Mancow Muller

Matthew Erich "Mancow" Muller (born June 21, 1966) is an American radio and television personality, actor, and former child model.

Considered a shock jock, his career has been well known for controversy and clashes with the Federal Communications Commission.

He is best known for Mancow's Morning Madhouse, a Chicago-based syndicated radio show, and The Mancow Radio Experience, which have been nationally distributed by Talk Radio Network.

Muller also co-starred with his brother, Mark, in the reality TV series God, Guns & Automobiles, which aired on History Channel.

Muller earned double degrees from the university in Public Relations and Theatre in 1990.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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.

Muller accepted a job offer by Evergreen Media President Jim de Castro at more than double his salary to move to Chicago and work at "Rock 103.5" (WRCX).

Muller's radio show, Mancow's Morning Madhouse, debuted in July 1994.

Originally, Muller broadcast from WRCX-FM (Rock 103.5) studios in the John Hancock Center and in 1998, moved to the city's alternative rock station, WKQX-FM (Q-101) 101.1, where the show was broadcast from the Merchandise Mart for eight more years.

He was the host of the morning show on WLUP-FM/97.9, before he was let go on March 6, 2018, upon WLUP-FM/97.9 being sold.

In January 2019, Muller returned to radio on WLS to host mornings, but has since been replaced.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Muller transferred to the suburban Harrisonville school district, where he was graduated from high school.

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.

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".

Within two Arbitron ratings periods Muller took the station's 19th-ranked morning show to 5th-ranked among all teens and adults, and first among 18- to 34-year-olds.

During his run on Q101, Mancow had a much publicized feud with fellow "shock-jock" Howard Stern.

He also had close on and off air relationships with "Crazy Howard" McGee of WGCI-FM and Mike North of WSCR.