catlover79
03-14-2007, 12:41 PM
Most of these I found on a website called Rock Radio Scrapbook:
My favourite actually happened to one of my influences, the late Bob Lewis (Bob-A-Lou). Before he worked for WABC (obviously), he worked for a small Long Island station where it was his duty every Sunday morning to play a religion hell-fire-and-brimstone show that was delivered on one of those huge platters that could be played once and then had to be thrown out because it would scratch so easily. Bob's routine was to show up at the station, put the first disc on, then go out for coffee, returning in time to change discs 15 minutes later. One morning as Bob returned to the station, he noticed that all the phone lines were lit up, a very unusual occurrence considering the hour and the programming, which Bob never listened to in his car, seeing as the more inspiring New York City market was so close and booming. Racing into the studio, he discovered that the needle had gotten stuck in a crack on the disc, just as the preacher had been saying, "all sinners will go to hell"-click-"go to hell"-click-"go to hell"-click-"go to hell"....
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Back in the late 70s, while still in college, I was a news assistant at WHN. Part of my Sunday morning duties were running the board for the public affairs programs. All were on reel-to- reel tapes and it was pretty routine after doing this for a number of weeks. I'd cue up each tape to the first sounds and then just hit "play" when it was time to air.
One Sunday though, one of the programs was rewound "tails out" so when I hit "play" the program started running backwards! At this point I started to panic as a 50,000 watt station in the #1 market is running "The Lutheran Hour" backwards. I quickly grabbed a song from the cart rack behind me, stuck it in the deck and brought up a Dolly Parton song, while trying to rewind the tape as fast as possible. I got the tape reversed, faded down Dolly, and went back to the tape, but in my panic forgot the show started with a countdown. Dolly comes back for a quick encore and finally "The Lutheran Hour" made its delayed return to the air.
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I hate to admit it, but it was I who totally demolished the Jag XKE while working at KFRC San Francisco in 1967-68. It was the one to be given away on the air. Afterwards, I was tortured by all the other jocks on the air. Mike Phillips even talked the engineers into running drop’s between Bill Drake’s intro and other recorded liners that "shamed" me for my deed! Les Turpin had just replaced Tom Rounds and when he heard about me destroying the car, slammed his fist into a wall at his country club breaking his wrist.
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In March of 1982, I began hosting and producing a nightly three-hour game show on KOGO-AM/San Diego. Listeners competed on the air in a variety of three-minute games complete with bells, buzzers, applause and winner fanfare ... just like a real TV game show. Winning contestants were awarded dinner certificates, car washes, pizzas, movie theatre passes, etc.
During my third week, a woman competed against another listener and won the game. I congratulated her and as I was about to announce her prize (a pair of movie passes) she asked me on-the-air what she had won. Previous to the game I had announced what the winner of the game would receive - but apparently she didn't remember. So I asked her "You don't know what you've won?" She said that she didn't. And I told her in my very best announcer's voice "You've won a BRAND NEW CAR!" She then yelled and screamed and carried on for what seemed to be an eternity. After she calmed down I told her that she didn't really win the car but a pair of movie theatre passes which she accepted.
Going into the commercial break the "hot line" phone rang in the studio and it was the station's program director who said to me "You had better be prepared to buy that woman a new car." He went on to tell me that if she persisted and followed up on what I had told her she won, I would have to make arrangements to buy her a car.
Needless to say, I had many sleepless nights and as the days, weeks and months went by she never called to demand the car.
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One night I was on the air, and our huge orange cat the station had adopted, Sly, was sleeping in his usual place on top of the triple stack cart deck. About 4:30 AM, the deck went dead with an excruciating wow-down. I quickly grabbed one of our few remaining vinyl records (we only had one turntable left) and started to keep the show going with one turntable, talking between every record and cueing by sight. In the meantime, I was frantically on the phone to our engineer, who said he'd be right down. He got there, took the back off the cart deck, and started pulling handfuls of orange cat hair out of the motor! Needless to say, he posted a HUGE note stating that Sly (the cat) was not allowed to sleep on the cart deck any more! Hey, who could blame him, it WAS warm!
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While at WMEX in Boston (I was using the name Dan Donovan [1960/1961]), we had a great music director named Bill Walsh. He had a great ear! It was his job to listen to all the new product, select the good stuff and have a weekly meeting with Arnie 'Woo-Woo' Ginsburg (the Program Director) so that Arnie could decide what would be added to the playlist the following week.
One Friday afternoon, I walked into the record library and Bill Walsh (a hot-headed Irishman) was throwing 45's all over the room. The reason? Arnie had turned down two records that Bill thought were hits. Woo-Woo had goofed. Billy was right. The two records Arnie rejected were "Runaway" by Del Shannon and "Mother-In-Law" by Ernie K-Doe!
**********************************************************
I don't know how true this story is, so I'll leave out names and call letters.
