Origins in New Jersey John Kobylt was born to a working class Catholic family in
Paterson, New Jersey. His father, Chester, was born in Poland and, like many Europeans of his time, was greatly affected by the German aggression. He was taken from his family and held in a Nazi labor camp for five years. He then joined the British military and eventually immigrated to the U.S., where he married a Polish-American woman, Helen. Chester and Helen had two sons, John and Richard, and lived a fairly typical working-class life in northern New Jersey. John entered the radio business as a sportswriter after dropping out of
Seton Hall University. Ken Chiampou, a native of
Brentwood, New York, was a
certified public accountant and had graduated from the
University at Buffalo, working in corporate audits for a
Big Eight firm. Both worked in the
Elmira-Corning market in
New York state in the late 1980s, Kobylt as a disc jockey at
WENY and Chiampou at the station's cross-town rival
WELM. Kobylt and Chiampou first worked together in 1988 for a radio station in
Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to Kobylt, the show was named "The Odd Couple" by a producer who was the "stupidest man on two legs". Kobylt became program director of
WOND. One of their earliest pranks was while they hosted mornings at 103.7
WMGM. They started a food drive for rival 95.1
WAYV's morning DJ Russ Monroe after he was fired a week before Christmas. The pair, as part of the prank, called WAYV live on the air to solicit a donation, which led to a hang up. In 1990, the pair was offered the afternoon drive slot on the then brand new station
New Jersey 101.5 (WKXW-FM) in the state capitol of
Trenton, New Jersey. They gained national notoriety for heavily criticizing New Jersey governor
Jim Florio for passing the largest state tax hike in United States history immediately after taking office. During this period, their ratings quadrupled to 600,000 listeners. Kobylt criticized Florio for reneging on his promise not to raise taxes. A caller, postal worker John Budzash, then suggested the idea of
Hands Across New Jersey, a protest that would symbolically cut the state in half. When other callers noted that blocking traffic was illegal, the movement turned into a rally in front of the State House in Trenton. A State Police officer told Budzash, who reported to the crowd from onstage, that approximately 65,000 people attended the event while another 100,000 people were turned away for lack of parking and because of crowded conditions. It was the largest rally ever held in New Jersey. Kobylt and Chiampou were replaced by syndicated consumer advocate
Clark Howard from 3 pm to 4 pm followed by
Karel and Andrew, the first openly gay couple in weekday talk radio in the country. Kobylt and Chiampou publicly referred to them as "
Siegfried and Roy", and constantly berated the show for its low quality and lower ratings compared with their own show. On July 1, 1999,
The John and Ken Show was reborn as a morning drive talk show on crosstown competitor
KABC. The morning show was short-lived as they kept their afternoon show style and brought it to the mornings. Kobylt and Chiampou also had various stunts, one of which got them in trouble and forced them into attending diversity training, which they later said they resented taking, and disliked the
Disney management toning down their banter. Due to low ratings and mutual dissatisfaction between the station and the hosts, KABC dropped the show on October 20, 2000.
The John and Ken Show returned to KFI on May 2, 2001, and the hosts regaled listeners with the behind-the-scene problems at KABC before returning to their normal topics. Since then they remained a live program; however, some interviews were pre-recorded and replayed between hours, and at times Kobylt or Chiampou would broadcast from their home studios.
Attempted expansions John and Ken: Saturdays existed from 2006 to 2009. The show covered new material that was otherwise omitted during the week. The hosts did not actually show up to the studio live on Saturday but taped the Saturday edition during the week as time permitted.
J&K Saturdays was syndicated to other stations. The Saturday show was cancelled in September 2009 due to an expansion in their weekday time slot from the cancellation of
Dr. Laura Schlessinger's program. With the hiring of
Bill Carroll. From September 2009 until July 2010,
The John and Ken Show simulcast the 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. portion of the show on San Francisco, California's
KNEW (AM)-910. It was replaced with
John Gibson. From January until December 2013, John and Ken hosted on
KFI sister station,
WOR in New York City, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. The first hour, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. was simulcast from the KFI show, while the 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. hour was live and local for New York City. The show moved from its traditional 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. time slot to 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. as part of a station revamp. Starting in January 2023, the show was reduced to three hours and moved to the 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. time slot as part of a reshuffle of the entire KFI daily lineup. During the broadcast of November 13, 2023, Ken Chaimpou announced he would be retiring and broadcast for the last time on December 6, and that John Kobylt will take over as a solo show on December 12. ==Awards==