Lazlow Jones

Lazlow Jones is a real-life American talk show host who is involved in writing and producing Grand Theft Auto games. He voices a character of the same name in many GTA games; the in-game Lazlow is an insecure, ill-mannered radio host who has nonetheless managed to retain work across the GTA rendition of the United States for over 25 years.

3D Universe
Lazlow's career began in the early 1980s as an intern for the V-Rock radio station in Vice City. He was the sidekick of then-DJ Couzin Ed. (As heard in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories). Lazlow quickly moved up the radio hierarchy and became the head DJ of VROCK, exhibiting a 'bad boy' attitude and a greatly inflated ego, the latter of which came back to bite him; he was fired from the radio station shortly after the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Lazlow re-emerged in the early 1990's on the national scene as the new host of the syndicated radio show Entertaining America, replacing the original host after his untimely death at the hands of a roid-raging Jack Howitzer. Lazlow lost this job due to alcoholism some time after the events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

It is hinted by some of the comments he mentions in Chatterbox in GTA III that in between his job in San Andreas and his appearance in Liberty City Stories circa 1998, he was working in Malaysia digging sewing ditches out of Kuala Lumpur.

In 1998, Lazlow hosted Chatterbox, a talk show on Liberty City Free Radio where he took calls from random listeners and interviewed eccentric guests, as featured in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. It is mentioned that he had been run out of Vice City and San Andreas, although Lazlow at one point waxes nostalgic about working in Vice City. At one point Lazlow also makes a cryptic statement about himself and someone called "Donald" having big plans for LCFR.

By 2001 (and the events of Grand Theft Auto III), Lazlow and Donald - now revealed to be Donald Love - had taken over the operation of LCFR, which was now renamed Chatterbox FM.

HD Universe
Lazlow lost his Chatterbox FM job, was divorced by his wife, got arrested for peeing at a Liberty City Swingers game in 2002 and developed a taste for exposing himself to old women on the streets; he was arrested for this in 2005. Deciding to try a return to radio, Lazlow raised enough funds in 2008 to start up a new radio station in Algonquin, named Integrity 2.0. His program on the station involves himself exploring Algonquin and interviewing people on the streets; unfortunately, his interviewing manner is poor, and it seems that his fame has waned — the people on the street whom he interviews show disdain for him, and for radio in general (even "Radio 2.0", as Lazlow calls it). During the show he makes a references to his real-life show, The Lazlow Show. He is always introducing Integrity 2.0 as "The Lazlow Show," also, he makes a comment, "...when sixteen year olds could drink and listen to metal music, you could smoke in bars, and get into high speed accidents..." which is a reference to the intro of The Lazlow Show in late 2006.

Lazlow is sponsored by ZiT, a program that will identify songs playing on the radio; he "presents" the company's automated greeting messages but the ZiT adverts still make fun of his need to be in the public eye, "... Our needy, washed up celebrity"

By 2008, Lazlow is forty-six, having been born in 1962. Note that the storylines of the 3D Universe and HD Universe are not related. In the two DLCs (The Lost and Damned & The Ballad of Gay Tony), ZiT has dropped sponsorship for him and he has taken a haitus to find a sponsor for his show. He apparenty got sponsorship from his step-father, who runs a funeral service called "Issac Hammerstein &amp; Daughter's Funeral Service". Lazlow apparently does not like his step-father, making fun of his profession and his daughters (which Lazlow describes as ugly and obese) and called his step-father a cockface on radio. He also gets a side kick called Georgie who is an illegal immigrant from South America. He often laughs in Lazlow's face when he gets insulted and Lazlow threatens to get him deported.

He also has a LCPD record but the LCPD don't know his surname, claiming that the mystery of his surname, in the GTA world, is still unsolved and claiming the stupidity of the LCPD, as they never asked Lazlow what is his surname.

By 2013, he moved to Los Santos, and started working on WCTR again. He now co-hosts a show called Chattersphere, in reference to Chatterbox, with host Michelle Makes. He is also presenter of the reality show Fame or Shame, and is constantly mocked by the judges and polls made by the program.

In the GTA V mission "Fame or Shame", Tracey is at trying out for the show with dancing. Trevor and Michael arrive at the Maze Bank Arena and see Lazlow dancing with Tracey. Michael pushes Lazlow to the ground, who calls security and runs away, causing Michael and Trevor to chase after him. Lazlow's car eventually loses battery life leaving him trapped at the Los Santos River. Michael and Trevor catch up to him, with Trevor forcing Lazlow to dance in his underwear while he video records it.

Lazlow appears later on in the mission "Reuniting the Family" at Blazing Tattoo, with Tracey trying to get back on the show Fame or Shame. He agrees to to let her back on the show in exchange for a blowjob which Tracey's father, Michael hears and proceeds to pierce his eyebrow, nose and lips, tattoo a penis on his chest or back and snip off his ponytail before demanding he put Tracey on his show regardless of what. He is later seen interviewing a few celebrities in the premier of Michael's new film Meltdown, where he seems to now have a job as an interviewer for Weazel News, as his mic flag has the Weazel logo on it, as well as the game showing the interview airing live on Weazel during the mission.

