Hank The Angry Drunken Dwarf - First Stern Show Appearance

First Stern Show Appearance

Hank first met Howard Stern on August 16, 1996, when he and a friend from the Boston dinner theatre drove to New York City with the intention of getting on Stern's show. After a night of drinking, Hank began waiting outside the K-Rock studios in Manhattan at 5:30am. He was heavily inebriated and wearing a Hawaiian lei. He never had a doubt that he would make it on the air. Stern's producer Gary Dell'Abate recalled arriving at work and being met by an obviously intoxicated dwarf who aggressively demanded that he be permitted to meet Stern. Dell'Abate immediately answered, "Follow me." Hank's first radio appearance that day included reading of a series of one-sentence jabs against various groups which Nasiff had scrawled on a piece of paper the night before.

If they put your brain in a parrot it would fly backwards

-Hank in reply to a Stern Show caller

Hank asserted from his first on-air conversation with Stern that he be referred to as a dwarf and not a midget, and was quick to correct anyone who violated this rule, viewing it as an issue of respect. The title for Hank's character or persona came about spontaneously during his first appearance on the Stern show. During the show that day Howard Stern commented to his co-hosts: “I’ve always wanted an angry, drunken dwarf on my program and now I’ve got one". A short time later that morning Stern added, “Isn’t this great? An angry dwarf, an angry drunken dwarf. Everything I’ve ever dreamed about."

From his first appearance until his death five years later, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf became a popular character on the show. Never afraid to express himself, Hank would come across completely unguarded. In terms of being belligerent, Hank's manager Doug Z. Goodstein explained that this tended to only occur when Hank was really drunk and people would heckle him. He described Hank "as a relatively soft-spoken polite guy who quite often had a big smile on his face." Behind Hank's public persona, an underlying "good nature" tended to shine through, which fans seemed to recognize. During the first few years, Hank would take the bus from Boston each month as soon as he got his SSI disability check. Hank was a member of the show's Wack Pack (a play on the 60s term, "Rat Pack" but featuring a cast of oddball characters) and soon attracted a large informal fan base.

Hank was not paid for his appearances on Howard Stern, but he said sometimes they would "slip a little under the table." Adding, "What do I need money for anyway? People fight to buy me drinks.”