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| {{Unreferenced|date=June 2007}} | |||
| <!-- Commented out because image was deleted: ] --> | |||
| '''Thomas Joseph Leykis''' (born ], ] in ], ]) is the ] of a ] ] ] in the ] by ]. | '''Thomas Joseph Leykis''' (born ], ] in ], ]) is the ] of a ] ] ] in the ] by ]. | ||
| ==Background / early career== | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| As a teenager in 1970, Leykis won a contest for a one-time radio appearance on a WBAB Radio in Babylon, New York and he was asked back several times to serve as a fill-in host. During the late 1970s he had his own Public Access program on Manhattan Cable TV. He got a regular job hosting Wednesday early mornings at radio station ] in 1979. During this period, he also took odd jobs as a ], researcher for a CBS late night show, columnist for the ''SoHo News'', and telephone solicitor selling vacation properties, cable TV, and newspaper display advertising. He moved to ] in 1981 to do an evening show five times a week. The station wanted someone controversial, and Leykis was just that. Some listeners sent in angry letters, but his ] soon earned him the morning drive slot and a position as ]. He then took a job in ] at ], where he became number one in the ratings in 1984, over a competing host who had been number one for the previous six years. In 1985, Leykis moved to ] in ]. Almost three years later, in the spring of 1988, Leykis ran into conflict with the station ownership, and was placed on leave. A listener fan campaign brought him back, but Leykis resigned on air soon thereafter in order to move on to ] in ], which was then beginning its talk radio format. | |||
| * - Official website | |||
| ==References== | |||
| During this time, the program was fairly politically oriented, and advertised as a "combat radio" program with Tom as the "radio barbarian" host. However, even then, Leykis did not shy away from talking about his personal life. One notable instance was when he discussed a hypothetical man with marital troubles. After a few weeks, he revealed that the man was actually him, and had served divorce papers on his wife, news anchor ], ten minutes before she was set to anchor the 6 o'clock news on ].<ref>Rosen, Craig. ''TOM LEYKIS: CRAZED BUT NOT CRAZY.'' ''Los Angeles Daily News'', September 26, 1988.</ref> Leykis was fired in 1992 at the peak of his popularity, replaced by ], and moved to ] in ] for the midday shift in ]. | |||
| <references /> | |||
| {{us-bio-stub}} | |||
| ==The Tom Leykis Show== | |||
| {{radio-stub}} | |||
| The current incarnation of ''The Tom Leykis Show'' began on the ] on ], 1994. The program establishes a single topic for each hour of the show. Friday is also the usual day for occasional live appearances in cities around the U.S., when Leykis broadcasts from a bar or other public place with an audience present. During "Flash Fridays", men are told to turn on the headlights of their cars to indicate that they are Leykis listeners, and women are encouraged to ] their ]s to male listeners. Leykis will autograph women's breasts and butts using a ] permanent marker. He is rarely seen without his sunglasses on, even when he is broadcasting from his darkened studio. His occasional on-air explanation is that the sunglasses are a remedy for his very pale blue eyes being unusually sensitive to light, due to a form of ]. He wears the sunglasses to offset the problem . | |||
| ===Tom Leykis Show Staff=== | |||
| *] - Executive Producer | |||
| *] - Associate Producer/Call Screener/"Official Bouncer" | |||
| *] - Engineer | |||
| ===Regular Segments=== | |||
| Regular segments include: "Flash Fridays" (during ]); "Leykis 101" on Thursdays, in which "the Professor" (Tom Leykis) teaches his "students" his rules for dating. Fridays are regularly open phones. | |||
| Tom once held a weekly segment on Wednesday afternoons in which the only callers screened through were molested as children by priests. This segment was only broadcasted for about six weeks during a time when the Catholic Church was dealing with controversy about their priests molesting children. | |||
| Some of Tom's most interesting regular segments are not weekly but are scheduled either annually or randomly. Two randomly scheduled segments which usually air several times a year are: "Ask the Atheist" in which Tom confronts callers with the futility of belief in God; "Callers Who Hate Tom" in which Tom only accepts calls from listeners who genuinely hate him and his show. "Unscreened Callers" and "Unscreened Jokes" are a rare, but repeated segment in which Tom will answer the phone himself without any screening. | |||
| Annual segments include: "The Dump that Bitch Show" in which Tom encourages male callers to break up with their girlfriends, airing as close to ] as possible; "The 4-20 Show" airs as close to April 20th as possible in which only callers screened through are smoking marijuana; "Forbes Annual List of 100 Most Powerful Women are Mostly Ugly Women" in which Tom reviews the photos of the ] and points out that successful women are generally ugly; "The Drunk Show" in which Tom interviews callers who are driving while drunk during the holiday season, airing between ] and ]; "The Dead Pool" in which Tom and his air crew compare their lists of predictions of who died the previous year and compile new ] during the coming year. This show sometimes airs on two dates, one at the end of every year, the other at the beginning of every year. | |||
