Mancow Muller

Erich Muller, as he was commonly known, was born to parents John and Dawn Muller and raised in the Kansas City, Missouri area with older brothers Johnny and Mark.[2] He expressed an interest in radio and the entertainment industry as a whole from an early age. As a child he would listen to old reel-to-reel tapes of classic radio shows like The Shadow and The Stan Freberg Show with his father.[2] Erich Muller worked as a model and child actor, appearing in regional print and television commercials as well as Kansas City theater productions. Among his print modeling work were ads for Lee jeans and Wal-Mart.[3]

As a youth he appeared in over 100 stage performances, with one notable long-running role being that of Billy Ray Jr. in the play On Golden Pond.[2] During one performance of the play, famous actor Henry Fonda was in the audience, and would later go on to play the lead character Norman in the film version.[4] Erich Muller attended multiple schools in the Kansas City area, including Blue Ridge Christian School. In his book Dad, Dames, Demons, and a Dwarf: My Trip Down Freedom Road, he recounts an incident in fifth grade where, in an act of corporal punishment, he was severely beaten with a board by the school principal, an event that changed his outlook on organized religion.[2] Muller transferred to the suburban Harrisonville school district, where he was graduated from high school.[3]

Following high school, Muller attended college at Central Missouri State University (now University of Central Missouri) in Warrensburg, not far from the Kansas City metropolitan area.[4] At CMSU he continued to work in theater, and it was his role as a half-man, half-beast in one production that gave rise to his nickname "Mancow".[4] Muller earned double degrees from the university in Public Relations and Theatre in 1990.[4] To earn money while in school, he operated his own mobile DJ business, providing music for school dances, weddings, and class reunions, a job he later said he hated.[2] It was also while in college he took his first tentative steps into broadcasting.

Muller's radio career began while he was in college. He got a job at KOKO in Warrensburg as a late night control board operator, playing local commercials during satellite broadcasts of The Larry King Show.[4] His role at the station gradually expanded until he got his own afternoon show. Among Muller's fans was the general manager of KLSI-FM, Kansas City, who offered him a full-time job as head of station promotions. Muller accepted the position, plus a weekend air shift, while completing his final semester at Central Missouri State. After graduating in 1990, Muller was hired as the morning drive air talent at Kansas City's KBEQ-FM, Q-104, where the Holy Moley & Maxx Show quickly rose to #1 in the ratings and helped Q-104 dominate the market.[4]

After his early hometown success, Muller left Kansas City for a brief stint at KDON-FM in Salinas, California. Then he headed north to San Francisco and KYLD-FM, "Wild 107". Now going by his old college nickname Mancow, in 1993 Muller made national headlines with a publicity stunt that caused a major traffic problem for San Francisco. Reacting to a subsequently debunked story that President Bill Clinton had tied up air traffic at Los Angeles International Airport for over an hour while getting a haircut from celebrity hairstylist Cristophe aboard Air Force One, Muller staged a parody of the incident on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge during rush hour. He used vans to block the westbound lanes on the bridge while his then-sidekick, Jesus "Chuy" Gomez, received a haircut.[4] As a result of the publicity stunt, Muller was charged with creating a public nuisance. After entering a no contest plea, his sentence included three years probation, a $500 fine and 100 hours of community service. The radio station settled a civil suit by paying $1.5 million, including $500,000 to cover three toll-free days on the bridge.[5][6]

Ray Hofstatter, aka "Cowboy Ray", was a mentally challenged frequent caller and guest on Mancow's Morning Madhouse. On November 20, 2005, Hofstatter was struck by a car in a hit-and-run accident and critically injured.[28][29] Hofstatter died shortly after his life support was terminated on January 11, 2006. He was 45.[30] Muller offered a $13,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the driver,[30] but was unsuccessful. The hit-and-run case of Cowboy Ray was featured on the February 26, 2006 episode of Fox's America's Most Wanted.[31]

Mancow was an outspoken supporter of George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election, asking people on the street whether they "liked [George W.] Bush or liked Dick [Cheney]." On December 6, 2005, Muller made an appearance on Fox News Channel's Fox & Friends where he referred to Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean as "vile", "bloodthirsty" and "evil". Muller also commented on Dean's negative opinions on the War in Iraq, calling Dean a traitor who "ought to be kicked out of America" and "tried for treason".[32]

On May 22, 2009, Muller had himself waterboarded during his radio program on WLS,[33] having lost a listener poll determining whether he or co-host Pat Cassidy would be the one waterboarded. The talk show host had previously claimed that calling waterboarding "torture" was wrong, something he had stated that he hoped his reenactment would prove.[34] Lasting only 6 seconds ("8 seconds less than the average person", according to program guest Marine Sergeant Klay South, who was the one to administer the waterboarding), Mancow afterward changed his opinion, saying, "It is way worse than I thought it would be, and that's no joke", and described waterboarding as "absolutely torture".[33][35]

Questions were later raised about the validity of the procedure. South had no formal training in waterboarding and had never before performed the procedure, leading the online celebrity and gossip site Gawker to accuse Muller of faking the whole thing.[36][37] Muller later stated in an interview on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, "I admit it, it was a stupid radio stunt. But waterboarding, all it is, is water in your nose and mouth with your head back." Further adding "We went into this thinking it was going to be a joke. But it was not a joke – it was horrible. 'Hoax' is probably not the right word, but we did think it was going to be a joke."[38][39]

Muller married Sandy Ferrando, a former publicist, on February 14, 2003. He has twin daughters named Ava Grace and Isabella Sofia. His father, a former traveling salesman, died of cancer at the age of 62. The event deeply affected Muller and in part prompted him to write his first book, Dad, Dames, Demons and a Dwarf.[2][40] Mancow Muller attended Harvest Bible Chapel from 2014 to 2019 and was a personal friend of pastor James MacDonald since 2016. In November 2018 Muller travelled to Israel with MacDonald where he baptized him in the Jordan River. Less than two months later in January 2019 and less than three weeks after starting his new radio show on WLS-Chicago, Mancow began calling MacDonald a con artist on his show and on social media sites, and asking him to resign or be removed as pastor.[41] Mancow has consistently criticized and accused MacDonald of crimes since January 2019, including murder-for-hire in May 2019.[42][43]

• Mancow's Morning Madhouse