TRENTON, N.J. - After offending a wide swath of New Jersey, Craig Carton, former co-host of "The Jersey Guys" is moving on to a bigger stage.
He, along with former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, will be filling the radio spot left empty when Don Imus was dropped from the air over comments he made about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
Carton's hiring has raised hackles across the Garden State where the list of people Carton angered during his five-year reign on 101.5 includes Asians, Poles, women, police, nonsmokers, Hispanics, gays, and a large portion of the state Legislature.
New Jersey Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo described Carton as "a guy who's managed to insult almost every community around."
Caraballo launched an effort to get sponsors to boycott "The Jersey Guys" after Carton and his co-host, Ray Rossi, called on listeners to report illegal immigrants during an on-air campaign dubbed "La Cucha Gotcha," a play off of the Spanish word for cockroach - cucaracha.
The campaign was quietly pulled off the air in April, although station officials said it had nothing to do with the public outcry.
In January 2005, then Gov. Richard Codey nearly came to blows with Carton over his disparaging comments about Codey's wife, whose battle with postpartum depression was widely publicized. Mary Jo Codey had revealed previously that during the first year of motherhood, she'd had thoughts of drowning her son and putting the baby in the microwave.
Carton said women who suffer from postpartum depression should relax by smoking marijuana "instead of putting their babies in the microwave."
When the shock jock and the former governor ran into each other, Codey threatened to "take him outside." Codey said Tuesday the two have since put the episode behind him, but said he had no apologies about his comments to the radio host.
"You attack my wife like that, I'm going to attack you," Codey said.
That same year the two hosts apologized on-air after Carton made disparaging comments about Asian-Americans, at times using a mock-Asian accent.
The duo were also known for a number of attention grabbing stunts such as a rally against a proposed ban on indoor smoking on the steps of the state Legislature involving strippers from clubs around the state.
Ray Handel, from 101.5, said Tuesday that Carton and the station came to a mutual agreement to part ways. Casey Bartholomew, who was a radio host at the station from 1999-2002 before moving to a station in Detroit, Mich., will replace Carton on "The Jersey Guys," effective immediately.
The announcement that Carton and Esiason would be taking over the morning radio spot ends speculation as to what CBS Radio would do after shock jock Imus was taken off the air.
Imus was dismissed April 12 after describing the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" on his nationally syndicated radio program.
It was also announced Tuesday that Imus has reached a settlement with CBS over his multimillion-dollar contract.
Imus and CBS Radio "have mutually agreed to settle claims that each had against the other regarding the Imus radio program on CBS," that network and Imus attorney Martin Garbus said in a joint statement Tuesday.
Carton has a book out Tuesday, Loudmouth.
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