Lazlow Jones



Jeffrey Crawford "Lazlow" Jones is an 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, and perverted radio host who has nonetheless managed to retain work across the GTA rendition of the United States for nearly 30 years as of Grand Theft Auto V.

3D Universe
Lazlow's career began in the early 1980s as an intern for the V-Rock radio station based in Reddick, Florida. His profile on the Fame or Shame website claims he was a teenager when his career began. He was the sidekick of then-DJ Couzin Ed circa 1984, as heard in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. Lazlow quickly moved up the radio hierarchy and became the head DJ of V-Rock, exhibiting a 'bad boy' attitude and a greatly inflated ego, the latter of which came back to bite him. Sometime after 1984, V-Rock moved to Vice City. He was fired from the radio station after the events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, sometime between 1986 and 1991; On Integrity 2.0, he implies he was fired from V-Rock for having sex with a young female intern.

At one point, he became so desperate, Lazlow called the radio show I Say/You Say begging for work. Lazlow re-emerged in 1992 on the national scene as the new host of the Los Santos-based syndicated WCTR radio show Entertaining America, replacing the original host after his untimely accidental death at the hands of a roid-raging Jack Howitzer. At this point, he claimed to be "just coming down from the 80s" and implied that in between gigs he developed problems with drugs and alcohol, and that he did something to his mother that is illegal in most states. Lazlow lost his WCTR job due to alcoholism and possibly drug abuse sometime after the events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

It is hinted by some of the comments he makes on Chatterbox FM in Grand Theft Auto III that in between his job in GTA: San Andreas and his appearance in Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories circa 1998, he was working in Malaysia digging sewage ditches just outside of Kuala Lumpur.

In 1998, Lazlow lived in Liberty City and hosted Chatterbox, a talk show on Liberty City Free Radio where he took calls from random listeners and interviewed eccentric guests, as featured in GTA: Liberty City Stories. It is mentioned that he had been run out of Vice City and San Andreas, although Lazlow at one point gets nostalgic over working in Vice City back in the 1980s. At one point, Lazlow also makes a cryptic statement about himself and someone called "Donald" having big plans for LCFR.

By 2001, during the events of GTA III, Lazlow and Donald (now revealed to be Donald Love), had taken over the operation of LCFR, which was now renamed Chatterbox FM. Sometime between 1984 and 2001, Lazlow also married an unnamed woman and he would occasionally mention his wife on Chatterbox.

HD Universe
Lazlow lost his Chatterbox FM job a year later in 2002 because of a payola scandal he was involved in, and his wife divorced him shortly afterwards when he drugged a woman and brought her home requesting a three-way; On Integrity 2.0, he also implied his wife left him because she found out about the affair he had with the young female intern back in Vice City. Lazlow's ex-wife then married his former best friend, causing him to obsess over her for several years following their divorce, which he also later claims creeped out the women he dated following his divorce.

He was arrested multiple times over the next several years, including an arrest for publicly urinating at a Liberty City Swingers game in 2002, and another for exposing himself to old women on the streets in 2005. Deciding to try and make a comeback as a radio personality, he returned to Liberty City. Lazlow raised enough funds by 2008 to start up a new radio station in Algonquin, named Integrity 2.0. His program on the station involved himself exploring Algonquin and interviewing people on the streets; unfortunately, his interviewing manner was now poorer than it used to be, and it seems that his popularity had waned since he was last on the air; the people on the street whom he interviews often show disdain for him, and for radio in general (even "Radio 2.0", as Lazlow calls it).

By that time, Lazlow had become notably more unhinged and prone to violence than previous depictions, as he openly expressed a desire to rip people's heads off or bite them on the cheek for doing things that annoyed him. He ended up being incredibly rude to the few people he interviewed who do not initially show any disdain for him, even going as far as to push a hot dog vendor's face into a pot of boiling hot water for joking about Lazlow's name and appearance (calling Lazlow a "clown" and a "hippie"), and spitting in the back of a cab because the driver suggested he bring back some of his old Chatterbox FM guests, which Lazlow took as an insult. He also allowed a man implied to be a pedophile to masturbate as he talked about schools while on the air. During the show, he also made a references to his real-life show, The Lazlow Show. He always introduced Integrity 2.0 as "The Lazlow Show," he also made 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 was a reference to the intro of The Lazlow Show in late 2006.

