Rob Schneider radio interview surprise
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Never in a million years did I think I’d find myself doing any of these things:
- Defending Rob Schneider
- Agreeing with Howard Stern
- Berating a national news organization for sensationalizing
However, I am about to do all three. After I watched the CBS news story on the Rob Schneider radio interview that took place Friday morning in Palm Beach, I thought Rob Schneider was being arrogant, rude and combative. However, after I watched a video of the full interview, I have to agree with Howard Stern’s sentiment that the catastrophe was the result of the radio show hosts being unprofessional.
Bad news is good news
In order for you to see things from my perspective, I suggest you go through the same process I went through. First, watch the ABC News story about the Rob Schneider radio interview.
Of course, we all know that Rob Schneider has had enough hit movies that he’ll never need same day payday loans in Arizona to make ends meet. One line that has stuck out was when Rob Schneider says he makes a lot more money than the radio hosts and he says “I could buy and sell you.” In the ABC News version of the story, this part comes across as insulting and mean. Watch:
[youtube url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nc1dWhO8cQ"]
Makes for a pretty good story, eh? But wait…
There’s more to it
If you watch the video of the entire interview, you’ll see how CBS carefully cobbled together sound bites to make it look like Rob Schneider was being a first-class jerk. I can’t speak to whether CBS did it intentionally, but I have a really hard time believing that the network just arbitrarily left out all of the parts where Shneider kept his cool while the radio show hosts completely lost theirs. You can see this in the video of the full interview.
It’s a long interview, so I’ll paraphrase. The full interview was more than 10 minutes long. When put in context, it’s obvious that Schneider is engaging in a little bit of good-natured, sarcastic ribbing and the hosts are completely overreacting.
I cannot believe I’m agreeing with Stern
This story about the Rob Schneider radio interview really blew up when Howard Stern mentioned it on his show. I have not heard all of Howard Stern’s comments, and I am sure I wouldn’t agree with all of them. I do agree with the gist of what he said, though. The show hosts acted unprofessionally and Rob Schneider was just being the type of comedian he is known for being.
At one point in the full video Schneider says, basically, that the show hosts picked a fight with him to create a better story. I don’t know if that’s what they were doing, but I can see why Schneider said that. If they weren’t just trying to bait him, they need to learn to calm down.
Taking sides
Of course, a lot of people disagree with me, even after seeing the full interview. However, the blogs I have come across that defend the radio hosts and call Rob Schneider a number of names to describe his conduct all appear to have some sort of affiliation with the radio station. At the very least, people I’ve seen defending the radio station hosts in print live in Palm Beach and likely listen to the show often.
A caller during the morning show said Schneider was being a jerk, but again, I believe that person probably was a big fan of the show and the hosts. Sure, some of the jokes Schneider made were rude. However, the hosts on the Rob Schneider radio interview were way too defensive and completely overreacted, turning something that was meant to be a joke into an on-air blowup that didn’t need to happen.
