Adam Carolla
Carolla in Seattle, Washington, in 2007
Born	(1964-05-27) May 27, 1964 (age 48) Los Angeles, California, US
Occupation	Comedian, comedy writer, radio personality, television personality, actor, carpenter
Known for	The Adam Carolla Show (podcast), The Adam Carolla Show (radio)
Television	Loveline, The Man Show, Crank Yankers, Too Late with Adam Carolla, The Adam Carolla Project, The Car Show
Board member of	Marijuana Policy Project (advisory board)[1]
Religion	none (atheist)[2]
Spouse	Lynette Paradise (2002–present)
Children	2
Website
AdamCarolla.com

Adam Carolla (born May 27, 1964) is an American radio personality, television host, comedian, and actor. He hosts The Adam Carolla Show, a talk show distributed as a podcast which set the record as the "most downloaded podcast" as judged by Guinness World Records.

Carolla co-hosted the syndicated radio call-in program Loveline from 1995 to 2005 as well as the show's television incarnation on MTV from 1996 to 2000. He was the co-host and co-creator of the television program The Man Show (1999–2004), and the co-creator and a regular performer on the television show Crank Yankers (2002–2007). He hosted The Adam Carolla Project, a home improvement television program which aired on TLC in 2005 and The Car Show on Speed TV^[3] in 2011.

Carolla has also appeared on the network reality television programs Dancing with the Stars and The Celebrity Apprentice. His book, In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks, debuted on The New York Times Best Seller list in 2010.

Early life[link]

Carolla was born in Los Angeles, California.^[4][5] His father, Jim Carolla, a psychologist of Italian heritage, and his mother, Kris (née Novello), who is of Hungarian descent, separated when Adam was young.^[6] Carolla was not given a middle name; on his driver's license application he filled the "middle name" blank with "Lakers" (after his love for the Los Angeles Lakers professional basketball team) and the made-up name still appears on his license.^[7][8]

Adam was raised in the North Hollywood district of Los Angeles. He attended Colfax Elementary School, Walter Reed Junior High, and North Hollywood High School. Carolla did not receive his high school diploma until years later as it was held by the school until a library fine was paid.^[9] Carolla can be seen paying off the book and receiving his diploma in an episode of his 2005 television show, The Adam Carolla Project.^[10]

During his earlier years, Carolla played Pop Warner football for seven years; he later suggested that being involved in sports saved him from a chaotic home life.^[11] During his senior year at North Hollywood High School, Carolla distinguished himself in football. In December 1981, he was named to the First Team Offensive Line, Central Valley League, one of 8 leagues at the time in the LA City Section of the California Interscholastic Federation.^[12]

He began living on his own at the age of 18. He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, a community college, where he was placed on academic probation before dropping out to work in a series of jobs, including carpet cleaner,^[13] carpenter, boxing instructor,^[14] and traffic school instructor.^[15] Although broke, Carolla and his friends and roommates owned a 1963 Cadillac limousine.^[16]

In the early 1990s Carolla studied improvisational comedy with The Groundlings and was a member of the ACME Comedy Theatre troupe.

Carolla's step-grandfather was László Görög, who wrote The Mole People.^[17]

Radio[link]

In 1994, Carolla volunteered his services as a boxing trainer to prepare Jimmy Kimmel for a bout being staged by KROQ-FM's morning radio program Kevin and Bean.^[5] Kimmel was a regular on the show as "Jimmy the Sports Guy" and he was set to fight another KROQ personality in a boxing exhibition which was being billed as the "Bleeda in Reseda."^[18] Carolla parleyed this opportunity into a long-running friendship and business partnership with Kimmel as well as a recurring role on Kevin and Bean as cranky woodshop teacher, Mr. Birchum.^[19]

Loveline[link]

