"[9] George Vecsey of The New York Times once described Russo's voice as "a bizarre mixture of Jerry Lewis, Archie Bunker and Daffy Duck.

Francesa and Russo hosted the morning drive program several more times, either together or taking turns solo, until Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton took over the timeslot with their show on September 4, 2007.

However, Francesa believed a contributing factor was a fallout from Imus' firing in April 2007 because Russo wanted to pursue the morning slot alone, but the WFAN management was hesitant to break up the pairing.

Francesa said he and WFAN operations manager Mark Chernoff got word through back channels of Russo's plan three months before it was made public.

The un-retirement was criticized by Russo, reflecting after Francesa's second retirement announcement that he never should have returned, calling his decision "unhealthy" and revealing that the two had not spoke outside of aired reunions for almost a decade.

During the simulcast, they announced that Mike and the Mad Dog would reunite for a one-time-only fundraising show at Radio City Music Hall on March 30, 2016.

The proceeds would go to the Garden of Dreams Foundation, which benefits programs and charities that help children facing various obstacles, including physical and financial.

The pair sometimes left their Astoria, Queens studios to do remote broadcasts from the Super Bowl, pre-season football camps, U.S. Open Tennis Championship (typically Russo hosted these show solo because Francesa is not a tennis fan; see below), the Yankees and Mets' spring training sites, and playoff games for various New York teams.

Both Russo and Francesa have admitted to not being experts in hockey, but playoff games involving the local teams were discussed and noted NHL guests sometimes appeared.

Although Freddy Adu and a few other soccer celebrities did interviews on the show, the FIFA World Cup and the sport itself received little to no attention on the program; the local MLS team, the New York Red Bulls, were rarely mentioned at all.

However, Russo said in an interview, "I think that, in the long term, the station sees us as a tandem and would not want to break the brand up... And to tell you the truth, after almost 20 years together, Mike and I are like a married couple: It would be too hard to leave him.

"[72] A 30 for 30 episode about Mike & the Mad Dog including a section on the 9/11 incident, which came across as fairly tense but not angry and was over quickly; commentators on the show noted that Francesa and Russo sometimes covered areas they didn't really have any background knowledge about.

Also, long-time NHL television analysts John Davidson and Pierre McGuire had both been semi-regular guests on the show, and Ed Olczyk had made several appearances since joining NBC.

The Monday after Russo's favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, were eliminated from the 2003 postseason by the Florida Marlins he went into his most famous tirade.

Not to mention '93, 12–1 (a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on the final day of the season, allowing the Braves to finish one game ahead).

In the summer of 1992, while Francesa was on vacation at the Breakers, in Palm Beach, Florida, Russo jokingly started the show by saying, "Welcome to....and the Mad Dog", leaving silence where the "Mike" should have been.

[2] On May 30, 2000, after the New York Knicks beat the Indiana Pacers on Game 4 of the 2000 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Francesa and Russo intended to board a plane to Indianapolis to host Mike and the Mad Dog there.

However, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post blasted the two for having "made complete fools of themselves" and for trying to "rewrite unforgettable history to have their audience think that they were just kidding around.

[81] On October 11, 2006, Lidle and his flight instructor crashed a small plane into a 50-story condominium tower on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Francesa and Russo quickly went on the defensive, as they were emotionally disturbed and upset by the death of Lidle, whom they had scolded on air two days prior.

"[83]Francesa and Russo opened their show on April 10, 2007, by weighing in on the controversy involving Don Imus and the disparaging comments he made the previous Wednesday about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Mike followed with a monologue, in which he flatly denied rumors of a gag order in effect at WFAN, and confirmed that the decision to air portions of the Rutgers news conference at the top of the show had been made in consultation with program director Mark Chernoff.

Picking up from Francesa's opening monologue, Russo criticized Imus for failing to submit a public apology within 48 hours of making the offending comments, and found fault with his strategy on both Al Sharpton's radio show and The Today Show of citing his personal accomplishments in raising money for charitable causes like sickle-cell anemia, children's cancer and the plight of wounded veterans of the Iraq War.

In their opening comments, they pointed out that Imus had made countless remarks during his nearly thirty-five years on the radio that could be perceived as offensive; Russo cited the specific example of Bernard McGuirk's running parody of then-New York Catholic Archbishop Cardinal Edward Egan (and prior to this, Egan's predecessor Cardinal John Joseph O'Connor), speculating that many Catholic listeners may have found this gag offensive.

When the morning portion of Mike and the Mad Dog debuted on April 16, Francesa opened the show by saying, "We would hope someone would come to their senses and Don would come back in a couple of weeks...We're not saying that's going to happen.

[87] The announcement was made on September 23 at the 2000 National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Radio Awards Dinner and Show in San Francisco, California.

On May 25, 2006, Francesa and Russo broadcast a Major League Baseball game at Shea Stadium between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets on radio for local charities.

[93] A 30 for 30 documentary on Mike & the Mad Dog, originally planned to air in February 2017,[94] premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, 2017.

[8] During an interview with The Washington Post, Forer's point in making Mike and the Mad Dog was to show just how big of an impact Francesa and Russo made on a genre that once was foreign to radio listeners but now is a fact of life.

Whenever it was either delayed or pre-empted, the station aired a montage of interviews, known as The Best of Mike and the Mad Dog, or alternate news-talk programming such as Dennis Prager.