The Once And Future Limbaugh

While subbing on the Pat Sajak show in the 1990, Rush has his ass handed to him by the studio audience. It might explain why he prefers to work in a small, dark booth, and will only take calls from sycophants.

From Wikipedia:

Two weeks before The Pat Sajak Show was canceled, on March 30, 1990, Rush Limbaugh (whose radio show had just recently been syndicated and was still largely unknown) made headlines when he guest-hosted the program, and in a departure from its regular format, entered the audience to get its response about a bill in Idaho allowing for abortion on which he had just commented. After a verbal confrontation with an angry woman in the audience, Limbaugh addressed the camera and suggested that he went into the audience in an attempt to show the viewing public that there was an underlying prejudice against him. Due to the constant heckling by audience members, Limbaugh decided to conduct his interview with Sydney Biddle Barrows in another studio.

After a commercial break, Limbaugh attempted to address the topic of affirmative action, but was heckled again by several male audience members calling him a "murderer" before he could make a point. Limbaugh sat silently with the camera focused on him for nearly a minute while audience members continued shouting phrases such as "You want people to die!" Limbaugh responded with, "I am not responsible for your behavior," and got an ovation from the remainder of the crowd, as the few dissident audience members continued to shout.

After another break, Limbaugh returned and conducted the final segment from an empty studio after the audience had been cleared. He stated that the audience was not "evicted from the studio" or "forcibly restrained from doing anything they did" and gave CBS credit for handling the situation in the manner it did.

Limbaugh later publicly suspected the dissident audience members were planted by the show's producers as a publicity stunt, but that he was not informed in advance or after the fact, if that were indeed the case.

Limbaugh eventually gained his own short-lived syndicated television talk show.