Submitted by Jester on
One name alone could never properly designate the spellbinding polymath who calls himself Dr. Howll and Dr. Howland Owll, though he is known to hundreds of listeners around the world as the host of the Ask Dr. Hal! show.
A clergyman and theologian of the highest attainment in the Church of the Subgenius (“Master of Church Secrets”), Dr. Hal is a man of great learning, the numerosity of whose specializations is exceeded only by the perspicuity of his understanding, which in turn is outstepped only by the very testicularity of his hauteur. Why, Dr. Hal’s conversation makes Dr. Johnson sound like an analphabetic dirt farmer doing whip-its in an Andy Gump at the Gathering of the Juggalos, if you’ll pardon my French!
Dr. Hal is a multi-talented Renaissance man, and along with being a radio show host, an expert in all subjects, and a performer, he is also a talented artist who has had art exhibitions and made children's books about dinosaurs, as well as doing voiceover work for video games.
The Ask Dr. Hal! show is based on Dr. Hal's incredible expertise in all areas of subject matter, from the most mundane to the most obscure, from Forbidden Science to theosophy to phrenology to paleontology, from etymology to entomology and everything in between. The Daily Show's "Resident Expert" John Hodgman is a pathetic imitator of Dr. Hal, who stole his act, something Dr. Hal has been doing for decades and is much better at. Dr. Hal is the leading expert in ALL subjects, worldwide. On Ask Dr. Hal!, people ask Dr. Hal questions, any questions at all, on any subject, and he gives them very detailed, specific answers that prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that he knows what he is talking about with regard to the answer to that question, as well as the answer to every other possible question anybody could ever think of. Dr. Hal is literally omniscient, all-knowing, with superhuman powers... but of course he has superhuman powers, for he is no mere human, but a SubGenius, an OverMan. - http://subgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Dr._Hal_Robins
When did Dr. Johnson, so comfortably provisioned with nitrous tanks up in his ivory tower, ever give the American working stiff a break like this? “I refute it thus”: for $5, Dr. Hal will answer any question you can fit into an HTML form. Alternatively, “if you’re going to San Francisco,” be sure to wear some dollars in your hair, because your trip to the ¢ity by the pa¥ just got even more expensive: there is a run of Ask Dr. Hal! shows coming up in April at Chez Poulet in the Mission. If Chicken John likes your question, he will even pour you a shot of Fernet.
That’s Dr. Hal’s partner in the live show, Chicken John Rinaldi, the author of The Book of the IS, Volume I: Fail… To WIN! Essays in engineered disperfection and The Book of the Un, Volume 2: Friends of Smiley! Dissertations of dystopia. The live Ask Dr. Hal! show works like this, according to Chicken John:
You fill out the slip, you write your name, you write your question—any question about any topic, left or right, up or down: science, entomology, etymology, Greek mythology, sex, religion, jewelry, what’s the plastic thing on the end of your shoelace called. Aglet, by the way, on the end of your shoe. Aglet.
Here’s Dr. Hal cold dominating as a guest on TNN’s Conspiracy Zone with Kevin Nealon some years ago, preaching a sermon out of the good book of “Bob” into Ann Coulter’s custardy candlewax cheeseface:
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