Harry Shearer

Vogue magazine describes Le Show as "wildly clever, iconoclastic stew of talk, music, political commentary, readings of inadvertently funny public documents or trade magazines and scripted skits."

For over twenty years, audiences have been enjoying Shearer's gift for satire and sketch material on Le Show which got it's start in 1983. It ran under various titles before Le Show was selected through the results of a listener contest. Harry, known for his voice work on The Simpsons, writes the sketches and performs all the voices as he romps through the worlds of media, politics, sports and show business while providing an eclectic array of music along the way.

Le Show can be heard via podcast, internationally on NPR Worldwide and shortwave radio, as well as on XM Public Radio and Sirius Laugh Break on Satellite radio in the US and Canada. View the growing list of Syndicate Stations and be sure to tune in!

The Credibility Gap began as a trio of satirical daily newscasts on Pasadena rock station KRLA-AM, in the late 1960s. The then-resident news staff, imbibing the vibes of the era, colluded on the notion to do something more interesting than the standard rock-radio rip-and-read off the AP wires, and convinced the management of the perennial also-ran station to let them have some fun with the news (first day on the air, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated; some fun). Within months, a gradual changing of the guard began, as the news readers began burning out, and comedy people replaced them. The shows lasted two years on KRLA, and nearly another year on Pasadena's other English-language radio station, the then-experimental rock outlet KPPC-FM. By this time, the unit was down to its classic foursome: Richard Beebe, Harry Shearer , David L. Lander, and Michael McKean.

From the very first newspaper story about the group, in the Chicago Sun-Times, the Gap--a male foursome doing topical comedy on L.A. radio--was conflated in many minds with the Firesign Theatre--a male foursome doing psychedelic comedy on L.A. radio. Firesign sold a lot more records, but the Gap had many more disastrous show-business experiences.

Nonetheless, the radio years were followed by two records we'll still speak about--1974's "A Great Gift Idea" (Reprise), and 1975's "The Bronze Age of Radio" (Waterhouse), and by incessant college and club gigs, mainly on the West Coast. The Gap also pioneered the tradition of irreverent Rose Parade coverage, actually trooping out to (here's that burg again!) Pasadena several times to mock the pageantry in person.

Beebe left the group in 1975, and the group left the group a year later. Its "dead-man's-fingernails" phase was highlighted by the 1977 single on Rhino, "Hello, World, This Here's Wrong Number", a catchy country ditty about a guy who couldn't afford to get in on the CB radio craze, and just called strangers up on the phone.

Richard Beebe returned to his first love, radio, where he worked until his death from lung cancer in August, 1998. This archive is dedicated to him.

Archived here are some highlights from the Credibility Gap's radio broadcasts, not publicly heard since Nixon resigned: