highlights launched in 1998?

CBS's station group made the hour-long weekly show and sold it to other channels too, but stations began dropping it within weeks over its content, and it ended in 2001 in about 30 markets.

Howard Stern Comes Again, his third book, published in 2019, is built mainly from what?

His favourite interviews, including several with Donald Trump; Stern has said that years of psychotherapy changed the way he talks to guests, from sparring partner to listener.

Which musician was the subject of a 2022 HBO special built around a Stern interview?

Bruce Springsteen had never been on the show before; the two-and-a-half-hour talk, with songs at the guitar and piano, also marked Stern's return to his radio studio.

Which sitting US president sat down with Howard Stern for a surprise live interview?

Joe Biden's visit in April 2024 was unannounced: Stern broke into his own channel on a Friday, a day he is not normally live, to introduce a guest he said he had wanted to meet for the longest time.

Stern married model and TV host Beth Ostrosky in 2008 at which New York restaurant?

Le Cirque: after seven years together they married at the East Side restaurant before guests including Barbara Walters, Joan Rivers and Billy Joel, who said he had thought it would never happen.

In which 2001 comedy does Howard Stern regular Beetlejuice appear as the brain of Marlon Wayans's stoner character?

Scary Movie 2 casts Beetlejuice as himself, depicted as the brain of Shorty Meeks. The cameo came two years after his Stern show debut in July 1999.

Which rapper joined Sean Paul and Big Freedia on the 2021 remix of Wack Packer Beetlejuice's song Beetle in the House?

Snoop Dogg guested on the remix, which Beetlejuice unveiled on his first Stern show appearance in more than five years. He told Stern he had moved to Georgia with his mother.

Which 1986 World Series winner with the New York Mets is counted among Howard Stern's Wack Pack?

Lenny Dykstra, nicknamed Nails, came on the Stern show in 2016 to promote his memoir and returned in 2019 to play its Hollyweird Squares game.

Matthew McGrory, the first Bigfoot of Howard Stern's Wack Pack, played Karl the Giant in which Tim Burton film?

Big Fish cast McGrory, who stood 7 ft 6 in and was recognised by Guinness World Records as the tallest actor. He had first appeared on the Stern show in December 1996.

Howard Stern says a Wack Packer is defined not by any disability but by failing to understand what?

Why they are funny is the test, by Stern's definition, so show staff and ordinary regular callers never qualify. In 2015 he and his crew voted on an official list of members.

Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf won a 1998 online poll by which magazine to find the world's most beautiful person?

People magazine allowed write-in votes, and Hank took 230,169 of them after a Stern fan site began the campaign. The magazine's executive editor called the result stupid.

Which film star, expected to top a 1998 Most Beautiful poll, finished third behind Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf?

Leonardo DiCaprio, fresh from Titanic, drew 14,471 votes against Hank's 230,169. The magazine still put the actor on the cover of its Most Beautiful issue.

Gary Dell'Abate lost a 2001 music quiz to Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf while preparing for which VH1 game show?

Rock & Roll Jeopardy! had booked Gary as a contestant, so Stern staged a warm-up. Hank won despite being too drunk to sit upright, then passed out in the studio.

Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf auditioned without success for which 1988 fantasy film featuring his friend Billy Barty?

Willow gave Barty the role of a benevolent wizard, but Hank missed out on a part. The friendship lasted, and Hank raised money every year for Barty's charitable foundation.

Howard Stern sent Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, in a bunny costume, to disrupt which magician's block-of-ice stunt?

David Blaine was standing encased in ice in Times Square for his Frozen in Time stunt. Hank refused Stern's ruder suggestions for fear of arrest and settled for an obscene gesture.

Talk of which business school prompted Howard Stern's 2006 multiplication quiz for Donald Trump and two of his children?

Wharton was the cue: Ivanka and Donald Jr. had just described getting in on their own merits. Asked to multiply 17 by 6, their father got it wrong, then insisted his answer was correct.

Which Star Trek actor introduced himself as Howard Stern's new announcer on the first Sirius broadcast in 2006?

George Takei, Star Trek's Sulu, opened the satellite era as the show's announcer. The day before the debut, 180,000 Sirius radios were activated.

Which TV host briefly posed as Howard Stern's replacement in an on-air prank after Stern's 2025 summer break?

Andy Cohen played along so convincingly that false reports spread that Stern had left SiriusXM, until Stern came on air and revealed the bit.

After beating rival host John DeBella in the 1990 ratings, Howard Stern staged what kind of mock ceremony for him?