| {{Original research|date=September 2007}} | |||
| The goal of the rules of "Leykis 101" is to help single men, especially men in their 20s, get the most sex for the least amount of effort and money possible. Leykis believes men in their 20s are particularly susceptible to the "] trap" and continually emphasizes that they take responsibility for themselves and always wear a condom. Leykis emphasizes that the "Leykis 101" course that he teaches is designed for people not looking for a serious, monogamous ], but rather for those who wish to remain independent and unattached, and to understand the difference. According to Leykis, men should never spend a lot of money to impress women, they should stop dating a woman if she's still refusing sex after the third date, and they should never date single mothers. The latter is cited as a practicality issue; those wishing to "date" a woman don't need to get through any additional form of interference in the form of children. There is also the predilection of a single mother to consider should she find herself ]: she is much less likely to consider ] if she already has children. Indeed, Leykis has stated on air that he has made agreements with all of his spouses that they will have an abortion if they become pregnant. | |||
| In addition to his weekday show, Leykis began hosting a syndicated weekend show called "The Tasting Room" in February 2005, covering lifestyle topics such as fine wine, spirits, beer, and cigars. | |||
| ===On-Air Events=== | |||
| On November 3, 2006, during a live broadcast from a venue in ], a woman named Sue from Arizona claimed, on air, to have murdered a man that owed her child support. Tom announced that he would put up $5000 of his own money for anyone with information leading to the arrest of the woman. | |||
| On March 21, 2007, it was announced that Tom Leykis would no longer be an employee of Westwood One and as of April 1, 2007 he began a new contract and become an employee of CBS radio. Although he has changed employers, the format and syndication of the show has remained the same; Westwood One still continues to be a distributor of the show. This current contract is scheduled to give listeners more of Tom Leykis until 2012. | |||
| ===Identifying notorious individuals=== | |||
| Leykis has caused considerable controversy over the years by revealing on-air the names of such individuals as the following: | |||
| *], who accused ] of forcible ] (biting) in 1997. | |||
| *], who accused ] of ] | |||
| *], a woman associated with the ] who tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge in ] | |||
| *], the 13-year-old victim of ] by teacher ]. | |||
| *], the ] Co. employee dropped off at a Seattle hospital dead from a perforated colon, later found to have engaged in bestial sexual intercourse with a horse | |||
| *], who accused white members of the Duke Lacrosse team of rape, battery, and sodomy. | |||
| Major media outlets voluntarily withhold names like these due to their adherence to ] while having no problem releasing names of alleged offenders, a policy Leykis disagrees with since he says he is "not a journalist". (And, likely, because this notion also goes against the philosophy that the defendant is "presumed innocent until proven guilty" and that the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, not the defense.) Leykis argues that this is an unfair double standard and either both the accuser and accused should be protected or both should be public. | |||
| ===Audience demographics=== | |||
| The show's target demographic are males from mid teens to early forties, although women are encouraged to listen to the Thursday afternoon segment (Leykis 101) so that they might "learn how guys think". Leykis regularly receives extensive criticism from various callers and writers, which he will air on the show. One favorite response to objectors who call is that "it is called broadcasting" and that he is merely describing "what is generally true" while they are merely pointing out exceptions to rules he has denoted. What he does is called "]," he appeals to a broad audience, thus generalization is a necessary part of his ]. He has admitted that there are always exceptions to his generalizations. | |||
| ===Opinions and Regular Topics=== | |||
| An important issue Tom has tackled on the air for years is ]. One of the earliest examples of this is when Tom devoted several segments to the news item that concerned the ] and how one player became a father from a woman who took the contents of a used condom to impregnate herself, then sued the player for paternity. She was exposed and caught. Since then, Tom devotes many hours on the air to this issue with guests, related news items, and related topics such as how to deal with or avoid becoming a victim of this bizarre form of fraud. Leykis repeatedly warns the audience how many ways men may become financially liable for children that are not their own. | |||
| Woman are ''dreamkillers'': Tom regularly introduces the opinion that most women in a relationship attempt to stop their male companions from attaining lifetime goals. He often states that in his personal experience of relationships with women was that most of them tried to prevent him from continuing his chosen career in radio, and in his observation of other people's relationships that many women either prevent or attempt to stop most men from continuing to pursue their choices in life. This is an ongoing and repeated topic for discussion on Tom's show. | |||
