According to Lazlow, these sessions were fueled by copious amounts of pizza with anchovies and onions, diet coke, and lots of cigarettes as they brainstormed ideas for callers, funny lines, commercials, and DJ banter. Lazlow jumped at the chance, and the two met up at Dan’s apartment shortly after to begin the writing sessions. Then he asked if I’d be interested in working with them.” “We started riffing on funny ideas about how to spoof American radio. There, he met Sam and Dan Houser, Jamie King, and other members of the team, who told him they were working on a game that would have radio in it.
It turns out those great waves were fortuitous, as Donovon invited Lazlow to come check out the Rockstar offices in Manhattan for his show. “One day in 2001, when the waves were great, we were both complaining about having to go to LA for work… He was heading to E3 as an exhibitor, I was going to cover it for my show.” “One of the founders of Rockstar, Terry Donovan, is a bodyboarder, and we’d seen each other surfing a few times,” Lazlow said. The conversations offered unique insight into the bizarre world beyond the events of the game, and hinted at what all the pedestrians you passed by (or maybe more accurately for the mayhem-minded, ran over) might be thinking about when they weren’t running away from our bat-wielding protagonist. The show provided goofy, satirical commentary on early 21st Century American culture through the cavalcade of guests Lazlow interviewed. Grand Theft Auto previously included radio stations full of licensed music to listen to, and Grand Theft Auto 2 introduced DJ banter and commercials to the mix, but Chatterbox brought a new, real-life radio style to the virtual airwaves. Instead, it broadcasted an hour-long talk show, pitting its presenter, the singularly named Lazlow, against a string of obscene callers. In contrast to the other stations, Chatterbox didn’t play any music. But while there were a host of entertaining stations to listen to, one became a defining element of weaving through traffic in GTA III: Chatterbox FM. It’s up there with trying to fly the Dodo or rampaging through the streets in an armoured tank. Listening to the radio while driving around the boroughs of Liberty City is one of Grand Theft Auto III’s greatest pleasures, because of the licensed music, eccentric personalities, and ridiculous ads.
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