A funeral, staged in a city square and aired live, marked DeBella's fall from number one. Stern had been determined to beat him, and repeated the stunt for later rivals.

Which Hollywood comedy director produced Private Parts after urging Howard Stern to film his own life story?

Ivan Reitman, the director of Ghostbusters, had pitched Stern a near-documentary film about his life as early as 1991. He then steered the script toward what Stern was like off the air.

Which sitcom star was an early choice to play Howard Stern's wife in Private Parts but withdrew for family reasons?

Julia Louis-Dreyfus backed out because she wanted to spend time with her family. The role was finally cast in April 1996, only weeks before filming began.

Which conservative radio host's book knocked Howard Stern's Private Parts off the top of the bestseller list in 1993?

Rush Limbaugh's See, I Told You So ended Stern's five weeks at number one. Stern believed his publisher had approached him because Limbaugh's first book had sold so strongly.

Which rock singer joined Howard Stern on The Great American Nightmare, a new song for the Private Parts soundtrack?

Rob Zombie and Stern performed the song live outside the film's New York premiere. It went on to become the opening theme of Stern's radio show.

At which 1997 film festival did a 40-foot inflatable Howard Stern, promoting Private Parts, alarm security guards?

Cannes security threatened to shoot the balloon down, so it was deflated, then blown up again once the visiting French president had left.

When Howard Stern kept rejecting Private Parts scripts, studio executives suggested which actor play him instead?

Jeff Goldblum was floated because executives thought Stern was afraid to act. Stern insisted he was not, and predicted that anyone else in the role would produce a huge box office bomb.

Which reality TV host joined Natalie Maines to present the Celebrity Superfan Roundtable on Howard Stern's channels?

Jeff Probst, the host of Survivor, and Maines gathered famous fans such as Sarah Silverman and Ryan Phillippe to relive their favourite moments from the Stern show.

Which regular caller is regarded as the Howard Stern Show's number one superfan and den mother to the Wack Pack?

Mariann from Brooklyn, real name Mariann Tepedino, sits on the show's list of regulars ruled not Wack Pack material, a group left out for reasons such as being able to hold a job.

Ronnie Mund became a Howard Stern Show character after starting which job for Stern in 1986?

Limo driver Ronnie later became head of security at Stern's Sirius studios. On air, Stern teased that the 5 ft 2 in chauffeur needed a stack of textbooks to see over the wheel.

Which rock band recorded a cover of This Is Beetle, the song Beetlejuice improvised on The Howard Stern Show?

Staind put the cover on special editions of the album Chapter V. A Stern show producer had turned Beetlejuice's raw studio vocal into a full song by writing music around it.

Which wrestler hit Stern show favourite Beetlejuice over the head with a guitar on WCW Monday Nitro in 2000?

Jeff Jarrett swung the guitar backstage after Beetlejuice, dressed as Superman, confronted him. Beetlejuice then interrupted Jarrett's title match and was pummelled in the ring.

Beetlejuice of The Howard Stern Show plays freak-show member Lil' Zip in which 2001 comedy starring Jake Gyllenhaal?

Bubble Boy has its hero, raised in a sterile dome with no immune system, meet Lil' Zip's freak show on his first trip outside. The comedy has since become a cult favourite.

Wack Packer Suzanne Muldowney became known on Howard Stern's show for dancing dressed as which cartoon superhero?

Underdog is her signature role, in a homemade costume whose cape is lined with silver streaks. A serious performer, she rejects the show's nickname for her and has called Stern her nemesis.

Wack Packer Riley Martin, who hosted his own show on Howard Stern's Sirius channels, wrote a book about meeting what?

Aliens visited him from 1953, Riley Martin said, and his book The Coming of Tan lists one of them as co-author. He sold drawings of alien symbols as passes aboard their mother ship.

Which wrestler, also a write-in, finished second to Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf in a 1998 Most Beautiful poll?

Ric Flair took 17,145 write-in votes, enough to push the expected winner down to third. Hank's own total was more than thirteen times higher.

Which rock frontman and later Extra co-host lost a rock trivia contest to Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf?

Mark McGrath of Sugar Ray was no pushover: he is a three-time champion of a VH1 music quiz show. Hank beat him anyway on a later Stern broadcast.

Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf was born, lived with his parents and is buried in which Massachusetts city?

Fall River is where Hank died in his sleep in 2001, at the home he shared with his parents. Stern devoted most of the next day's show to him.

Which role did Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf play in the 2000 film Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV?

God was Hank's part in the superhero comedy. The same year his turn as a felon in Shoe Shine Boys so impressed Martin Landau that the actor arranged to meet him.

Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf once ended each dinner-theatre performance of Finnegans Wake by popping out of what?

A beer keg hid Hank until the finale, when he popped up to deliver four lines for $50. The job lasted two years, and he later travelled to New York with a friend from the theatre to meet Stern.

Which death-metal drummer and former electrician won the 2004 Win John's Job contest to join The Howard Stern Show?

Richard Christy took 30% of the listener vote to replace the departing Stuttering John. The runner-up, a former stockbroker, was hired as well, and the two became writing partners.

At Detroit's WWWW, Howard Stern won national attention by charging listeners $1.06 to take a sledgehammer to what?

A Japanese car took the blows, and the $1.06 fee matched the station's FM frequency. The stunt drew national notice, but WWWW's ratings stayed low and Stern soon moved on.

During the 1979 energy crisis, Howard Stern put Hartford's WCCC in the national news by boycotting which oil company?

Shell was the target of a two-day boycott Stern called from WCCC, his first job in a large radio market. He later left Hartford when the station refused him a raise.

Howard Stern's first Sirius show in 2006 opened with which classical piece, overlaid with flatulence sound effects?

Also sprach Zarathustra gave the debut a mock-grand opening. Stern then ran the Revelations Game, in which staff members each told an unknown secret about themselves.

Which prank caller has fooled live TV shows since 1989, ending every call with a Howard Stern reference?

Captain Janks, real name Tom Cipriano, made his first national prank call to Larry King Live in 1989 and later fooled ABC News and ESPN. He has put his tally at around 10,000 fake calls.

Howard Stern sued a former TV producer over which reality show, saying it copied his segment The Evaluators?

Are You Hot? had Scott Einziger, who left Stern's TV shows in 2001 to work on The Amazing Race, among its producers. Stern said the format mirrored his own bit.

Which actress, later of The West Wing, plays Howard Stern's wife Alison in the 1997 film Private Parts?

Mary McCormack won the part in April 1996 after one try-out scene convinced the director, although Stern at first worried she seemed too fancy for the role.

Which model plays Gloria, the airline passenger to whom Howard Stern tells his life story in Private Parts?

Carol Alt at first wanted to stay uncontroversial and steer clear of Stern's image, but changed her mind after reading the script. Her scenes were shot inside a parked Lockheed TriStar.

Howard Stern's Private Parts premiered in February 1997 before 4,200 guests at a theatre inside which New York venue?

Madison Square Garden's theatre hosted the screening, while a stage built outside held a live set that included Porno for Pyros. The film went on general release eight days later.

Critics often compared Howard Stern's book Private Parts to the 1965 autobiography of which stand-up comedian?

Lenny Bruce's memoir was the yardstick for reviewers. Some called Stern's the best book by a comedian since, while others felt it fell short of the mark.

Which Howard Stern staffer, creator of the website jumptheshark.com, hosted the first Superfan Roundtable in late 2005?

Jon Hein so impressed the staff as roundtable host that he was given The Wrap-Up Show, which launched on Stern's first day on Sirius with Gary Dell'Abate as co-host.

WNBC program director Kevin Metheny, a model for Pig Vomit in Private Parts, got which real nickname from Howard Stern?

Pig Virus was Stern's on-air name for him at WNBC. Private Parts folded Metheny and other radio bosses into one composite character, with the insult slightly altered.

Howard Stern's first campus show, cancelled during its debut over a Godzilla sketch, was The King Schmaltz what Hour?

Bagel completed the title of the show Stern hosted with three fellow students. While still at university he also landed his first professional job, at a station called WNTN.

In which city did a rival station's engineer cut the satellite feed during Howard Stern's 1994 victory broadcast?

Cleveland engineer William Alford of rival WMMS got ten days in jail and a $1,000 fine. The broadcast celebrated taking affiliate WNCX from thirteenth to first in mornings in under two years.

In 2003 the FCC exempted Howard Stern's radio programme from equal-time rules for candidates by classing it as what?

A news interview show can host a political candidate without owing rivals equal airtime, and in September 2003 the FCC declared Stern's broadcast a bona fide example.

Which comedian's morning show replaced Howard Stern on many West Coast stations when Stern left for satellite radio?

Adam Carolla took over on the West Coast, debuting in twelve of Stern's old markets in January 2006, while Rover's Morning Glory filled many Midwestern slots.

Robin Quivers, Howard Stern's co-host since 1981, is a native of which city, where she was also a radio news anchor?

Baltimore station WFBR employed her as a news anchor and consumer reporter. Stern had asked for a newsreader who would stay in the studio and riff with him rather than just read briefs.