Carolla was offered the job of co-hosting the radio call-in show Loveline with physician Drew Pinsky, a.k.a. "Dr. Drew", and Riki Rachtman in October 1995 after Pinsky had heard Carolla on Kevin and Bean^[5] (Rachtman left the show the following year).^[20] Loveline is broadcast on KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and is syndicated nationwide on the Westwood One radio network. While the format of the program was primarily a call-in show where listeners would ask questions about sex and relationships, Carolla would often spend much of the show ranting about various topics, from fart jokes to incessant radio weather and traffic reports. Carolla served as the louder, funnier side of the show in contrast to the reserved, thoughtful Pinsky. Carolla's character was described by one reviewer as "a toned-down version of Howard Stern minus the huge ego".^[20] Carolla left Loveline in November 2005 to start his own morning radio show, though he had stated that he'd have continued to do Loveline if it could be recorded immediately after his morning show, but Westwood One insisted that the show be broadcast live.^{[citation needed]}

The Adam Carolla Show[link]

In October 2005 Carolla was announced as the host of a new morning radio show on the Infinity Broadcasting network. His new show would replace the popular syndicated Howard Stern Show (which was moving to satellite radio) in twelve of the 27 markets in which Stern had been broadcast including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix and Portland, Oregon.^[21] The Adam Carolla Show debuted in January 2006.

On February 18, 2009, The Adam Carolla Show was canceled as part of a format switch at KLSX to AMP FM, a new top 40 station. The final show was Friday, February 20, 2009.^[22]

The Adam Carolla Podcast[link]

Carolla started a daily podcast on Feb. 23, 2009, at his personal Web site, which would evolve into the ACE Broadcasting Network. The first Adam Carolla podcast was downloaded more than 250,000 times in the initial 24 hours, and by the third podcast, it was the number one podcast on iTunes in both the U.S. and Canada.^[23] During the debut week, the Adam Carolla podcast recorded 1.6 million downloads. In the second week it recorded 2.4 million downloads. By the fourth episode of the second week, featuring former Adam Carolla Show sidekick Dave Dameshek, the show was downloaded more than 500,000 times.^[24] Adam stated that bandwidth cost more than $9,000 a month as of May 2009.^[25]

At the end of 2009, The Adam Carolla Podcast was selected by iTunes for its end-of-the-year awards as the Best Audio Podcast of 2009.^[26] On May 18, 2011, Adam announced on Jimmy Kimmel Live that The Adam Carolla Show has taken the Guinness World Record for the most downloaded podcast ever from Ricky Gervais^[27][27] after receiving 59,574,843 unique downloads from March 2009 to March 16, 2011.^[28]

Television[link]

1999 through 2004[link]

Carolla began his first original television series with The Man Show, along with partner and close friend Jimmy Kimmel, on Comedy Central from 1999 to 2003. He left The Man Show at the same time as Kimmel, after having been reportedly offered $50,000 per episode to stay on. Carolla has continued his work with Kimmel as a writer and guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He also appeared on an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast around this time.

Carolla and partner Daniel Kellison are the heads of Jackhole Productions. The two created the television show Crank Yankers for Comedy Central, which revived the Mr. Birchum character. (The show premiered in 2002 on Comedy Central and returned to MTV2 on February 9, 2007, running again until March 30, 2007. The show screened in Australia on SBS Television and The Comedy Channel between 2003 and 2008.)

2005 through 2008[link]

From August 2005 to November 2005, Carolla hosted the talk show Too Late with Adam Carolla on Comedy Central.

Also in 2005, Carolla was featured in a home remodeling program called The Adam Carolla Project wherein he and a crew of old friends renovated his childhood home. The 13 episodes aired on the cable channel TLC (The Learning Channel) from October through December 2005. The house was then sold for 1.2 Million dollars.^[29][30]

In 2006, Carolla appeared on the special summer series Gameshow Marathon as a celebrity panelist on the Match Game episode.

On the February 18, 2008 broadcast of his radio show, Carolla announced that he would be one of the contestants on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. Later in the broadcast, it was revealed to Adam that his partner would be Julianne Hough.^[31] He was voted off on the April 8, 2008 episode after his performance of the Paso Doble.

Dancing with the Stars performances

On June 16, 2008 Carolla was selected to host a pilot^[32] of an American version of the popular BBC show Top Gear for NBC. In December 2008, NBC decided not to pick up the show.^[33]