Jeffrey Crawford "Lazlow" Jones is a character appearing as a radio host in Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories.
He is voiced by Jeffrey Crawford "Lazlow" Jones, an American talk show host who in real life was involved in writing and producing Grand Theft Auto titles.
History[]
Events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories[]
Lazlow was in a band during high school, before flunking out because he was "hardcore". His career began in the early 1980s as an intern for the radio station V-Rock based in Reddick, Florida.
By 1984, he was the sidekick of DJ Couzin Ed, as heard in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. They despised each other on air, with Ed openly mocking Lazlow and belittling his ability and potential as a DJ. Ed had a rawer rock lifestyle than Lazlow, which also caused antagonism between the two. Lazlow also voices skepticism of then president Ronald Reagan, whom Ed is an unconditional supporter of.
In 1985, Lazlow left his internship and went to broadcasting school.
Events of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City[]
After gaining his broadcaster degree, Lazlow applied for a job at V-Rock (now based in Vice City, Florida). He sent a resume in manuscript and with a bouquet of flowers, while Ed also applied, writing his resume on rolling paper. Lazlow got the job, quickly moved up the radio hierarchy and became the head DJ of V-Rock. Couzin Ed would call in to the station in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, revealing that Lazlow's lower salary was the reason he took his job away from him.
During his tenure as the DJ of V-Rock, he began exhibiting a bad boy attitude and a greatly inflated ego, the latter of which came back to bite him. He complained on air about being turned down for a date by a waitress.
He was fired from the radio station after the events of GTA Vice City, sometime between 1986 and 1992. An exclusive dialogue not featured in the game, and featured instead on a bonus track on the V-Rock CD from the 7-CD Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Soundtrack Box Set, shows that Lazlow was fired for complaining about his wage, letting his big ego get the best of him, and breaking a glass in the studio.
Events of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas[]
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 West Coast Talk Radio show Entertaining America, replacing the original host Billy Dexter after his untimely accidental death at the hands of a roid-raging Jack Howitzer.
He seemed to be somewhat out of touch and confused about the new media trends at this point, as in his interview with OG Loc he thought that contemporary rappers still did windmills and other '80s breakdance moves, and when his misunderstanding makes OG Loc so angry that he points a gun at him, Lazlow, clearly panicking, tries to fix things claiming he is "just coming down from the 80s".
Judging by his comments later on the radio, it is implied that between 1986 and 1992, he developed problems with drugs and alcohol, and that he did something to his mother that is illegal in most states.
Events of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories[]
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. 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.
Events of Grand Theft Auto III[]
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. It is revealed during his tenure here that sometime between his time in Vice City and here, Lazlow married an unnamed woman, which he would occasionally mention on radio.
Although this is Lazlow's fifth appearance in the in-universe chronology of the GTA games, as GTA III was the first 3D Universe game to be released, this is his first real-life appearance in a Grand Theft Auto game. Thus, some "early installment" features of his personality that were later scrapped are shown.
Lazlow in GTA III was a sane, calm, composed, rational and down-to-earth man, who would respond with an "only sane man" attitude to the crazy and eccentric remarks of his callers. This comes across as shocking when seeing how his personality changed and became exaggerated through later games in the Grand Theft Auto series.
Character[]
Personality[]
In earlier games in the 3D Universe, 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.
This is especially notable in the first game of the 3D Universe and the first game in where Lazlow appeared, GTA III, when he was a sane, calm, composed, rational and down-to-earth man, who would respond with an "only sane man" attitude to the crazy and eccentric remarks of his callers on the Chatterbox FM radio.
As the series progressed, Lazlow began developing his own eccentric, deviant, and sometimes illegal behavior. This resulted in him being fired from or forced out of a series of hosting jobs under cloudy circumstances.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
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, although as two separate characters of the same name in two different realities.
- Lazlow is one of many celebrities and radio characters in the series to exist in some different form in both the 3D Universe and the HD Universe.
- 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.
- Willy, Lazlow and Cris Formage are the only three characters from the 3D Universe to have physically appeared in the HD Universe as different variants of themselves.
- On the contrary to his HD Universe counterpart, on Integrity 2.0, he implies he was fired from V-Rock (the station in Leonida) for having sex with a young female intern.
- On the Chatterbox FM show, one of the callers asks if he's Hungarian. "László" is a common name in Hungary.
- Lazlow's artwork is inspired by an old photo of himself at a young age.[1]
External Links[]
References[]
- ↑ Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/p/BBZKpGeLT7F/
@radiolazlow on Instagram