Howard Stern Discusses His Inability To Shock And How It Evolved His Show For The Better On ‘Kimmel’

Howard Stern was his typical self during his appearance on Kimmel’s third night in Brooklyn, following David Letterman’s gem of an appearance with a gift of his own to rival Dave’s ties — a bag of his dirty undies — and the hope that he won’t have to do too many more television interviews on the show. Stern and Kimmel are very friendly throughout the interview, seemingly more of a chat between pals in front of a large audience instead of your typical promotion vehicle for something.

Stern and his Sirius XM show don’t really need any promotion at this point, though he does talk a bit about how his show evolved going from regular radio to satellite. Both he and Kimmel agree that Stern’s brand of shock that caused so much trouble and rules the airwaves during the ’80s and ’90s wouldn’t fly in today’s society. Not only are there no limits on Sirius for what the show can discuss, but the censorship on terrestrial radio and network television has become lenient like never before. While you might not hear the f-word on ABC any time soon, you can say penis and plenty of shows the next step up on cable are already dropping the f-bombs for that added effect.

But instead of just riding his wave until it crashed, Stern turned the show around and now delivers some of the best interviews in radio while staying true to his wackiness and fearless with what he covers. It isn’t the same show it was in the days when it was rebroadcast on the E! Network, but he’s still around and finding success.

The rest of the interview is a mix of antics, personal tales about going on vacation with Kimmel and his family, and a declaration that he’s done appearing on the show. He also has plenty of fun with Paul Shaffer and Guillermo while discussing Harvey Weinstein and the horror of sending pictures of his penis to women.

We also get to hear Stern’s singing voice when he talks about how he tried to calm down Kimmel’s daughter when she was afraid. It’s his version of The Name Game, which is a wild song if you’ve got friends named Chuck and usually a good way to bring it to a screeching halt in the middle of music class.