Jackie always had a weird vaudevillian view of the entertainment industry. The dude was on the biggest radio show on the planet, but thought his bizarre joke-book act & selling mugs/tshirts was his real success.
You can blame Howard for that. Billy West always said he didn't stop chasing down voice acting work because Howard and Tom Chiusano had zero respect for anyone. Artie practically died to make Beer League, and is still feeling the effects of making that film, and seemed to have very little attachment to the show or Howard. The host of the show didn't even respect the actual show nor the audience. How many times has Howard turned his show into nothing but plugs for another gig he was doing?
Remember, Howard stopped doing his radio show, and entertaining his audience, from the time Private Parts the book was being marketed until Private Parts the movie was released. Years of turning the show into plugs for his books or his movie and the audience being entertained being an afterthought. If his film Private Parts hadn't horrendously bombed it would probably have ended Stern's radio career. As he would have immediately quit to go do movies or host the Tonight Show or something like that. Once it tanked it basically humiliated the King of All Media into realizing he wasn't even 'king' of radio at that point.
This is why Opie was very careful not to overextend the O&A brand with endless television shows and books and other media. Opie said that every month they'd get an offer for a book deal and turn it down. And why Norton was constantly using the O&A name to open as many doors for himself as he possibly could as if the gravy train stopped rolling he might lose his show business status. And why the second that Anthony was fired he started reaching out to book publishers to try to double dip into the audience's pockets by releasing a book containing zero new information. Anthony's book was the cheap cash grab that Opie didn't want the show to have.
I’ve never heard the cookie puss one but the rainbow room fight is crazy. Jackie didn’t even bring it up because Fred asked him not to.
Fred and Jackie went on a double date with their wives at the Rainbow Room. A restaurant with a revolving dance floor and a huge open seating area so no tables are private. Fred proceeds to get into a huge fight with his wife who storms out publicly. Fred apologizes to Jackie and leaves. Next Monday Fred gets into the office and tells Jackie "please don't bring that up on the air". Jackie agrees.
The problem was that there was a listener who saw the entire thing. It was just one caller (which shows that Stern was again not really that popular). But Stern saw the call and put it on air not knowing if it was serious or not. Fred accused Jackie of telling Howard and setting up the call immediately as if no one but Jackie could possible have known about the fight. Because Fred was such an idiot and didn't think that a single person might call into the show and expose the fight when an entire room of people saw it.
The thing that made him turn down scarecrow was that he was never offered or seriously considered for it, Rocketeer.
It was offered to, to quote Stuttering John the Tonight Show announcer, Niggerless Cage. And not Howard. Cage was offered the role of Scarecrow and Courtney Love was going to be Harleyquinn. But the movie was never made after the latest Batman film was a bomb.