Personality
Lazlow was initially one of the more "sane", stable and seemingly decent people of the GTA world, especially on the radio. He was often shocked and fed up with amount of eccentrics he had to talk to on his shows. Over the years and through each game, Lazlow himself became eccentric in some ways and had developed odd behaviors, he was also usually kicked off the shows he was on for unknown reasons, possibly due to his increasingly odd and sometimes illegal behavior.

By the time of the HD Universe, Lazlow has become a washed out former radio "star" and is now desperate and insecure and as a possible result of that, he also became quite arrogant and narcissistic to the point of usually offending many people, this may be because he is in denial of how far he has fallen and he frequently lies about his current situations. In GTA V, his behavior is even worse, as he likes to take advantage of the acts on Fame or Shame, he made one contestant sleep with him in order to get to the finals and during Tracey De Santa's act he made sexual poses while she was dancing right by him and later asks her to do a sexual act on him in exchange for getting her back on Fame or Shame. During an interview with the founder of Children of the Mountain, he breaks down about how he has shamed his family, and how his declining popularity has caused him to perform more desperate acts and gigs in an attempt to maintain or regain popularity.

LCPD Database information
Surname: ?

First Name: Lazlow

Age: 46

Place of Birth: Midwest

Affiliations:N/A

Criminal Record:


 * 1994 - Stalking


 * 1998 - Forcible Touching


 * 2001 - Bribery


 * 2002 - Public Lewdness


 * 2004 - Bribery


 * 2005 - Exposure Of A Person

Notes:


 * Hosted popular radio show on Chatterbox.


 * Twice charged for payola scandals in 2001 and 2004.


 * Arrested for public urination at a Liberty Swingers game in 2002.


 * History of exposing himself to old women when down on his luck.


 * Attempting to raise funds to launch a new radio station in Liberty City.

In real life
Behind the scenes, Lazlow is one of the writers of the game's script, providing political and cultural satire on the radio, and writing dialogue for street NPCs.

Grand Theft Auto III was Lazlow’s first GTA game. He produced, scripted and hosted the popular Chatterbox FM radio station. He co-wrote the other radio station dialogue with Dan Houser of Rockstar Games.

After gaining great popularity for his GTA III work, Lazlow took a larger role in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Rockstar hired Lazlow's production company, Radio Lazlow, to co-write and produce all the radio stations in GTA Vice City, as well as minor character and pedestrian dialogue. He was also the host of Vice City radio station V-Rock, referring to a comment made offhand in GTA III', that he only worked at Chatterbox "because [he] got kicked off the rock station".



In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, he co-wrote and produced all of the in-game radio, as well as hosting Entertaining America on WCTR.

He also returned as host of the Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories version of the Chatterbox radio show, although this time his role was smaller — during the setting of the game, Chatterbox is merely a single show on a station, not an entire station on its own.

Lazlow returned in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories as an intern at V-Rock, working for his real life friend, Couzin Ed. Earlier in Lazlow's and Couzin Ed's real-life radio careers, Lazlow was the sidekick of Couzin Ed.

As Lazlow was involved in writing the radio content for all the 3D Universe games, he was able to create continuity between the games, even though they were released out of chronological order. For example, in GTA III Lazlow and Donald Love are said to be in charge of operating Chatterbox FM, a situation established in dialogue written for LCFR radio in Liberty City Stories. And characters mentioned in passing might later appear in a later game (such as Crow, who is referenced in GTA San Andreas, and appears on the air in Liberty City Stories).

Lazlow returns as a member of the cast in Grand Theft Auto IV. He is referred to on other channels as the host of the "long-defunct" Chatterbox FM, and is raising money for a new venture. (This is one of the few direct links between the 3D and the HD Universes, as the two do not otherwise share much continuity.) This new idea, the channel Integrity 2.0 (where in Lazlow wanders Algonquin and interviews random pedestrians), goes on-air when the player gains access to Algonquin.

By Grand Theft Auto V's setting, Lazlow has moved from Liberty City to Los Santos, and is working as a host alongside Michelle on Chattersphere, a radio show on WCTR. He also hosts the television talent show Fame or Shame.

Lazlow also arranged voice cameos in the Grand Theft Auto games for several key figures from the hacker magazine 2600, including Emmanuel Goldstein, Bernie S., and Kevin Mitnick.

Missions appearances

 * GTA V
 * Fame or Shame
 * Reuniting the Family
 * Meltdown

Trivia

 * Lazlow has appeared in the most games in the GTA Series. He has appeared in every game in both the 3D Universe and HD Universe excluding Grand Theft Auto Advance and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars as a radio DJ. He is one of eight characters in the series to exist in both the 3D Universe and the HD Universe, the others being Kent Paul, Fernando Martinez, Jack Howitzer, Marvin Trill, Willy, Cris Formage, and Jock Cranley.
 * On the Chatterbox FM show, one of the callers asks if he's Hungarian. "László" is a common name in Hungary.
 * Lazlow appears physically for the first time in Grand Theft Auto V.
 * Lazlow sponsors the Karin Dilettante and drives one during the mission Fame or Shame.
 * Willy and Lazlow are the only two characters from the 3D Universe to appear in person in the HD Universe.