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 Okay, everyone leaves the mic on ONCE in their career, right? Well, when I was doing nights at a CHR, I was talking to my mom on the phone, told her to hold on while I did a break, then came back to her without turning the mic off... went back to telling her about how much "I just don't love "him" anymore, Mom." "He" wasn't listening but a co-worker was (my boss was too busy getting drunk I guess) and hotlined me. I turned the mic off, told Mom I had to go, then waited for the boyfriend to call... he didn't. But a month later I was eating out and the waitress somehow learned who I was and she said, "I remember one time I was listening and you were talking to someone on the phone and didn't know your mic was on and..." I stopped her there and tried to laugh it off. My boyfriend (who I still hadn't dumped yet) was with me and asked me to finish the story. I made up some lame excuse. I forget what I said. At least I didn't cuss. And now I always look before I speak. Oh, and crank those studio monitors...you know if they're muted there's a mic on somewhere! |
Many years ago I did a morning
show in Wausau,
and the newsman read from the newsroom behind the studio, which
meant that all cues were thrown "over the shoulder".
You couldn't see into the newsroom without craning your neck.
Our newsman, a portly gentleman in his 50's, had trouble with his chair which was an old naugahyde monster on wheels. Every day he was shimming one of the wheels because it was unsteady. One morning he was rushing into the newsroom just as the sounder was playing, he hit the chair, the wheel gave way, and he went sailing across the floor with his mic open! Naturally, with my back to the newsroom, I couldn't figure out what all the commotion was, but once we saw what happened, it was impossible to keep from laughing. It was a good thing there was no local death or destruction in that newscast, because of all the on-air snickering going on. I'm sure the folks at home wondered what fumes we'd been inhaling!!! |
My job included the midday
airshift and
then I came back to read the afternoon news. Our PM Drive jock
was a real radio nut, silly and a lot of fun. I took the news
very seriously, especially because my initial radio experience
was as a news reporter. We only had one studio for music and
news broadcasts, so we were sitting across from each other. One afternoon, I read a tragic news story. It included the word "decapitated". When I got to that word, Todd started snickering. I chuckled a little, but somehow managed to grit my teeth and go on, despite the urge to laugh. The next story was just as gruesome, and when I said "bludgeoned", he lost it. We both giggled and choked through another news story, but it was too late. Finally, he just hit a commercial and we both fell off our chairs, rolling with laughter. To this day I am embarrassed about 'losing it', and wonder how many listeners were totally disgusted with us. |
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| In the late '70s our station in Chicago conducted a promotion called "The Million Dollar Minute". A million dollars in cash was scattered on the floor of a bank vault and a single listener was given sixty seconds to scoop up as much as she could. The station figured the woman selected would walk away with about $10,000. But the woman was given a week to train for the event, the money was poured out in a pile instead of being placed flat on the vault floor, and the recepticles for her to dump the money were placed inside the doors rather than just outside. Net result: the winner managed to grab $106, 083. Oops! | It was early on a Monday morning 'bout 12:30 am...I had to do a break and I assumed my CD was ready. Little did I know that it wasn't. I'm ready to do the break and the song will not start. Try as I might "New Kids" just won't play and that's when I begin to curse like a drunken sailor. After I uttered some of the worst words possible, I realized I heard them in my headphones! I'm on the air! Then it dawns on me that my GM's wife has a bus load of teens driving back from a New Kidz show. Well, I moved on, only received two calls, and the GM was none the wiser. (BTW, the words were "#^*@!#* %*$!") | |||
| We had this guy who had great pipes but didn't know how to use
them. Naturally management wanted the rest of us to work with
this guy, train him. It didn't work out, but he did provide us