It was Christmas Eve at a NY station which was airing midnight mass from St. Pat's. There really isn't much to do once you're set up and on the air, so people brought in food and had a little party. All of the food was in the studio of the control room that was "hot", including a crock pot of chili which began to boil over. The board op, seeing this, wanted to alert someone in the studio. But instead of hitting the "talkback" button, he hit "slate", which put him on the air. So right in the middle of midnight mass you heard " Now, let us hear the word of our Lord ...'Turn the crock pot off!'"
I understand that the board op never lived this down.
**********************************************************
My first radio gig was at age 19 in Missoula, Montana at 1340 KYLT, an AM Adult Contemporary. It was in 1980 when The Old Fat Dad hired me for all nights and explained the most important part of the job was to make sure his coffee was ready by 5:58 AM each morning for his show, other than that "just keep it on the air". I always wanted to put a hit of acid in his coffee and watch the fun, but I didn't.
One of my duties after working the all night shift was to record the morning newscast for the automated KYLT-FM FM 100 rocker. In those days it was recorded on a cart and you had one chance to do it right or you had to start over. It was also recorded in the same room as the automation system which also had live assist capabilities. When a certain peg was in position, the board would automatically go live at the top of the hour.
I was pretty green at news reading and really sucked at it. However, I had pride in my work and didn't want to put out a newscast with mistakes, so I kept doing it over, and over, and over again for almost an hour. Of course, the only bulk eraser was in the production room so each time I messed up I had to go there to erase and back to the other room to record. I was getting real tired by this time and just wanted to go home.
It was on my 15Th or so attempt and at 7AM sharp when it happened. The night guy (who was training to go live) left the peg up and I didn't notice it. I started to record the newscast at the top of the hour and got about a third of the way through the newscast and messed up again. Frustrated with myself I blurted out the "F" word. At that moment I realized the peg was left up and I was LIVE. I immediately pushed the button to restart the automation and music played.
I sat there and felt my face and body get very warm. I had just said the worst word you could say live on the air during drive time on the rock station. My career flashed in front of me. I finally got the newscast recorded and went home.
I didn't hear from anyone at the radio station the rest of the day and figured I still had a job. When I came in at midnight the evening jock asked me what happened because a friend of his told him he was laying in bed with his wife that morning listening to KYLT-FM FM and said the news came on, the newscaster suddenly stopped, said the "F" word, and then music played. It was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.
I failed to see the humor.
My favourite actually happened to one of my influences, the late Bob Lewis (Bob-A-Lou). Before he worked for WABC (obviously), he worked for a small Long Island station where it was his duty every Sunday morning to play a religion hell-fire-and-brimstone show that was delivered on one of those huge platters that could be played once and then had to be thrown out because it would scratch so easily. Bob's routine was to show up at the station, put the first disc on, then go out for coffee, returning in time to change discs 15 minutes later. One morning as Bob returned to the station, he noticed that all the phone lines were lit up, a very unusual occurrence considering the hour and the programming, which Bob never listened to in his car, seeing as the more inspiring New York City market was so close and booming. Racing into the studio, he discovered that the needle had gotten stuck in a crack on the disc, just as the preacher had been saying, "all sinners will go to hell"-click-"go to hell"-click-"go to hell"-click-"go to hell"....
**********************************************************
Back in the late 70s, while still in college, I was a news assistant at WHN. Part of my Sunday morning duties were running the board for the public affairs programs. All were on reel-to- reel tapes and it was pretty routine after doing this for a number of weeks. I'd cue up each tape to the first sounds and then just hit "play" when it was time to air.
One Sunday though, one of the programs was rewound "tails out" so when I hit "play" the program started running backwards! At this point I started to panic as a 50,000 watt station in the #1 market is running "The Lutheran Hour" backwards. I quickly grabbed a song from the cart rack behind me, stuck it in the deck and brought up a Dolly Parton song, while trying to rewind the tape as fast as possible. I got the tape reversed, faded down Dolly, and went back to the tape, but in my panic forgot the show started with a countdown. Dolly comes back for a quick encore and finally "The Lutheran Hour" made its delayed return to the air.
**********************************************************
I hate to admit it, but it was I who totally demolished the Jag XKE while working at KFRC San Francisco in 1967-68. It was the one to be given away on the air. Afterwards, I was tortured by all the other jocks on the air. Mike Phillips even talked the engineers into running drop’s between Bill Drake’s intro and other recorded liners that "shamed" me for my deed! Les Turpin had just replaced Tom Rounds and when he heard about me destroying the car, slammed his fist into a wall at his country club breaking his wrist.
**********************************************************
In March of 1982, I began hosting and producing a nightly three-hour game show on KOGO-AM/San Diego. Listeners competed on the air in a variety of three-minute games complete with bells, buzzers, applause and winner fanfare ... just like a real TV game show. Winning contestants were awarded dinner certificates, car washes, pizzas, movie theatre passes, etc.
