The Opie and Anthony Show
| Genre |
|
|---|---|
| Running time | 3–5 hours |
| Country | United States |
| Starring |
Gregg "Opie" Hughes Anthony Cumia Jim Norton |
| Produced by |
Rick Del Gado (1998–2002) Steve Carlesi (2004–2009) Erik Nagel (2006–2014) Sam Roberts (2009–2014) |
| Air dates | March 13, 1995 to June 27, 2014 |
| Opening theme | "The Ecstasy of Gold" by Ennio Morricone "Street Fighting Man" by Rage Against the Machine |
Opie and Anthony is an American radio show hosted by Gregg "Opie" Hughes and Anthony Cumia that aired from 1995 to 2014, with comedian Jim Norton serving as co-host from 2001. Hughes first met Cumia in 1994 when he held a song parody contest on his night time show at WBAB on Long Island, New York. The pair hit it off, and decided to become a radio team.
The show launched in March 1995 in afternoons at WAAF in Boston, Massachusetts. In June 1998, after an April Fools Day prank that had them fired from WAAF, Hughes and Cumia relocated to WNEW in New York City where the show entered national syndication in 2001 by Infinity Broadcasting. In August 2002, the show was cancelled for a controversial segment known as "Sex for Sam". For the next two years, Infinity prevented Hughes and Cumia from being hired elsewhere for the remainder of their contracts.
In October 2004, Opie and Anthony returned to the air in mornings on XM Satellite Radio, a subscription-based satellite radio service, from New York City. From April 2006 to March 2009, the first half of the show also aired nationwide on several terrestrial radio stations owned by CBS Radio. In July 2014, Opie and Anthony ended after SiriusXM fired Cumia for a series of tweets that the company claimed were "racially-charged and hate-filled". Hughes and Norton teamed to host Opie with Jim Norton and Cumia began his own Internet show, The Anthony Cumia Show.
In 1994, Gregg "Opie" Hughes was the host of The Nighttime Attitude, a late night music radio show on WBAB on Long Island, New York. In an effort to capitalize on the extensive media coverage of the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, Hughes held a song parody contest for listeners to submit entries based on the trial. Among the thirty or so submissions that he received, one of them was "Gonna Electric Shock O.J." to the tune of "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, performed by Rotgut, a local band featuring Anthony Cumia, a construction worker, on vocals and his brother Joe. The latter travelled to the station while Hughes was doing his show to submit a cassette tape of the parody, and only allowed Hughes to take it. The parody became a hit with the audience, who asked for the song to be played each night. As a result, Hughes invited the Cumias to perform the song live in the studio. Recalled Hughes, "Ant and I instantly had each other the rest of the show. I was like, 'Holy shit, dude. That went pretty well. Why don't you come in next week?' Slowly but surely, he started coming in every week". Using the little funds available at the radio station, Hughes secured a small budget for Cumia to be paid for his appearances, though to Cumia, the money was not an issue as he "just wanted to get a foot in the door" in radio.
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