After Adam Carolla announced that he had decided to delete his co-host Alison Rosen from the Adam Carolla Show podcast, I have been monitoring the reaction to it and been annoyed by the haters jumping to conclusions that make no sense and show a total misreading of Adam Carolla as a person. Especially when my top assistant expressed these same symptoms, I took a harder line on the matter to clear the air by shining a light on the known facts of the situation and what logical conclusions they point towards. I have viewed what is out there and I am alleging in this post to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt of why Alison Rosen was deemed to be not a good sidekick and by extension team player for the Carolla Digital network and thus be fired from that sidekick position as well as had her stand-alone podcast untied from Carolla Digital distribution.
She just wasn’t a fan…
Only because I have such a passionate love affair with truth and justice does it irk me like a pair of cactus slippers to see these people on the Twitterz chiding Adam for “turning his back on family” as several similar tweets to him have said. It’s annoying because if you are an astute observer of character then you have enough data on Carolla (if you’re enough of a fan of the show to call the hosts part of a “family”) to know that this would be wildly out of place. So I immediately dont respect people who baselessly jump towards an out of character illustration of a character deficit (which an unwarranted firing would have been).
My theory is that Rosen was prickly towards Carolla (I was artfully foreshadowing that with my slippers imagery but now that it’s over with I think its stupid). While she is a skilled improv comedian, knowing well the art of yes-and, I would often notice that she would remain silent or awkwardly stifle in non-comedic ways a premise Adam was going with.
Alison likes Carolla and all. It’s just that she is on the show for her own gains and promotion, and not Adams. In my previous post I referred to her as an Andy Richter type and that is no insult to her or Andy – both of whom are funny and talented people – but rather, it is an illustration of incongruent motives of a person with higher ambitions and that of a shows sidekick. Alison just was never a fan of Adam Carolla or his work. She worked well with him because they are both comedic pro’s but that is the role of a performance partner where as the role of a sidekick is a different one. In the role of supporting player, she was on-point always. But in the role of sidekick, she just did not have her head in the game and just wasn’t that into it.
Consider the following:
-Item: Her own podcast “Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend” is run on Adams network Carolla Digital, yet in the shows icon there contains a url for AlisonRosen.com, Alisons personal non-Carolla-Affiliated website. I always saw that as a message sent that the two were distinct. Which they shouldn’t be. Alison should have her personal page on a Carolla Digital owned website, not link to her independent venture.
-Item: Whenever Rosen tells a story involving the group (as in: recalling a time they all spent together), she focuses exclusively on her aspect of it, giving little yes-anding to the other two people who were there.
-Item: I’ve never heard of her ever doing anything social with Adam. Ever. I know that Adam went to his co-host Bald Bryans wedding, but Alison, whom just recently got married… no mention of Adam attending the wedding. Normally I would say this is Carolla disliking events like weddings and not wanting to be bothered, but his attendance of Bryans and comments on it not being something he didn’t want to go to outrule the possibility in my mind that Rosen thought she was doing Carolla any kind of favor by not inviting him. Rosen didn’t invite Carolla because she’s not all that fond of him.
-Item: Rosen is never excited about a Carolla-only project. While Rosen is an excellent “yes and…” adder to every other topic on the show, she never has much by way of boosting things when they are talking about Adams books, or television appearances, or upcoming movie – unless it’s about Rosens role in it. Which, btw:
-Item: It was revealed on both Rosen and Carolla’s separate podcasts that Rosen asked for a role in Adams upcoming movie Road Hard. By my listening of the dynamics of the telling, it seems clear to me that Rosen ambitiously and unorthodoxly asked for a role she was otherwise not being considered for. -Which is fine if you are a huge Adam Carolla fan, but… Rosen just isn’t. She wasn’t excited to “work with Adam” or anything like that including any mention of praise for the writing, the story, or any aspect to it. She was excited to be in a movie and thats it. Which is fine on its own – its just not fine for a sidekick.
-Item: How many times have you heard Bald Bryan bring up old episodes of Loveline or The Man Show with Adam (two shows he hosted for years) – or at least push forward with conversational additions when those topics were raised? Now how many times can you recall Rosen ever doing that? My memory is Bryan: Lots, Alison: Never. She chuckles and gives short acknowledging answers during those segments where she should be adding the most, fangirling out to realistic and genuine enthusiasm for the head of her shows brand. But she didn’t.
Rosen was a good personality but was just not a team player enough to a part of a team like Adams. Adams history is in sports and Rosen was a great runner, but not a great left field quarterback, or something (my background is the opposite-of-sports so I was unable to adequately finish my own metaphor but you get what I’m saying about being a team player).
This makes sense to me. It’s hard to work with someone on your personally unique product and have them not be a personal fan about that personally unique product.
I know exactly how this is. My closest assistant and Creative Manager of my work couldn’t give a damn less about my unique product. He doesn’t help with Richardland or any of it’s related sections and does little more than read it every once in awhile. He doesn’t ask questions about it, doesn’t respond to news or stories about it, doesn’t add input to it, doesn’t add or react to technical problems I bring up in it’s management and development – nothing. Half my videos were taken down by a video provider that shifted its business model and then 1 year later the other half went offline. Having not been able to make a new video in all of 2014, the archive was all there was left and between the time the first half went unavailable to right now as I type this (1 year and 3 months), he has not fulfilled the open task of transitioning that content to new hosting and reintroduction to distribution. He’s not trying to sabotage me. He just doesn’t care so its not a priority month after month.
When I think of him, I think of Alison Rosen. I see people who are perfectly pleasant individuals who are wildly talented and full of potential and whom are completely misplaced in their role in regards to the closest person they work with and are hurting that brand.
Adam did what I should have done: He fired someone in his life who was working against his goals *before* he started hating them. You simply cannot work closely on a product that is all about YOU with someone who is working in a manner focused on themselves primarily, the joint effort secondly, and you not at all.
I am more convinced than ever that he made the right choice.