Todd “MJ” Schnitt is rolling out his new MJ Morning Show in pretty much the same way any big, new morning radio show would traditionally launch into a major market like Tampa Bay. He’s planning billboards across the region, along with a blitz of radio commercials announcing “the MJ Morning Show is back."

But this time around, the MJ Morning Show isn’t on radio at all. Since October, Schnitt has released six episodes of a new podcast with the same name and co-hosts as the popular morning show he hosted on Tampa Bay’s 93.3 WFLZ-FM for 18 years. He’s also financing the whole venture himself.

So far, he said, the response to the podcast has been vibrant, netting “tens of thousands of downloads," a couple “major potential sponsors,” and drawing out “feelers” from terrestrial radio programmers interested in possibly putting him back on old-school radio in the morning, which he isn’t ruling out.

“Buzz is being created ... and this is only from my social media and word of mouth,” Schnitt said in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times. “Now (iHeartMedia) has agreed to sell me advertising. Here’s a former radio morning show turned podcast that’s going to advertise on local radio. I don’t know that anyone has ever done that.”

The MJ Morning Show podcast runs about one hour, with a new episode every two weeks, though that frequency and length could increase. On the show, Schnitt riffs with his former radio co-hosts, Dom “Fester” Siciliano and Michael “Froggy” Cusamano. Both men had moved into careers outside broadcasting — Fester into sales for a large RV dealership, Froggy into a job with a successful family business that installs displays in retail stores across the country. But Schnitt said they “have radio in their blood, and were eager to jump back in."

Schnitt never left radio. From 2014 to 2017 he co-hosted a morning show with Len Berman on New York City station WOR-AM, and for more than a decade he has hosted the Schnitt Show, an afternoon talk show focused on news and politics. The Schnitt Show airs on close to 50 stations across the U.S., including AM stations WHNZ and WFLA in Tampa Bay. He also hosts a podcast called Fark and Schnitt, alongside Fark.com creator Drew Curtis. Schnitt said the new MJ Morning Show podcast is “no politics, just fun,” and that he thinks it’s “better than 99 percent of morning shows on the radio now.”

The first six episodes of the new show have a lot of the same vibe as the old MJ Morning Show that went off the air in February 2012. The crew talks up wacky stuff in the news, like a viral video of a pickup truck smashing into the ticket counter at the Sarasota airport. They discuss Fester’s latest “scam" of keeping a large cup from every fast food restaurant so he can help himself to free fountain drinks whenever he wants. Schnitt, as he often did on air, takes a call from his wife, Michelle Schnitt, who’s apparently mad at him for falling asleep the night before, mid-conversation.

They also reminisce about stunts from their morning radio days: Froggy supposedly jumping off the Gandy Bridge during the morning commute; dropping a turkey filled with ice water into a deep fryer and accidentally torching a van in the station parking lot; wild billboards featuring O.J. Simpson’s mugshot or a bald Britney Spears that drew fire from lawyers. They’ve played some of their old crank calls, too.

A fire set off by an MJ Morning Show stunt destroyed a van in 2009. [ Tampa Fire Department ]

“The things that fans remember in the letters I get amaze me," Schnitt said. “One of the things we always get asked about are the Crotchety Old Man prank calls with Milton Fludgecow. We sold several hundred thousand of those CDs. ... We’d go to do signings at Musicland and Sam Goody and there would be 1,000 people there lined up to meet us."

In the first episode of the podcast, Schnitt said he plans to eventually discuss the 2013 trial in the multi-million-dollar defamation lawsuit he brought against rival radio host Bubba the Love Sponge Clem. Schnitt lost in court, but the trial was nearly derailed when Schnitt’s lawyer was arrested for drunk driving. It was later found that Clem’s lawyer used a young paralegal at a downtown bar to ply the lawyer with drinks, and a tip to a Tampa police sergeant, a friend of one of the lawyers, to orchestrate the DUI arrest. Schnitt accused his lawyers of legal malpractice, but in 2016 a jury decided he owed them nearly $700,000 in legal fees.

Asked if there were more behind-the-scenes details to discuss regarding the defamation trial and circus surrounding it, Schnitt said, “I think there’s always more to say, but you’ll just have to stay tuned.”

These days Schnitt said he splits time living in New York and Tampa, but the podcast is recorded in St. Petersburg. It’s available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and iHeartRadio apps, as well as other major podcast platforms.