“Put him on.” Howard’s voice drips with glee.
“Melvin, I respect your commitment to flatulence-based vigilantism. But unless you can clear a room at the Friars Club, you’re a tribute act. Security? Escort the gas man out.”
Robin loses it. Fred plays “Thus Spake Zarathustra” over a whoopee cushion. Howard pauses, then delivers the line that still circulates on bootleg forums:
The studio erupts: Gary “Baba Booey” Dell’Abate groans; Fred Norris hits a fart sound effect (No. 7 from the “Brown Note” library). A caller, Vinny from Queens, screams: “LET HIM UP! I GOT TWENTY BUCKS ON THE FARTMAN!” howard stern archive 1999
The file clicks on. There’s the warm hiss of a studio microphone, then Howard’s iconic voice—gravelly, half-laughing, already annoyed.
And somewhere, on a forgotten hard drive in a New Jersey basement, Melvin the impostor’s full audition tape still exists. Waiting.
In 1999, the Howard Stern Show was at its chaotic, boundary-shattering peak—terrestrial radio’s last wild years before satellite and podcasts changed everything. An archive from that year isn’t just a collection of bits; it’s a time capsule of analog-era provocation, recorded onto DAT tapes and hard drives that fans hoarded like gold. “Put him on
The impostor—a soft-spoken accountant named Melvin from Paramus—pleads his case: “You abandoned the Fartman persona after the MTV awards, Mr. Stern. The people need a hero. I’ve upgraded the methane propulsion system.”
“I have—and I am not making this up—a man in the lobby wearing a full Fartman costume. Cape. Mask. The ass nozzle. He claims he’s the real Fartman. He wants to challenge me to a ‘flatulence duel.’”
“Alright. Robin. We have a situation.” Security
“He’s got a squeeze toy in his pants, Howard. A rubber chicken modified with a tube.”
Robin Quivers’ laugh cuts in. “What now, Howard?”
The archive cuts to a commercial: Crazy Eddie’s final going-out-of-business sale. A Stuttering John pre-recorded bit that hasn’t aged well. Then, as the tape ends, Howard mutters to Robin, off-mic: “We are so getting sued tomorrow.”
What makes the archive magic is what follows: twenty minutes of raw, unplanned radio. Howard sends Artie Lange down to interview the impostor. Artie, already half-drunk on his 11 a.m. whiskey, reports back live via cellphone—the kind of janky tech that made 1999 feel like the frontier.