The Joe Franklin Show

The summer before eighth grade, my parents finally broke down and got cable TV. Suddenly my family was able to watch what seemed like a billion more television shows than before, and on at least as many channels. Among them was Channel 9 WOR-TV out of Secaucus, New Jersey, which, among other things, broadcast what I still believe to be one of the greatest shows of all time, The Joe Franklin Show.

The Joe Franklin Show was reportedly (and definitely according to Joe himself) the first ever talk show. And what was so magical about it is Joe Franklin would take equal interest in every guest he had on the show whether they were an actor, an astrologer, or seemingly just some nutjob he met in the elevator. It could be a slow burn sometimes but it was always absolutely riveting television as far as I was concerned.

My favorite episode of The Joe Franklin Show was when Joe had the legendary heavy metal singer King Diamond on the show along with a “rapping cop.” My favorite moment is when Joe tells King that he heard King Diamond is more popular in America than in his native Denmark according to “some of his friends who are into King Diamond.” I loved that Joe pretended to have friends who were King Diamond fans and I still think the segment is some of the greatest television of all-time. You can watch the clip below.

When I moved back to New York City in 2003 (I had gone to college at Fordham University in the Bronx before drifting back to Cleveland in the mid-90s), one of my first orders of business was to look Joe Franklin up in the phone book (They still existed at the time. Maybe they still do?) and give him a call.

“If I’m living in New York, I should know Joe Franklin,” I reasoned.

Much to my delight, Joe answered and I made arrangements to visit him at his impossibly cluttered office (pictured above) in Times Square a few days later. And I continued the habit for years to come.

Visiting Joe in his office was kind of like being on his talk show. There was always a random assortment of visitors sitting in the row of chairs Joe had lined up in front of his desk- a psychic, a Russian model, someone who claimed to be close friends with Jackie Stallone, you name it. I would pop in whenever I was in the neighborhood and Joe would introduce me to whomever was sitting there with him like I was “a good get.”

Joe kept two phones on his desk and would often take two phone calls at once, mumbling into one before setting it down to mumble into the other for a few sentences, and then picking up the other one to tell that person to call back next week at the same time. I would call Joe’s office myself about once a week just so I could be one of those people on those two lines he constantly juggled.

“Can you call me back next Wednesday at noon?” he’d ask me. “It’s very important- I’ll have big news for you then.”

When I’d call back the following Wednesday, he’d ask me to call back the week after that. Still somehow, after I’d hung up, my mood would be a bit lighter than before we spoke. In my early days being back in New York City, it kept me going almost more than anything else even though I knew the call would go the exact same way every time. It was almost like Joe was giving me the promise of the future, some hope of better times to come at a point in my life when I was barely able to make the rent each month. And as a guy who had watched him on basic cable television all those years before and also watched Billy Crystal play him in Saturday Night Live sketches not long after, it absolutely tickled me.

After I started doing comedy a few years later, I occasionally talked Joe into performing with me at shows in the East Village. We’d sit separately in the crowd and, after I’d gone on stage, I’d ask for a volunteer and Joe would come up. Sometimes we’d reenact scenes from movies like What’s Love Got to Do with It or Monster. Other times he’d just rattle off a bunch of old jokes before telling me had had “ties older than me.” It was pure magic every time.

I had made plans to take my friend Adam to meet Joe in early 2015 but Joe sadly died before we could make it to see him. I got a puppy shortly after and had initially named her Little Joe Franklin in his honor before renaming her Luci. Naming her after a dear friend and one of the greatest talk show hosts and New Yorkers of all-time just seemed like too much pressure for a two-month old puppy.