During my third week, a woman competed against another listener and won the game. I congratulated her and as I was about to announce her prize (a pair of movie passes) she asked me on-the-air what she had won. Previous to the game I had announced what the winner of the game would receive - but apparently she didn't remember. So I asked her "You don't know what you've won?" She said that she didn't. And I told her in my very best announcer's voice "You've won a BRAND NEW CAR!" She then yelled and screamed and carried on for what seemed to be an eternity. After she calmed down I told her that she didn't really win the car but a pair of movie theatre passes which she accepted.
Going into the commercial break the "hot line" phone rang in the studio and it was the station's program director who said to me "You had better be prepared to buy that woman a new car." He went on to tell me that if she persisted and followed up on what I had told her she won, I would have to make arrangements to buy her a car.
Needless to say, I had many sleepless nights and as the days, weeks and months went by she never called to demand the car.
**********************************************************
One night I was on the air, and our huge orange cat the station had adopted, Sly, was sleeping in his usual place on top of the triple stack cart deck. About 4:30 AM, the deck went dead with an excruciating wow-down. I quickly grabbed one of our few remaining vinyl records (we only had one turntable left) and started to keep the show going with one turntable, talking between every record and cueing by sight. In the meantime, I was frantically on the phone to our engineer, who said he'd be right down. He got there, took the back off the cart deck, and started pulling handfuls of orange cat hair out of the motor! Needless to say, he posted a HUGE note stating that Sly (the cat) was not allowed to sleep on the cart deck any more! Hey, who could blame him, it WAS warm!
**********************************************************
While at WMEX in Boston (I was using the name Dan Donovan [1960/1961]), we had a great music director named Bill Walsh. He had a great ear! It was his job to listen to all the new product, select the good stuff and have a weekly meeting with Arnie 'Woo-Woo' Ginsburg (the Program Director) so that Arnie could decide what would be added to the playlist the following week.
One Friday afternoon, I walked into the record library and Bill Walsh (a hot-headed Irishman) was throwing 45's all over the room. The reason? Arnie had turned down two records that Bill thought were hits. Woo-Woo had goofed. Billy was right. The two records Arnie rejected were "Runaway" by Del Shannon and "Mother-In-Law" by Ernie K-Doe!
**********************************************************
I don't know how true this story is, so I'll leave out names and call letters.
It was Christmas Eve at a NY station which was airing midnight mass from St. Pat's. There really isn't much to do once you're set up and on the air, so people brought in food and had a little party. All of the food was in the studio of the control room that was "hot", including a crock pot of chili which began to boil over. The board op, seeing this, wanted to alert someone in the studio. But instead of hitting the "talkback" button, he hit "slate", which put him on the air. So right in the middle of midnight mass you heard " Now, let us hear the word of our Lord ...'Turn the crock pot off!'"
I understand that the board op never lived this down.
**********************************************************
My first radio gig was at age 19 in Missoula, Montana at 1340 KYLT, an AM Adult Contemporary. It was in 1980 when The Old Fat Dad hired me for all nights and explained the most important part of the job was to make sure his coffee was ready by 5:58 AM each morning for his show, other than that "just keep it on the air". I always wanted to put a hit of acid in his coffee and watch the fun, but I didn't.
One of my duties after working the all night shift was to record the morning newscast for the automated KYLT-FM FM 100 rocker. In those days it was recorded on a cart and you had one chance to do it right or you had to start over. It was also recorded in the same room as the automation system which also had live assist capabilities. When a certain peg was in position, the board would automatically go live at the top of the hour.
I was pretty green at news reading and really sucked at it. However, I had pride in my work and didn't want to put out a newscast with mistakes, so I kept doing it over, and over, and over again for almost an hour. Of course, the only bulk eraser was in the production room so each time I messed up I had to go there to erase and back to the other room to record. I was getting real tired by this time and just wanted to go home.
It was on my 15Th or so attempt and at 7AM sharp when it happened. The night guy (who was training to go live) left the peg up and I didn't notice it. I started to record the newscast at the top of the hour and got about a third of the way through the newscast and messed up again. Frustrated with myself I blurted out the "F" word. At that moment I realized the peg was left up and I was LIVE. I immediately pushed the button to restart the automation and music played.
I sat there and felt my face and body get very warm. I had just said the worst word you could say live on the air during drive time on the rock station. My career flashed in front of me. I finally got the newscast recorded and went home.
I didn't hear from anyone at the radio station the rest of the day and figured I still had a job. When I came in at midnight the evening jock asked me what happened because a friend of his told him he was laying in bed with his wife that morning listening to KYLT-FM FM and said the news came on, the newscaster suddenly stopped, said the "F" word, and then music played. It was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.
I failed to see the humor.