Topic Not clear about Riki Rachtman’s departure
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I was listening to Riki Rachtman’s last show. I’ve never been clear on why he left. Is it true that he didn’t want to be a part of MTV show because they were too cheap? Was he fired? Or is it true that he heard that Adam and Drew would be doing the television show and decided to quit?
From what I remember, he didn’t want to do the MTV show because it was filmed in New York or something. So Drew wanted Adam to do it because he liked Adam’s Mr. Birchum character from the morning show. In an attempt at consistency, they added Adam to the radio show too. And then Riki left the radio show, though I don’t remember why.
I am also curious about this. I’ve done quite a bit of googling and come up mostly empty-handed. I found some stuff about how Adam ended up on the show, but nothing specific about why Riki left. Everyone seems to have been pretty tight-lipped about it. It’s clear he and Adam weren’t getting along all that well. Adam alludes to it a little that night, and later that same year (I think) he mentions a conversation with his grandmother where he complains about being frustrated that he doesn’t get enough air-time because of Riki, and she replies that Riki probably feels the same way about him.
The best clue I’ve found is from the 2001 show when Riki returns as a guest. He makes a quick remark, “and then it was Adam and Riki and Dr. Drew for a while, and then they said ‘hey you can clean the bathrooms here,’ and then it was Adam and Dr. Drew for a while.” “Clean the bathrooms” implies that he wasn’t fired, but was demoted or had his role reduced in some way, which leads me to believe there must have been a conversation with the higher-ups where they told him they wanted to reduce his presence on the show, presumably to give Adam more air-time, which he didn’t take well and decided to walk.
What I want to know is how Adam was introduced on the show. Gio has mentioned that there are tapes of Adam guesting on the show as Birchum. I’m guessing that’s how Drew got acquainted with Adam and sussed him out as a potential co host for the television show. I just want to know how Adam was introduced on the show as himself. Did they make some announcement on-air that Adam would be joining the show as a co-host – like “hey, this is Adam Carolla. You know him better as Mr. Birchum. He’s going to be on the show from now on?” I would love to hear Adam’s first day on the job.
@lordoftheview wrote:
From what I remember, he didn’t want to do the MTV show because it was filmed in New York or something. So Drew wanted Adam to do it because he liked Adam’s Mr. Birchum character from the morning show. In an attempt at consistency, they added Adam to the radio show too. And then Riki left the radio show, though I don’t remember why.
The MTV show was filmed in Hollywood, though the pilot was shopped to FOX originally and they passed on it, so maybe the original plan was to do it elsewhere.
I think the bottom line is that the show had been going on for 12 years as a very local concern and Adam in his prime was just so much better than the previous hosts. It’s not a big surprise why the producers would want to emphasize him (though it’s a surprise that anyone working in radio had enough of a sense of humor or business to actually do it).
I really think that it is a mixture of everything said here.
Once Poorman was permanently suspended, Kroq needed a new host of the show. Obviously, they chose Rikki.According to Drew and Anne,, Rikki had been on the show for around two and a half years before his departure in January.
Drew has mentioned plenty of times that he was a fan of Adam’s character, and later he would guest as that character, believed to be on August 1st, 1995.
I’m simply hypothesizing here, but I assume the ratings, or the audience must have liked Adams character, so he was added as the third host.
At this point, the show was starting to be syndicated, and from what we have heard, the ratings were excellent for all of the new stations carrying the show.
The management at Kroq seemed to be pushing very hard for Adam to be full-time, which I’m sure caused some tension between him and Rikki.
Seeing that Kroq clearly favored Adam, Rikki figured he would step down, rather than be less involved with loveline.
Recently, I listened to an interview with Poorman, and he believes that Kroq really wanted Adam to have that gig, being that he was also on the morning show, and had been very successful. And to me, that makes a lot of sense.
If you were Kroq, and you had a show that was becoming a nationwide success, wouldn’t you want someone from your own station to be the main host?
This post has received 1 vote up.Although I’m going off memory, I don’t think it’s much of a secret. Rikki has been back on LL a few times and Adam, Rikki, and Drew have all fielded this question.
This is basically what I remember, and it’s actually mostly what the OP says:
-Drew and Rikki were the hosts of LL radio show.
-Drew and Rikki were offered an opportunity to do a LL TV show.
– Rikki didn’t want to do the TV show. I think because he thought it wasn’t paying enough and told Drew, if you think it’s a a good deal, you should do it without me. Probably thinking he never would.
-Drew heard Adam as Mr Birchum on the kroq morning show Kevin and Bean and thought he was funny
-Drew perused doing the TV show with Adam.
-kroq decided to bring in Adam as a 3rd guest host to bridge the TV audience into the radio audience.
-Rikki, being in radio for a long time could kinda see the writing on the wall and rather than slowly get fazed out, decided to just leave and peruse other opportunities.
-I think Rikki could tell that Rikki was supposed to be the funny guy and Adam was supposed to be the funny guy and you can’t have two funny guys.Side note.
Although Adam later kinda makes fun of Rikki’s style of radio (I think) I thought Adam actually borrow a lot of Rikki’s brashness when Adam first stated. Their styles of humor weren’t all that different. Rikki would also make fun of the caller pretty well too
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