Lazlow was briefly sponsored by ZiT, a program that identified songs playing on the radio. He was the voice of the company's automated greeting messages, but the ZiT adverts still made fun of his need to be in the public eye, referring to him as "...our needy, washed up celebrity".

In the two DLCs, The Lost and Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, ZiT had dropped sponsorship for him and he took a brief hiatus to find a sponsor for his show. He apparently got sponsorship from his step-father, who runs a funeral service called "Isaac Hammerstein and Daughters Funeral Services". Lazlow apparently does not like his step-father, making fun of his profession and his daughters (which Lazlow describes as "ugly" and "obese") and he called his step-father a "cockface" on radio, while also implying he dislikes his step-sisters because they rejected his sexual advances. He also got a sidekick that he called "Georgie", who was an illegal immigrant from South America. "Georgie" often laughed in Lazlow's face when he got insulted by people, prompting Lazlow to threaten to have him deported.

He also has an LCPD record but the LCPD apparently doesn't know his surname, claiming that the mystery of his surname is still unsolved and claiming the stupidity of the LCPD officers who arrested and booked him, as they never asked Lazlow his surname. Oddly, he is still listed alphabetically under the letter J.

By 2013, he returned to Los Santos, and started working for WCTR again. He now co-hosts a show called Chattersphere, in reference to Chatterbox, with much younger female host Michelle Minx. He is also presenter of the reality show Fame or Shame, and is constantly mocked by the judges and polls made by the program. He seems to have a rivalry with Hugh Harrison, as the two constantly trade insults and are shown to have been in physical altercations in several previous episodes. It is also revealed at one point, Lazlow accepted sex from an obese Irish woman in exchange for advancing her to the finals.

In the Grand Theft Auto V mission "Fame or Shame," Tracey is trying out for the show with a sexually suggestive dancing routine. Trevor and Michael arrive at the Maze Bank Arena and see Lazlow dancing inappropriately with Tracey. Unable to watch any more, Michael loses his temper and 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 in the Los Santos Storm Drain. Michael and Trevor catch up to him, with Trevor forcing Lazlow to remove his pants and to dance in his underwear while he video records it on his phone. As Lazlow is running away, Trevor then announces that he plans to post the video online and that "the world is gonna see your shit".

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 after Michael and Trevor ruined her first audition. He agrees 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 ear, tattoo a penis on his chest or back and snip off his ponytail before demanding he put Tracey on his show without anything in return. Lazlow initially claims he was assaulted by a deranged fan, but later claims it's his new look.

He is later seen interviewing a few celebrities at the premier of Michael's new film Meltdown at the Oriental Theater, 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. Upon seeing Michael, he nervously and hastily retreats inside, pulling the cameraman along with him (likely because Tracey had lost Fame or Shame despite Lazlow's efforts to secure a win for her, or simply because he had already been physically assaulted by Michael twice).

Personality
In earlier games, Lazlow was depicted as one of the more "sane", stable, and seemingly decent people in the Grand Theft Auto universe, especially on the radio. He was often shocked and fed up with the various eccentrics and con-men he interviewed. Through subsequent games (and in-universe years) however, Lazlow began developing his own eccentric, deviant, and sometimes illegal behaviors. This resulted in him being fired from or forced out of a series of hosting jobs under cloudy circumstances.

