Numero Group to Release Tom Scharpling and Jon Wurster’s The Best of the Best Show Box Set

Last year, Tom Scharpling’s long-running cult radio show “The Best Show on WFMU” came to an end after 13 years on the air. One of the show’s running features was a series of calls between Scharpling and Jon Wurster, the drummer for Superchunk and the Mountain Goats. They would recount tales from the fictional town of Newbridge, New Jersey, with Wurster playing various characters.

On March 17, Numero Group will release the huge box set Scharpling & Wurster: The Best of the Best Show, collecting a whopping 20+ hours of Scharpling and Wurster silliness. That’s the cover above, which was illustrated by Neil Numberman. 

Edited by Scharpling and Wurster themselves, the box features 75 calls on 16 CDs, including 50 previously unreleased or unaired ones. It comes with a 108-page hardcover book featuring essays from Patton Oswalt, Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham, Julie Klausner, and “Best Show” associate producer Michael Lisk (better known as A.P. Mike), an interview with Scharpling and Wurster by Jake Fogelnest, and “notes on the evolution and inspiration behind each bit.”

The box also comes with a USB drive (inside a Radio Hut cassette) with all 75 calls and four hours of bonus material, a fold-out map of Newbridge, Philly Boy Roy and Timmy von Trimble Paper Dolls, postcards, and temporary tattoos bearing “Best Show” catchphrases.

If you pre-order the box set via Numero, you’ll receive a piece of the actual phone Wurster used to make the classic “Rock, Rot & Rule” call. Watch Scharpling and Wurster smash the phone with hammers in the box set’s trailer below.

Comments are closed.