with some funny memories. All The News That Sh*ts...er, Fits One Saturday morning, this jock, Johnny White by name, comes in to do the morning show. As part of this, he needs to prepare and read a newscast. While recording his newscast onto cart, he screws up, says "Aww, sh*t"...and continues on. Remember, this is on cart. Does he bulk the cart and start over? Heck no! This bright boy plays it back on the air, profanity and all! Result: two days suspension w/o pay, I assume one for the profanity and the other for the gross stupidity. Joy And Pain Same jock, several months later (amazing he lasted this long). He is now pulling middays. I was evenings, but I happened to be around the station doing some work. We all know that if the GM or PD leaves the station, theres a little breathing room, and we feel a little less tense. Well, good old Johnny decides to show his joy by doing a little end-zone dance in the hallway when the PD left early one day. I happened to be on the phone in the sales office taking to the GM. Well, all of the sudden, theres this SCREAMING from Johnny down the hallway. The GM says, "What in hell is going on there???" I round the corner and theres 280 pound 6'4" Johnny, lying in the hallway (blocking traffic), screaming in agony that he broke his ankle. Well, I had to relay this little incident to the GM, no one could lift his bulky butt, and we ended up having to call the rescue squad. P.S. His ankle was just twisted. |
I was doing morning news/sidekick on
a rock station
in Oklahoma City. It was Halloween, so I decided to call someone
from the theatre department at the University to talk about making
cheap, creative costumes. I was (and still am) confused when
I have to put calls on the air. So, I dial him up, hit some buttons
and there I was, talking to him live. The volume was a little
low on the speaker phone in the studio (which is how I was listening
to him... don't ask!) so I reach over to raise it a little and
accidently hang up on him. On the air I redial the number. Operator
comes on, that number is not a working number.. oops, I dial
again, same thing.. now I'm getting a little freaked. Third time
I dial a totally wrong number and some lady answers!!! Later my PD told me he was on his way into work and was listening to this phone fiasco. Said he was following some guy who apparently was listening too and by the time I got to the 3rd wrong number, the guy took his hands off the wheel and threw his head back in laughter... At least it was good for a cheap laugh. |
It
was a twin AM operation,
and on Sundays - between 6am and 7am - I filled an hour with
music. Usually, the fella from the other station would throw
on one of his half-hour prerecorded programs and drop-in on "my
show" to do weather and sports. We hammed-it-up like we
were big-league morning guys. Well, one Sunday morning it got really silly. We got the idea that sound effects would 'spice-up' our show, so we grabbed a couple of sfx discs and went to town, I gave "Sidestreet Traffic Reports" (this was Sunday morning at 6am - not a soul was on the street) with Kevin firing off helicopter effects and me saying things like "well, we got a parked car on Brunner's Lane and it looks as though someone may be pulling out of their driveway. Better keep that in mind, on your way to church this morning". It just got more screwy as it went on. After the hour of fun - only one phone call from fella who said "that's what radio was meant to be" - Kevin went back to his studio to run his tapes. About ten minutes later, Kevin calls me into his studio. He's running the sound effects in cue as Pastor Whatever carries on, on-air. We giggled as the selection of sound effects made Pastor W's sermon much more fun then either of us had found it, in the past. Call it the devil inspiring us, but we decided the listening public had to be let-in on our joke - afterall, who would be listening at 7:15am on Sunday? So Kevin turned-up the pot as Pastor W.... MOOed like a cow. And then, at a remarkably opportune time, he......OINK-OINK-OINKed like a pig. We howled. A second later, the "Bat-phone" rings in the control room. Oops, boss calling... ... "Brian, what time is it?" growled the voice at the other end of the receiver. "Uh, 20 after 7." I responded. "Okay, thanks" he said, in finishing the conversation. Whew. That was close. Kevin asked if he had said anything about the sfx. I told him that the GM only wanted to know the time. So.... back Kevin went to our morning's entertainment. "Moo" Pastor this. "Screaming lady" that. Ten minutes later, the "Bat-phone" rings again. "Brian, where are you?" says the curious station manager. "M-R sir." I confidently responded. "Who's running W-O?" he asked "Uh, Kevin sir." I sheepishly answered. "I can hear &%!@-ing cows on air" he blathered. "Oh" was all I could manage. "Find out why we got cows on Pastor W!" he demanded. Sharing the responsibility for this tom-foolery, I told him that Kevin was in production and that perhaps it was "leaking" through. He mumbled something about bullsh*t I believe, and hung-up. Needless to say, there were no more Pastor Moo mornings for quite a while. |
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