He was an influence on other major talk show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Morton Downey Jr., Bob Grant, and Michael Savage.

Pyne graduated from Chester High School in 1942 and immediately enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

In 1943, during a Japanese bombing attack, he was wounded in the left knee; he earned a Purple Heart as a result of his injuries.

[5] Discharged from the Marines at the end of World War II, Pyne attended a local drama school to correct a speech impediment.

He quickly realized that he wanted more than playing music and reporting on community events like the county fair or a new business opening.

"[5] After leaving WLIP, Pyne moved to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where he took a job at WPFG as a disc jockey, and offered brief commentary to fill the silence while switching records.

[7]: 186  In 1957, he stopped hosting It's Your Nickel and sought out television jobs in Hollywood, Los Angeles, but his search lasted over a month and "nobody even talked to [him]."

After exposing a narcotics scandal at a local high school, his popularity exploded, and soon multiple TV stations were vying for his attention.

[3][10] Pyne accepted an extremely lucrative offer — Smithsonian Magazine reports that he was paid $1,000 (equivalent to $10,848 in 2023) per week, a greater salary than most sports stars, including Mickey Mantle[5] — from KTLA in Los Angeles to host a nightly television program.

However, after roughly six months he resigned from the show and returned to Delaware due to a family member falling ill.[3] Back in Wilmington, Pyne hosted a daily radio talk show on WVUE and a weekly television companion piece on Friday nights from 11 p.m. to midnight,[10] both of which also aired in nearby Philadelphia.

"[3] In early 1959, Pyne worked briefly for Montreal radio station CKGM as a talk show host.

[13] Later that year, he returned to Los Angeles, and by 1960 he was hosting a radio show on KABC (AM), later transferring to KLAC[7]: 186–187  and eventually KTTV.

"[11] He regularly had Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members on his show — drawing the ire of both the American Jewish Committee, who stated he was giving bigots a nationwide voice and helping spread their propaganda,[18] and the FCC, who strongly recommended station managers more carefully vet Pyne's program[19] — as well as other infamous individuals such as Anton LaVey, Sam Sloan, and followers of Charles Manson.

[7]: 187  Although he was frequently criticized for his choice of guests and "accused of fostering a hate program," he maintained that his show should be considered educational, since it exposed these groups and ideas to the public eye.

Author Donna Halper posits that these guests were brought on the show just so that Pyne could argue with them and rile up his audience.

[21] Years later, he also had Maulana Karenga, a black author, political activist, and creator of Kwanzaa, as a guest on his syndicated show.

"[17]: 9, 17  The FBI took a generally favorable view of Pyne,[17]: 18, 32  although on one occasion, the Los Angeles field office contacted him because of comments he had made on his show that led them to believe "he had access to confidential material in our files.

In one such letter, addressed to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover and dated March 1965, the writer stated that Pyne had referred to Hoover as a "flat-foot cop" and made other comments perceived as denouncing the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), an opinion backed up by a 1962 FBI internal memo.

[11] One especially noteworthy brawl, allegedly started by a guest, resulted in the audience charging the stage and knocking down the entire set.

[11][15][22] Few things were off limits on The Joe Pyne Show, and the unpredictably of never knowing what might happen next was a major perk for both viewers and guests alike.

The stories about Zappa and Krassner have been oft-repeated in numerous online and print sources as a fact,[5][22] but their authenticity is unknown.

Likewise, Bill Press, author of the book Toxic Talk, characterized Pyne as "a precursor to [Rush] Limbaugh.

"[9] A lot of the footage from The Joe Pyne Show has since been lost, either because the videotape was destroyed or because another program was recorded over it, and much of what does exist is of poor quality.

The organization Films Around the World owns a collection of over 100 episodes of The Joe Pyne Show and is working with videotape archival specialists to restore the reels of tape.