Verbal Banana

If you turn on the radio Thursdays at 8 a.m. and hear Verbal Banana, WUSC's only talk-radio show, you'll probably love it. Unless, of course, you don't like gags poking fun at mainstream conservatism, pharisaical superiority complexes or the huge supply of daily disasters and triumphs we call news and life.

Brooke Connolly, the show's host, has received numerous awards from the station, including a 12-Inch Mic award for Best On-Air Personality, a Voice award for Offending Everyone With a Great Show and, perhaps most fitting, Most Likely to Be Knocked Off Air by the Christian Coalition. She has twice had to turn down offers from local celebrity Andy Thomas to act as co-host for his show.

Verbal Banana "is about taking a heavy piece of news and blending it down into a comical piece of rice that you can write your name on," Connolly said.

It's also a mix of stand-up recordings, fake commercials, funny songs and comedy skits. With the use of prank phone calls, investigative reporting takes on complacency and mundanity.

Politically, the show tilts to the left. Listeners can call and request their own pocket-sized copy of the Ten Commandments so "you can check off your sins all day long."

In an inside joke among the show and its listeners, Connolly considers herself a candidate for the Messiahship because, as she says, she is capable of performing miracles; recently, she drank two bottles of wine and didn't throw up.

The most impressive thing about the show is the response from listeners. Regular callers include people from around the world who pick up the show on the Internet. Twice, listeners have brought flowers to Connolly and her co-hosts.

Connolly spent last summer interning at MTV.

"I got to paint Carson Daly's nails," Connolly said. "I was in show development and got to do makeup once a week. I saw Janeane Garofalo tweeze a moustache hair in the dressing room."

She is a founding member of the Barstool Philosophers, and she's served on the executive committee of the first Columbia Improv Festival. Her collection of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards is probably more impressive.

But, for all her success, Connolly knows the disappointment of competing in the high-stakes world of popular entertainment; she failed to get a coveted internship on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show."

But the disappointment hasn't hindered her. After graduating this May, she plans to return home and tend to the family cocoa farm. She might enroll in classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. She hopes to work in radio in a larger market and be a professional comedian.

Verbal Banana, which is coming off a two-week suspension for improper language this week, got its name from a similar situation.

"It was going to originally be Verbal Prostitution ... because, you know, you're prostituting your words and your views and your ideas," Connolly said. "What you have to say, and then I was like — verbal prostitution — No! (It's) probably not good for the community, you know. I was thinking about the community.

"Banana oil means nonsense. So, Verbal Banana, and the funniest fruit is the banana."