| ===Introduction=== | |||
| Tom Leykis has been using the same introduction for many years, repeated at the top of every hour. But on Fridays, specially selected soundbites from that week's calls are also played. This short segment is carefully constructed by Art Webb specifically for each Friday's show, with snippets chosen for times when Tom got in an especially great quip, or a caller made an especially outrageous outing. The content of these clips vary from agreement, gratitude, admiration, argument, and hatred towards Tom. | |||
| As of July 23, 2007, Leykis is prohibited from including the name of the film studio where he broadcasts from as a part of his pre-taped intro sequence. According to Leykis, Paramount Pictures contacted CBS Radio and objected to having the studio linked to the show. His new introduction announces his location as "the back of the backlot at a movie studio" or as "soidutS tnuomaraP" (Paramount Studios, spoken in reverse). Leykis has also resorted to saying "from a secret location" during his live intros. | |||
| ===Take me out in style=== | |||
| During the early years of Tom Leykis's talk radio career, Tom would occasionally end a caller's turn on the air by the sound of a toilet flushing. This evolved into ending calls with a particular annoying, frustrating or ignorant caller by "blowing him or her up." That is, while hanging up on the person Tom would play the sound effect of an explosion, thus implying that Tom was "blowing up" the caller to express his dissatisfaction. | |||
| "Blowing up" callers soon became a trademark of the Tom Leykis show, and eventually callers would actually request to be blown up or flushed down the toilet at the end of their calls. This led to Tom creating other ways to "take out" a caller (i.e. to end the call). Callers often request to be "taken out" a certain style at the end of their on-air conversations with Leykis. Leykis says, "Here yah go!" and then plays one of the following ]: | |||
| ====Most popular styles==== | |||
| * "Blow me up Tom" -- Tom plays an explosion as the caller is done speaking. The original. | |||
| * "Take me out with a ] hit" -- Leykis plays the liquidy sound of a bong hit followed by one of many sound effects, such as "Thanks, Tom!", "Can't we all just get a bong?", "No cough", "Thank you Jesus!" or the sound of hacking and coughing. | |||
| * "Take me out Kobe style" -- a clip of ] apologizing for cheating on his wife at a press conference is dubbed in with the sound of a woman breathing heavily in sexual excitement and a bed creaking. | |||
| * "Take me out old-school" -- the classic explosion. (aka "Blow me up, Tom!") | |||
| * "Take me out old-old-school" -- the sound of a toilet flushing. | |||
| * "Take me out Phil Hartman style" -- the sound of someone snorting a line of cocaine and then a single gunshot. | |||
| * "Take me out African tribal style" -- sound of young kids singing a song reminiscent of an African tribal chant. If the old-school "Blow Me Up" explosion is added to the end, many people call it "Racist Style". | |||
| * "Take me out ] style" -- sound of a machine gun firing, followed by ] saying, "Bi-yatch!" | |||
| * "Take me out ] style" -- First, there is the cartoon sound of a frying pan bonk on the head, a splash as the body is thrown overboard into the water, the sound of air bubbles being released from the object as it sinks, followed by a boat engine revving up as he leaves the crime scene. Includes ]'s fake cell phone call from the ] in Paris, when he was actually in California, saying, "Amber, Amber, can you hear me?". When asked for this particular style, Leykis always tells the caller that he finds it tasteless, and that the caller should be ashamed for asking for it. It does not, however, stop Leykis from playing it. | |||
| * "Take me out Jesus style" -- the sound of nails being hammered into wood. | |||
| * "Take me out ] style" -- Sound of a plastic SUV bumper colliding with an object, then a SUV door opening, the "dong, dong, dong" warning chime of a vehicle door open with the key in the ignition, then a cartoon sound of stepity-stepity steps running away. | |||
| * "Take me out Freddie Willhite style"-- The 911 recording of him telling the dispatcher he shot his wife in the stomach with a .38 because she nagged him too much. | |||
| * "Take me out Lindsay Lohan style" -- car crash, fleeing and coke snorting. | |||
| * "Take me out Kingdome style" -- Sound of someone shouting, "Fire!" followed by different explosion sounds from demolition explosives. | |||
| * "Take me out JFK Sr style" -- Sound of three gunshots. | |||
| * "Take me out JFK Jr style" -- Sound of a plane flying, followed by a water splash and bubble sounds. | |||
| * "Take me out Arizona Helicopter Crash Style" -- He usually leads off this request with how tasteless this one is. It's the audio recording between the news station and their helicopter pilot covering the car chase in Phoenix when two news helicopters collide and crash. At the end you can hear the pilot scream before plunging to his death. | |||
| ====Banned styles==== | |||
| * "Take me out ] style" -- Leykis morally objects to taking callers out ] style. When asked, he always remarks on his admiration for ], that ] was and still is one of his personal heroes. | |||
| *THX style. - The THX title card music was stopped after George Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic sent a cease and desist order. | |||