By the time period depicted in the HD Universe, Lazlow has become a washed-up former radio "star" in denial of how far he has fallen. As a result, his personality flits between self-loathing, nervousness and desperation on the one hand, and excessive arrogance and self-aggrandizement on the other. In GTA V, Lazlow is written more specifically as a parody of American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, hosting vote-in talent show Fame or Shame alongside his radio gigs. By this time, Lazlow's personal life has reached its nadir. His inappropriate sexual urges have cost him several jobs, he struggles unsuccessfully to maintain a youthful appearance despite his obvious aging, and he is constantly belittled and mocked by those around him, including his much younger and already more successful radio co-host, Michele Makes. This results in a breakdown during a radio interview with Brother Adrian, the founder of the cult Children of the Mountain, causing Lazlow to rant about his decline in popularity and difficulty keeping work, the shame he's brought to himself and his family, and his ever-increasing desperation to stay on the air leading him to less-and-less dignified work.

Lazlow is also somewhat of a hypocrite when it comes to cults as during a broadcast of Chattersphere, Lazlow makes comments about creating his own cult if he ever went to mars, this is mentioned not long before Brother Adrian calls, whom Lazlow then immediately makes disparaging comments regarding cults.

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 Vs setting, Lazlow has moved from Liberty City to Los Santos, and is working as a host alongside Michelle Minx 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.

Mission Appearances

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

General

 * Lazlow has appeared in the most games in the Grand Theft Auto 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.
 * Lazlow is one of ten characters in the series to exist in both the 3D Universe and the HD Universe, the others being Jock Cranley, Cris Formage, Jack Howitzer, OG Loc, Fernando Martinez, Madd Dogg, James Pedeaston, Marvin Trill, and Willy. Of these, he is the only one heard making direct references to events from the 3D continuity.
 * Lazlow is the fifth real-life celebrity to physically appear in the Grand Theft Auto series, behind Phil Collins in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, Ricky Gervais and Katt Williams in Grand Theft Auto IV, and Frankie Boyle in The Lost and Damned.
 * Willy, Lazlow and Cris Formage are the only three characters from the 3D Universe to appear in person in the HD Universe.

3D Universe

 * On the Chatterbox FM show, one of the callers asks if he's Hungarian. "László" is a common name in Hungary.

HD Universe

 * Lazlow's appearance in Grand Theft Auto V contradicts a description of him on Integrity 2.0 in Episodes from Liberty City. Lazlow has a full head of hair in GTA V, but on Integrity, a passer-by mentions that he is bald. This could possibly mean he either has a wig, managed to grow his hair back, or the passer-by wanted to anger Lazlow by saying it.
 * A caricature artist also implies he is bald by drawing his head with a "helicopter landing pad" but Lazlow yells at him, saying not to focus on the bald spot.
 * Lazlow sponsors the Karin Dilettante and drives one during the mission Fame or Shame.
 * The way Lazlow getting chased in his Karin Dilettante might be related to the 2010 film The Other Guys, where one of the scene shows the main characters of the film, in a red Toyota Prius (the vehicle parodied by the Dilettante) also getting chased and finally stopped after the car has severely been damaged.
 * On two occasions, Lazlow admits that he doesn't actually perform live radio. In Grand Theft Auto IV, he says that Integrity 2.0 doesn't have the equipment to broadcast live, and makes a point of telling Michael and Trevor that he doesn't broadcast live during their confrontation in "Fame or Shame".
 * During the Vinewood Star Tours, the tour guide shows the place where Lazlow was arrested for masturbating with an eggplant and shouting at women.
 * It is very likely that one or more of the protagonists could call or receive calls/texts from Lazlow in the early versions of GTA V, as there's a contact picture for him in the game files.
 * It is possible that his appearance as a host on Fame or Shame is supposed to parody the appearance of Howard Stern (another controversial radio host) as a judge on America's Got Talent. Stern began appearing on America's Got Talent in 2012 however it is unknown when Lazlow began his tenure as the host of Fame or Shame. It is also possible that it is supposed to parody the appearance of chat show host Jerry Springer as the host of the same show. Springer served as the host from 2007 until 2009 when he was replaced by Nick Cannon.
 * All the things that Lazlow does in the 3D Universe is also canon in the HD Universe according to the intro of the Episodes from Liberty City version of Integrity 2.0.

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