Jackie Martling

Jackie Martling
Jackie Martling at The Record Collector Store in Bordentown, New Jersey in May 2010.
Pseudonym	"The Joke Man"
Birth name	John Coger Martling, Jr.
Born	February 14, 1948 Mineola, Long Island, New York
Medium	Stand-up, radio, television, film
Nationality	US
Website	www.jokeland.com

John Coger "Jackie" Martling, Jr. (born February 14, 1948) is an American comedian, comedy writer and radio personality. He is best known for being the head-writer and on-air personality on The Howard Stern Show from 1983 to 2001.

Early life

Jackie Martling was born in Mineola, New York, on Long Island. He attended Oyster Bay High School and lived in East Norwich, New York, earning a mechanical engineering degree from Michigan State University in 1971.^[1] Martling is of English, French, and Dutch ancestry.^[2]

Career

Early work

Martling began his show business career as a musician on Long Island, New York, playing with an original music and comedy trio, "The Off Hour Rockers." In order to accommodate the band's gear, Jackie drove a used hearse. In the late 1970s he began telling jokes on stage solo. Jackie's partners in "The Off Hour Rockers" were Chris Bates on guitar and Herbie Werner on keyboards. In 1979, he segued into performing full-time as a standup comedian.

Jackie's breakthrough into major radio came in 1981 when longtime writer/producer of the Rick Dees Morning Show on KIIS-FM, Los Angeles, Dave Lipson, discovered Jackie's "Use Your Finger! (516) 922-WINE" telephone service. Each day's offerings were recorded and aired daily on the Dees morning show, eventually leading to Jackie recording daily joke segments just for Dees' shows. That's when Dees suggested Jackie be referred to on his show as "The Joke Man." This turned out to be one of the most popular bits on Dees' morning show.

In his standup routine, and during his tenure on The Howard Stern Show, they often played "Stump The Joke Man," where audience members were challenged to start a joke that Martling couldn't provide the punch line to. If they successfully were able to "Stump The Joke Man," they would win a T-shirt or one of his CD's. Frequently, Martling was stumped.

The Howard Stern Show

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Martling recorded several comedy albums, including What Did You Expect?!, Goin' Ape!, and Normal People Are People You Don't Know That Well. Although album sales were anemic, Martling mailed the albums to Howard Stern at WNBC-AM when Stern first arrived in New York City in 1982. A guest appearance on Stern's radio show in February 1983 led to his eventual hiring as a cast member when the show moved to morning drive on K-Rock in 1986.

Along with Fred Norris, Martling wrote bits, song parodies, and material for the infamous "Jackie puppet" for The Howard Stern Show. Billy West, who voiced the puppet, said how surreal it was to sit behind Martling, and viciously attack him with lines Jackie had just written for him. Martling demanded the billing "head writer" for Howard Stern's TV show which aired on WWOR and also was nationally syndicated 1991–1992.

During the time Martling served on The Howard Stern Show staff, many fans who called in, other show staff members, and Howard himself frequently would throw out the remark, "F. Jackie," short for "Fuck Jackie," a reference to the opening line in the chapter about Jackie in Stern's 1995 book, Howard Stern Miss America. Often, many calls to the show would end in the expression "F. Jackie."

Martling left the Stern show in March 2001 after his salary demands were not met. In mid-August 2001, Jackie was quoted in a newspaper article as saying he wanted to go back to the show but Howard said that he blew it when he walked off the show. Howard said it was better if they just went their separate ways and left it at that. Martling's chair on The Howard Stern Show was eventually filled by former Mad TV cast member Artie Lange, who has also since left the show. Martling appeared on Stern's second-to-last show on terrestrial radio on December 16, 2005, and on his last show the following day, Howard Stern's last two words on terrestrial radio were "F. Jackie."

"Jackie's Joke Hunt" and SiriusXM

Martling returned to radio by joining the Howard 100/101 Sirius Radio channels with Jackie's Joke Hunt. The weekly one-hour show, co-hosted by a fellow member of the Friar's Club, Ian "McKean" Karr, premiered on October 3, 2006, at 7 p.m. EST. It continued to air live 7–8 p.m. EST every Tuesday on SiriusXM Howard 101 with replays Tuesday nights at 8, Wednesdays at 2 a.m. & 5 a.m., Saturdays at 2 a.m. & 10 p.m., and Sundays at 6 a.m. & midnight (all EST). The final episode, Episode 402 "The Last Lick Hunt," aired November 25, 2014.

Martling can also frequently be heard on SiriusXM's Raw Dog Uncensored Comedy 99. On March 13, 2007, Martling made a guest appearance on Stern's SiriusXM show. Since that time, Martling has made additional guest appearances, both in the studio and by phone. In May 2007, Stern aired a two-day salute to Martling on SiriusXM's Howard 100. The show contained dozens of classic moments, intercut with new interviews with Martling and others.

JokeLand products

Martling started expanding on his standup comedy career very early, self-producing three dirty joke lp's in 1979, 1980 & 1981, which were partially funded with a loan from comedy legend Rodney Dangerfield, which according to Dangerfield was never repaid (for his part, Martling claims to have repaid the loan "in jokes" written for Dangerfield).^[3] Since 1993, he has released six 78-minute dirty joke CDs, three videos, a DVD (A Safe Distance From Genius), five joke books including 1998's best-selling Simon & Schuster title, Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling's Disgustingly Dirty Joke Book, and the iPhone app The Jackie Button. He also co-created a line of electronic joke products with EB-Excalibur, and their MiniJokeMaster Jr. keychain is sold through various retailers. In April 2007, he released his first musical CD, Happy Endings, co-produced by guitarist, Frank Vignola.

Jackie in the movies and on TV

Martling has appeared in many films during his career, including the comedy documentary The Aristocrats, Venus & Vegas, Mail Order Bride and White Irish Drinkers. He appeared in the 2005 short film "Jokebitch" and received the Best Supporting Actor Award from New York International Independent Film & Video Festival. He appeared on the TNT television show Leverage and in August 2007, Jackie filmed the pilot episode for the sitcom The Pikers in Los Angeles. He wrote and performed a one-man show, JokeLand on Broadway in summer 2010 in New York City. In 2012, he appeared in Fred Carpenter's "Send No Flowers," the short film "My Cross To Bear," and voiced two puppets in 2013's human/puppet movie "The Fuzz."

In October 2008, Martling and former American Idol runner-up Bo Bice entertained U.S. troops in Kuwait and Iraq.

Martling occasionally appears on The Mark Simone Show on WABC-AM, SiriusXM's The Opie and Anthony Show, the tri-state area's The Jim Kerr Rock & Roll Morning Show on Q-104 and Wake Up with the Wolf in Albany, New York.

References

1. About Jackie Martling, accessed July 24, 2007 Archived July 8, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
2. MarksFriggin.com - Stern Show News - Archive
3. Ragging Rodney

External links

• Official Web Site at Jokeland.com
• Jackie Martling at DMOZ