| *"Take me out ] style" was denied on request when a listener asked for it. | |||
| ===Affiliates=== | |||
| {{Incomplete-list}} | |||
| The show is broadcast live from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ] (6 p.m. to 11 p.m. ]) weekdays. Some affiliates air the show live, while others air it on ]. Some stations air the show in a five-hour timeslot, which means either the 3:00 p.m. or 4:00 p.m. hour is replayed at the end. The show can also be heard over the Internet through ] available on the show's site or the websites of Los Angeles' ] and Pittsburgh affiliate ], and as . As of April 2, 2007, he is no longer on in Chicago. | |||
| Below is a list of terrestrial radio stations which broadcast ''The Tom Leykis Show'' As of October 2007: | |||
| *] (]) (tape-delay 8PM-Midnight) | |||
| *] (]) | |||
| *] (]) (Live! Monday-Friday 7-10 p.m.) | |||
| *] (]) | |||
| *] (]) (4PM - 7PM) | |||
| *] (]) (Live! Monday-Friday 3-8 p.m.) | |||
| *] (]) (Live! Monday-Friday 3-7 p.m.) | |||
| *] (]) | |||
| *] (]) (tape-delay) | |||
| *] (]) (tape-delay) | |||
| *] (]) (Live! Monday-Friday 7-10 P.M.) | |||
| *] (]) (Best of, Sunday 6:00 PM - Midnight) | |||
| ==Other projects and media appearances== | |||
| Leykis was the host of "Boys Night Out," a live comedy stage show that took place at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles and the Paramount Theater in Seattle. The line-up of male comedians included ]. The shows were for men only and men were strongly discouraged from bringing girlfriends, wives or any other females. He also appeared on the third season "Family Values" episode of ]'s ] and served as the co-host of "Poker Royale: Battle of the Sexes" on GSN, formerly the ]. | |||
| Leykis appeared on Bill Maher's older show, ] in a fairly infamous episode with ], ], and ]. He inflamed the women (especially Fuentes) when the subject moved to familiar turf for Tom – dating and "getting tail". The audience loved his "three strikes" rule, which states that if the female does not have sex with the male by the third date, he should dump her. Tom also got a loud response from them with, "Many of us were created because our parents didn't have time to go to the drugstore before they went to the drive-in". Fuentes and Leykis had a fairly heated exchange of words before the next commercial break. | |||
| He has been asked about writing a book on "Leykis 101" and said that it's being considered but no formal announcement has been made. He has also said he's had numerous meetings with Hollywood executives about creating a TV series only to have those talks lead to nothing. {{Fact|date=June 2007}} | |||
| ==Personal life== | |||
| He is the oldest of four children. His father, Harry Leykis, was in charge of the publication department and was a union leader at The ] newspaper in ]. He has two sisters and one brother. The family lived first in ], and then moved to ]. | |||
| Leykis attended ] for two years. During that time he tried and failed to get on the air as a student. He had to drop out of school after two years because he couldn't afford to continue. | |||
| His fourth wife, Susan Drew Leykis, filed a police report against him while they were married and living in ] in 1993 . She alleged that Leykis ]ed and threatened to kill her during a fight after they returned home from a radio station ] party. The charges were dropped after he agreed to complete a ] program for six months, although Leykis did not admit guilt as part of the agreement (see ). They separated in 2001 and divorced in 2003. He lives in the exclusive enclave of the ] in ]. | |||
| Tom Leykis was also married to award-winning ] news reporter Christina Gonzalez. | |||
| An avid ] and ] fan, he is also a wine ] who spends his free time reading '']'', watching ], "traveling abroad and doing anything ''else'' you can do with a broad!". | |||
| Tom has been married and divorced a total of four times, and he has no known children. | |||
| ==Trivia== | |||
| {{Trivia|date=June 2007}} | |||
| * In the late 1990s, Leykis would occasionally merge his radio show with the equally outspoken ''] Show'' from the ], which aired in the same time slot, resulting in a single simulcast show co-hosted by Leykis and Whale via a satellite link between the two studios. In these cases, Leykis and Whale would alternate equally between American and British callers. | |||
| *He repeatedly refers to the city ] as "Porkland, the home of the other white meat." | |||
| *The Tom Leykis Show has only had a fill-in host once -- ], the ] announcer who earlier in his career was a radio host with a similar style to Leykis'. Other than that, the show airs ] and ]s when Leykis is away. | |||
| ==References== | |||
| <references /> | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * - Official website | |||
| * | |||
| * - LeykisOnline Recordings and Forums | |||
| * - Explanation of ''Leykis 101'' philosophy | |||
| * at WestwoodOne.com | |||
| * | |||
| * | |||
| * -Tom Leykis Fan Site website | |||
| * - The female Tom Leykis website | |||
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Revision as of 10:27, 8 January 2008
Thomas Joseph Leykis (born August 1, 1956 in New York, New York) is the host of a radio talk show syndicated in the United States by CBS Radio.
External links
- BlowMeUpTom.com - Official website
References
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