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.

GTA III Era
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.

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.

GTA IV
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 GTA III Era and GTA IV Era 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 & 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 Central America, he often laughs in Lazlows 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.

LCPD Database information
Surname: Jones 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 bystander 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 was] fired from the rock channel".

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 time of Liberty City Stories, 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 and Couzin Eds' real-life radio careers, Lazlow was the sidekick of Couzin Ed.

As Lazlow was involved in writing the radio content for all the GTA III-era 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 GTAIV era and the GTAIII era, as the two do not otherwise share much continuity.) This new idea, the channel Integrity 2.0 (wherein Lazlow wanders Algonquin and interviews random pedestrians), goes on-air when the player gains access to Algonquin.

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.

Trivia

 * Lazlow has appeared in the most games in the GTA Series. He has appeared in every game in both the Grand Theft Auto III era and Grand Theft Auto IV era excluding Grand Theft Auto Advance and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars as a radio DJ. He is one of the only characters in the series to exist in both the Grand Theft Auto III era and the Grand Theft Auto IV era.
 * Lazlow's full first name is Lazarus.
 * Lazlow is one of the only known surviving original characters, the other being Kent Paul.