John Melendez ("Stuttering John" Melendez)

John Edward Melendez (born October 4, 1965), also known as Stuttering John, is an American entertainer. He is best known for being a staff member on The Howard Stern Show from 1988 to 2004. Initially working as an intern, Melendez became known for asking celebrities impertinent questions at events and press conferences with his stuttering. He left the show to become the announcer on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and also worked on Leno's later shows. He has presented The Stuttering John Podcast since 2018. Melendez grew up in Massapequa, New York, on Long Island and attended Plainedge High School. Melendez was born to a Puerto Rican father and a Danish mother. According to Melendez, he began to stutter when he was in the second grade as a result of psychological mistreatment from his father after he witnessed an argument between his parents. He attended Plainedge High School, graduating in 1983, where he was picked on by the neighborhood bullies because of his stuttering. In 1988, Melendez attended New York University's film school and belonged to a band called "Rock Slide." His college roommate, comedian Mitch Fatel, was on the verge of quitting his internship with The Howard Stern Show, when Melendez asked him for a recommendation for an internship there. The show's producer, Gary Dell'Abate, mentioned Melendez's stuttering to Howard Stern who, without seeing him and even before he was interviewed, told the producer to hire him. On Stern's show, Melendez's primary role was answering phones and screening listener calls before they were allowed on the air. At the time of his joining, in addition to being heard in the New York City and Philadelphia radio markets via Infinity Broadcasting Corporation-owned WXRK 92.3 K-Rock and WYSP Rock94, respectively, the nationally syndicated morning drive time show had just added Washington, D.C.'s WJFK (also owned by Infinity) as its third carrier. Over time, Melendez became known for segments in which he asked celebrities confrontational questions at red carpet events, functions, promotional appearances, and press conferences. The puerile questions—written by Howard Stern, Fred Norris, and Jackie Martling—centered around a given celebrity's private life and were premised on the idea that they would not want to look bad by refusing an interview from someone who stuttered. Melendez sported long hair and metal T-shirts, asking questions by reading them from a sheet of paper. As he became better known, he occasionally wore a disguise consisting of an overcoat, fedora, and fake mustache. His interviews were characterized by punchline-free "joke" questions, such as asking actress Melanie Griffith how her father, Andy, was. The absurdity of the questions Melendez asked was often amplified by the fact that he himself appeared to lack common pop culture knowledge and often did not even seem to know who the subjects of his interview were or why they were famous. Melendez would thus frequently be unaware of why his questions would provoke such angry reactions, such as when he asked Ally Sheedy if she had vomited lately, unaware that the actress suffered from bulimia. Some celebrities were a personal target of Stern's, such as Ted Williams, who was interviewed by Melendez because Stern disapproved of athletes charging money for autographs. Celebrities would often react angrily, but other times, they would take the questions in good humor. Melendez notably interviewed Gennifer Flowers, Ringo Starr, and the Dalai Lama. At Gennifer Flowers' news conference playing the 'Clinton Tapes', he asked her if she planned to sleep with any other candidates before the election, to which she reacted by laughing. He asked the Dalai Lama if anyone ever greeted him with "Hello Dalai!", in a joking reference to the play and movie; the Dalai Lama's translator whispered the translation to the Dalai Lama, who chuckled. At a press conference, Melendez asked Ringo Starr, "What did you do with the money?" When Starr asked, "What money?" Melendez responded with "The money your mother gave you for singing lessons!" Starr good-naturedly replied, "I spent it on fish and chips." Singer Debbie Gibson also went along with the joke when Melendez asked her about losing an award to Wilson Phillips, jokingly agreeing with his idea that "the fat one would eat the statue." Melendez also provided comic interest with his misadventures, poor grammar, and sloppy pronunciation. Melendez started receiving American national exposure in the early 1990s as Stern's syndicated morning radio show acquired more markets (including Los Angeles and Cleveland) and particularly from June 1994 when its condensed version began airing nightly on E!: Entertainment Television, a basic cable network with national coverage in the United States. In 1994, Melendez signed a record contract with Atlantic Records and released his self-titled album with a music video broadcast on MTV's Headbangers Ball. That year, he was being paid $20,000 annually by the Stern show, which had 15 million listeners. In 1995, Melendez joined the late-night talk show Last Call as a co-host. During his 15-year run as Stern's employee, Melendez also starred in the Off-Broadway show Tony n' Tina's Wedding where he met his future wife, Suzanna. He appeared in such films as Airheads, Meet Wally Sparks, Dude, Where's My Car?, and Osmosis Jones, as well as Howard Stern's film Private Parts. He has also appeared on television in episodes of Wings, Baywatch Nights, and the 2003 United States version of the reality series I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!. Melendez was also the protagonist of some of the show's more outrageous moments. In 2001, during A.J. Benza's appearance, Melendez got slapped in the face by Benza who did not appreciate the incessant lampooning of his failed late-night show, seeing Melendez as the main culprit. The on-air slap prompted an extended fracas and resulted in Benza being permanently banned from Stern's show. Throughout the early part of 2002, Melendez and WXRK afternoon deejay Lee Mroszak (aka "Crazy Cabbie") had numerous on-air spats, which were used by Stern as fodder for multiple segments on the show. Their feud eventually culminated in a boxing match scheduled for Friday morning May 31, 2002, at Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and was promoted on the show as "The Flunky versus the Junkie" with 2,500 tickets going on sale for $100 each. The 7 a.m. fight, essentially an extended segment on the show which itself was broadcast from around the ring that morning, was set for five two-minute rounds with a two-minute break in between each round. It went the distance, with the 175 lb Melendez winning over the 262 lb Cabbie by unanimous decision. Following a guest appearance on The Tonight Show to promote I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2003, Melendez received an offer from Jay Leno to become the late-night show's New York 'correspondent' who would ask celebrities questions on the red carpet, similar to one of his roles on the Stern show. Melendez claimed that he turned down the offer because he could not get a private conversation with Stern to ask him about it. Stern later claimed how "lame" an idea it was for Leno to reuse Melendez the way Leno wanted to (in a less edgy way). In parallel with his duties on the Stern show in the morning, Melendez got a daily afternoon show on New York City's WXRK (The Howard Stern Show flagship station) from noon to 1 pm called Out to Lunch, consisting mostly of taking musical requests by e-mail and playing them. The show was taped in 15 minutes, with the email and phone call requests being entirely fictional. The show was canceled on August 21, 2003, with Stern turning the announced cancellation into a 45-minute segment at the end of his live broadcast that day by having WXRK program director Robert Cross (aka Chuck Roast) come in and break the bad news on the air to Melendez. In February 2004, the New York Post revealed that Melendez had