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Jackie Martling
Pseudonym
Jackie the Jokeman
Birth name
John Coger Martling, Jr.
Born
February 14, 1948 (1948-02-14) (age 59)
Medium
Stand-up, radio, television, film
Nationality
American
Genres
Observational humor, Black comedy
Influences
Rodney Dangerfield
Influenced
Artie Lange
Website
jokeland.com/
Jackie Martling (born John Coger Martling, Jr. on February 14, 1948) is an American comedian, comedy writer, musician, composer and actor. He is best known as "Jackie The Joke Man," a cast member and later head writer for the The Howard Stern Show, a syndicated morning radio show which has now moved from terrestrial radio to Sirius satellite radio.
Jackie began his show business career as a musician, playing with numerous bands on Long Island until the late '70s, when he began to introduce jokes into the act and eventually segued into a full time standup comedian.
While touring as a national headliner, he recorded several joke LPs that became the resume he submitted to Howard Stern and which led to his being hired as a cast member on the show. After three years, he rose to head writer, a position he held for 15 years. He is famous for pioneering joke writing "on the fly," a technique of instant scripting where he wrote jokes and funny lines for Howard Stern while the show was in progress.
Jackie also wrote dialog for the infamous "Jackie Puppet," voiced by Billy West. West has remarked how surreal it was to sit behind Jackie, viciously attacking him as the puppet, with lines Jackie had just written himself.
After several earlier disagreements over compensation, Martling resigned from the Stern Show in March 2001, over a salary disagreement with the show's employer WXRK. He has since admitted that the amount of money under dispute was fairly small, but still caused him to refuse to sign a new contract.
Martling's chair on the Howard Stern Show was eventually filled by former MADtv cast member Artie Lange; however, Lange did not take over Martling's job as head writer. That position was filled instead by Benjy Bronk. Martling appears with his successor Artie Lange in the 2001 film Mail Order Bride.
After leaving the show, Martling pursued his other interests including acting and music and toured extensively doing standup. He also expanded his very successful line of electronic joke products.
On September 25, 2006, Howard Stern announced that Martling would be returning to radio by joining the Howard 100/101 Sirius Radio channels. Stern elaborated further on the September 26, 2006 broadcast, saying that Martling's new show on Howard 101 would be called "Jackie's Joke Hunt". The show, co-hosted by fellow friar Ian Karr, premiered on October 3, 2006 at 7pm EST. It continues to air, live, every Tuesday at 7pm EST on Sirius Howard 101, with re-airings scheduled for Thursday mornings at 12AM EST and Saturday afternoons at 2pm EST. Martling can also be heard on Howard 100 on Fridays when Sirius airs "Master Tape Theatre".
Martling has since returned to the Stern show to roast producer Gary Dell'Abate and on March 13, 2007, Martling made a long-awaited guest appearance on the show.
In addition to his standup career, Martling has released five joke CDs, three videos, five joke books and released his first musical CD, "Happy Endings," in late April, 2007. He is also featured in the hit comedy documentary, The Aristocrats and has appeared in over a dozen other independent films.
In May, 2007, the Stern show aired a two day salute to Jackie Martling on Stern 100. The show contained dozens of classic Jackie moments intercut with new interviews with Jackie and others.
Martling was born in Mineola, New York on Long Island. He earned an engineering degree from Michigan State University in 1971.
Over the years in his standup act and on the air, he recounted wild tales of his partying days on the road and spoke publicly of his fondness for smoking marijuana and drinking Heineken. In December 2005, he announced that he was sober and had not had a drink in five years.
His sobriety, however, does not include marijuana. He has recently shot and posted two videos on YouTube that show him smoking pot, and he is often a guest at events for the Marijuana Policy Project.
Martling is divorced from wife Nancy Sirianni and currently resides in Manhattan and in Bayville, New York.
Martling seems to be cultivating a new image as an eligible, single guy. He was recently interviewed for a divorced women's website where he and the middle-aged hostess claimed the interview was actually their first "blind date." The Stern show sent reporter Lisa G to cover the event; the next morning she spoke about it on the air. This was shortly after Martling and the hostess had repeated their "date" on the "Fox and Friends" morning show and where Jackie had mentioned being involved with a dating service.
He is a longtime member of the NY Friars Club.
During the time Martling served on The Howard Stern Show staff, many fans who called in, other show staff members and Howard frequently would throw out the off the wall remark "F Jackie," in reference to him (short for "Fuck Jackie," as it is illegal to use profanity on terrestrial radio in the United States). Very often all calls to the radio show would end in the expression "F Jackie."
At one time Jackie had a kitten named Timmy. One day he announced on the show that Timmy had gotten into the street and was run over by a car. For a while, and even occasionally to this day, the expression "F Jackie" was modified by callers to "F Timmy."
He gave Bob Levy the nickname "Reverend". Levy's act was so dirty that Jackie thought that the title "Reverend" would be funny in an ironic way.
He had a legendary Stern show airing of a financial dispute with comedian Rodney Dangerfield, who claimed Jackie owed him a thousand dollars from a loan made back in the 1970s. Jackie countered that Rodney was paid back in "jokes" and the debt was settled. Jackie was ridiculed for this by Howard and the rest of the staff.
He is known to have written the Rodney Dangerfield's popular "Double-Bagger" joke ("That's girl so ugly you put a bag over her head and another one on yours in case hers falls off").
His great-uncle was the noted New York politician Leonard W. Hall.
Jackie is also a singer/songwriter - some of his songs include "Flies", "The Marijuana Song" and "To Whom it May Concern" (all of which were played on the air during his time w/ Howard Stern).
He once had a fungus under his toenails and went to a doctor he found in the penny-saver who tore off Jackie's toenails.
Jackie is pitching a children's TV show.
