Between 1982 and 1994, American radio and media personality Howard Stern hosted a number of pay-per-view specials and released various VHS and audio tapes.
[1] It featured Stern, his radio show staff, and the audience wearing underwear or lingerie, and had various segments including live performances and stunts and pre-recorded skits.
On March 7, the event was released on VHS by Weirdo, Inc. and Infinity Broadcasting Corporation through mail order, with a catalogue number of 1001 and a shortened runtime of 113 minutes.
The format appealed to Stern as the event would be free from broadcast regulations imposed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), allowing him creative freedom.
[2] Law enforcement agent Michael Levine wrote a letter to the New York Daily News, without the agency's knowledge, about wanting to arrest Stern and asking witnesses to rat him out.
[5] The Town Talk wrote Stern had "single-handedly set back cable pay-per-view a millennium or two" and described the special as "bone-achingly dull and stupefyingly simple-minded.
"[7] Running order: Howard Stern's U.S. Open Sores was a live event that took place at the Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, New York, on October 7, 1989, to a sell-out crowd of 16,000 people.
Other segments included stand-up comedy from show writer Jackie Martling, special guest appearances from Celestine, Al Lewis, Jessica Hahn, Sam Kinison, and Leslie West, and live music from Pig Vomit.
[9] Kinison paid for himself and a group of friends to attend the event out of his own expenses, and the crowd stormed the arena floor during his performance of "Wild Thing" with West, which caused a near riot.
[8] Radio producer Fred Norris appeared as his on-air character Kurt Waldheim Jr., dressed in a Nazi outfit and emptied an envelope of ashes pretending they were Anne Frank's remains.
Stern had a pair of listeners try the same thing on his radio show, which led to the idea of producing a new videotape with butt bongo as the main feature.
The latter said Stern wanted Butt Bongo Fiesta to be "the perfect Channel 9 show episode" without the time and content restrictions imposed by network television management.
The pageant featured several celebrity judges, including Janis Ian, Daniel Carver, John Bobbitt, Sherman Hemsley, Mark Hamill, Tiny Tim, and Joe Frazier.
[15] Over 40 women and one man competed in the pageant, most of whom had won preliminary contests held in cities where Stern's radio show was syndicated to at the time.
[22][23] Running order: 50 Ways to Rank Your Mother is a studio album released in 1982 by Wren Records, while Stern hosted the morning show at WWDC-FM in Washington, D.C.
It is a comedy album of song parodies performed by Stern and the Earth Dog Band, a group led by his producer Fred Norris, plus bits from the radio show and excerpts of people's opinions about him.
[25] Track listing: Personnel Music Production Crucified by the FCC is a box set released as a single CD and two audio cassettes by Infinity Broadcasting Corporation in February 1991.
WXRK General Manager Tom Chiusano said this became the set's unique selling point, as it was the first attempt at reselling content from the radio show and in a form that was unavailable to listeners.
NBC censored Stern when he gave out the phone number to order the product, which annoyed him as he saw little point in appearing on the show if he was unable to promote it.
The remaining copies were divided into three alternate cover schemes that were one time pressings only, a similar tactic used for the paperback edition of Stern's second book, Miss America.