About
It started on actual radio.
At first blush, you might think Low Budget FM was a show about being poor — tips for handling poorness, that sort of thing. Or maybe two poor guys bitching about not having any money. Reasonable guesses, both wrong. It was two normal guys talking about normal things without spending much on the show itself. Like a low budget independent comedy. Like Garden State.
Bingo. Low Budget FM was an independent comedy starring the eminently-talented Zach Braff (“Scrubs”). Watch for it in theaters this winter.
A one-hour demo on 103.7 FREE FM in San Diego, where Marc Chambers and Tod Perry essentially fill in for a CD player, becomes a Saturday-night slot in the shadows of the FM Talk juggernauts. A runaway success, by their own measure (and nobody else’s).
KLSX, the FM Talk mothership, goes under. From the ashes, Low Budget FM is reborn as a podcast — daily, for a while, with John Salwin announcing.
Co-hosts rotate and studios come and go: the Barn, a loft above a living room, the crowdfunded Laxdude Memorial Studio. The show declares war on public radio, and loses.
Marc and Tod return for the Revival Season, carrying on as if nothing happened.
Episode 550. Then nothing, for seven years.
The mid-life crisis era begins.
A note about the archive
Low Budget FM is an improvised comedy show that has been running since 2007. It is presented here as it aired — unedited, off-the-cuff, and a product of its time.
It contains strong language throughout, adult subject matter, and bits that were written to be provocative. Some jokes land differently now than they did then, a few we’d tell differently now or not at all, and the hosts have grown and changed as both performers and people.
It was comedy, performed in character, for an adult audience. Please take it in that spirit.
Got a question, complaint, or tip?
Write to show@lowbudgetfm.com, or comment on any episode.
