Scharpling & Wurster

Culled from the vaults of WFMU—the world’s most acclaimed free-form radio station—comes over 20 hours of mind-bending, hilarious phone calls between the renowned comedy duo of Tom Scharpling & Jon Wurster. From 2000 to 2013, their tremendous imaginations took over the WFMU airwaves every Tuesday night with bizarre tales from a fictional town called Newbridge, NJ and the desperate denizens that inhabit it.

Included inside this definitive collection are 75 calls over 16 compact discs, edited by Scharpling & Wurster (over 50 of them previously unreleased or unaired), a 108-page hardcover book with cover art by Joe Matt that features essays by Patton Oswalt, Julie Klausner, Damian Abraham (lead singer of F*cked Up) and Best Show associate producer Michael Lisk (aka A.P. Mike), a definitive interview with Scharpling & Wurster by Jake Fogelnest, notes on the evolution and inspiration behind each bit written by Scharpling & Wurster, a USB drive with all of the calls plus 4 hours of bonus material, a fold-out map of Newbridge, Philly Boy Roy & Timmy von Trimble Paper Dolls, postcards, and temporary tattoos with The Best Show catch-phrases.

For everyone that pre-orders the boxed set at numerogroup.com they will literally get a piece of history – everybody gets a portion of Jon Wurster’s smashed telephone that he used to make the Rock, Rot & Rule phone call, along with a tiny letter of authenticity.

“Scharpling & Wurster are keeping the fine art of two-person comedy alive. Some of the funniest stuff out there!” – Conan O’Brien

“Listen, I’m not going to sugar coat it; this is a 16 CD boxed set of phone calls. Almost everything about this is technologically redundant. However, I promise this is one of the funniest things you’ll ever own. Scharpling and Wurster are the greatest.” – John Oliver

“Scharpling & Wurster are like an old married couple. Except when they argue it’s funny and not depressing. This collection includes hours of fake calls, fake outrage, and fake knowledge. The real part is that it’s always funny.” – Amy Poehler

“I love Scharpling & Wurster. Their comedy has brought me so much pleasure over the years. And now with this boxed set, you can either relive the magic or experience their classic comedy for the first time. All for the price of $2,500.” – Paul Rudd

“Scharpling & Wurster are purveyors of some of the most bizarre and brilliant comedy I’ve heard in ages. If you want your brain thoroughly melted, this  collection should do the trick nicely.” – “Weird Al” Yankovic

“Scharpling & Wurster in a boxed set! What more ‘darkness’ could a girl with ‘edge’ want? – Kim Gordon

“These twisting, strange, impossibly funny dialogues describe a world as complete as any novel, and a style of comedy no one has ever done before, because no one else can.” – John Hodgman

Tom Scharpling was the host of the wildly popular radio show The Best Show On WFMU from 2000 to 2013 and is is one half of the comedy duo of Scharpling & Wurster. Tom is also a director of music videos and commercials and was named Video Music Director of 2012 by SPIN. He writes for TV as well and was an executive producer on the Emmy Award-winning show Monk for the entirety of its eight year run. He is currently developing a bunch of things that he doesn’t want to talk about because he’s afraid he will jinx them. So don’t ask him about them.

Jon Wurster is…um…the other half of the renowned comedy duo Scharpling & Wurster, who have been…ah, forget it. Jon has been the drummer for indie-rock pioneers Superchunk since 1991. He’s also the drummer in The Mountain Goats and The Bob Mould Band. When he’s not making records or touring the world Jon lends his writing talents to the Adult Swim programs “Squidbillies” and “Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell” and appearing in videos by the likes of Aimee Mann, J. Mascis, The New Pornographers and The Postal Service.