The tall, lanky guy from Roosevelt was trouble . Everyone at WNBC/660 AM knew it, or should have. After all, the trouble had been hiding in plain sight.

On June 28, 1982, Howard Stern was fired by Washington's WWDC, replaced by a pair of other shock jocks, "The Greaseman" (Doug Tracht) and "Adam Smasher" (Asher Benrubi). Stern's termination was over what were to become the usual reasons: Slathering insults on management; unabridged talk about sexual and excretory dysfunction (his own); and a January on-air stunt where he called an airline to inquire about the price of a one-way ticket to the 14th Street Bridge linking the district to Arlington, Virginia. (An Air Florida flight had crashed into the bridge the day before, killing 78.)

Nevertheless, Stern was a huge hit in D.C. He joined

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