Opie and Anthony's Traveling Virus Comedy Tour (2007) - Background and History

Background and History

Gregg "Opie" Hughes, and Anthony Cumia were raised on Long Island, New York, in Centerport and Elwood respectively. Hughes graduated from SUNY Geneseo and for the next seven years interned and worked at several western New York radio stations such as 96.5 WCMF in Rochester (where he first worked for Brother Wease) and WUFX in Buffalo. Opie eventually found his way back home to rock station WBAB on his native Long Island. Although not initially doing a talk-show, Hughes did experiment with certain talk elements, including a recurring character named "Spuds Buckley". While earning a living as an HVAC duct worker, Cumia began recording comedy songs with his brother Joe. In August 1994, Hughes, seeking innovative ideas, received an entry during an O.J. Simpson parody song contest. The song was titled "Gonna Electric Shock OJ" (sung to the tune of Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay") by a local band known as Rotgut, of which Cumia was the lead singer. The song was a hit on Hughes' show, and he invited the Cumia brothers to the studio to play live in September 1994. Soon afterward, Hughes and Cumia became a radio team. Hughes' show was called "The Nighttime Attitude" and aired from 8 pm-midnight on WBAB. Shortly after Cumia's arrival, he and Hughes requested that the show be moved to morning or afternoon drive, the two most listened to timeslots in radio. When the station refused, Hughes and Cumia moved the show to afternoon drive on WAAF in Boston, Massachusetts, where they premiered on March 13, 1995 as Opie & Anthony (O&A).