Howard Can’t Get No Respect

Howard started the show by taking a call from a frequent caller, Eric from Hoboken, who asked: “Do you feel that you’re not getting the respect that you really deserve?”

George Takei answered immediately: “No, I don’t feel that.”

Howard laughed: “He was asking me, George. Not you. George, no one thought he was addressing it to you but you.”

George insisted they honor “the purpose of the question,” so Howard gave an answer of his own: “In my career–not George’s–I do feel that I will never get the respect of let’s say an Oprah Winfrey. And if you really analyze the two careers–my popularity, what I’ve accomplished–in fact, I would have to say that my career is on par with hers.”

On the Stern Show Legacy

Howard continued: “Because the things I’ve done, particularly early in my career, are considered gross or vile–there were naked women, there were, I don’t know, raunchy discussions–the FCC was outraged. Because I dealt with taboo subjects and I was outrageous and some women considered me a misogynist–that wasn’t in my heart, but I get it. You know, I get why they’d interpret it that way–I was into the outrageous. My plan was to get on the air and be as honest as I could. Not only about my own life, but also to be outrageous. To be wild. To go where no one has ever gone before…to really expand the boundaries of what we heard in the media.”

Howard Deserves Better

Howard suggested that he should be standing next to Paul McCartney on the Kennedy Center stage–not Oprah: “Truth be told, I am more important than Oprah and I do deserve the Kennedy Center Honors. But I will never receive that kind of respect.”

Howard told Sirius XM to get in line: “As I ponder the future, it’s not missed on anyone in this company, I hope, that what I’ve done for this company is extraordinary and it’s going to go down in the history books…we turned it from a non-business into a business.”