Any great April Fool's Day stunts in WNY radio history?

[Obtuse1]

One I recall clearly was WPHD's 97Rock day-long tribute (at the time 96.9 went "Lite" as WRLT), complete with promos/ID's and personalities.

Any others you recall?

 

[Bob1370]

Late 80s (1987 IIRC)...WXXI-AM and FM in Rochester switched formats for the day, with the news and talk showing up on FM and the classical music on AM. Confused everybody, fooled the papers...then everything went back to normal the next day.

 

[umtrr-author]

Probably off-topic unless some Unsuspecting Radio Personality picks this up, but a local museum has a good one for this April 1:

http://blog.eastmanhouse.org/2011/0...house-vaults-ken-burns-making-trek-to-museum/

 

[JohnW]

On an April 1 in the mid to later 60s, Jack Palvino on his WBBF morning show introduced a new device added to the station - a device that was able to transmit smells that are converted to analog audio. I don't remember the name, but it was on the line of Smell-O-Vision.

From the start of his show on, everyone heard the sound of a coffee pot perking in the background. All were told to make sure to be listening and be right next to the radio speaker at 8:05 when he would turn the device on and we would br able to smell the coffee thru our radio speakers. Right after the news, he announced that it was on and gave out the station phone number. People called from all over, some saying that they smelled the coffee, some couldn't.

My wife remembered that she smelled it in the car on the way to work. It wasn't until later in the day that the city found out that it had been put-on. A classic!

 

[Philip_Airtime]

As a kid, I remember listening to KB. It had to be 1967, and they switched jocks with another Cap Cities station in Providence I think it was. The on-air explanation was that the KB jocks had gone on strike, and these were the replacements. Perhaps someone who was working there at the time can flesh this out more. But as a 12-year-old kid, I bought it.

While he was at WBFO, Bill Raffel, now the host of Saturday Rounds on WNED-FM (as Pastrick says, no promotional fee received), always came up with a creative Aprils Fools feature. My personal favorite aired at the time Buffalo was celebrating its public arts project with the artistically decorated buffaloes. Bill reported giant butter lambs were appearing all over Buffalo. He got some folks at the Broadway Market to play along. Pretty funny stuff.

 

[John C]

I believe when WKLX was at 98.9 they went "Disco 99" one April Fools day. People were calling in saying how much they loved the new format. Also, didn't 92.5 become "Rocket 92" on April Fools day before flipping to WBEE? I'm not sure about that one.

 

[Mike_Saffran]

Also, didn't 92.5 become "Rocket 92" on April Fools day before flipping to WBEE? I'm not sure about that one.

That was April 1, 1987, all right. But the station — which had evolved from “Magic 92” (AOR) to “Q92” (CHR) to simply 92.5 FM WMJQ (more or less Hot AC, if I recall) — reverted to “Magic 92” for the day. And, John, I’m pretty sure you and I were tuned in that day inside the newsroom of a little, country AM station. Suspecting a prank (as were many others, I’m sure), I made certain to turn on the radio at home a little before midnight that night — just in time to hear the infamous botched transition from Night Ranger’s “Goodbye” to WBEE (as whoever was on the board got fooled — appropriately enough — by the song’s false ending).

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

As a kid, I remember listening to KB. It had to be 1967, and they switched jocks with another Cap Cities station in Providence I think it was. The on-air explanation was that the KB jocks had gone on strike, and these were the replacements. Perhaps someone who was working there at the time can flesh this out more. But as a 12-year-old kid, I bought it.

While he was at WBFO, Bill Raffel, now the host of Saturday Rounds on WNED-FM (as Pastrick says, no promotional fee received), always came up with a creative Aprils Fools feature. My personal favorite aired at the time Buffalo was celebrating its public arts project with the artistically decorated buffaloes. Bill reported giant butter lambs were appearing all over Buffalo. He got some folks at the Broadway Market to play along. Pretty funny stuff.

You have a good memory Phil (Meaning the KB stunt.) I was talking to Dan Neaverth a few weeks ago about stuff like this. The station that traded jocks with KB was 1410 WPOP Hartford (Reynolds stop before he came to KB, IIRC.) You'd have thought it would be WPRO, since KB and PRO were owned by Cap-Cities at the time. DN recalled walking through the Hartford airport, handcuffed to another one of the KB jocks (probably Klestine since he and Dan pulled some great off the air stunts) as if DN had been taken into custody as a fugitive from justice, returning to Hartford. Somebody stops to talk to Dan and his 'handler' says, "Ma'am, if you knew what this man does for a living, you wouldn't be talking to him." Scowls and howls aplenty.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

The best April Fools day put on I was ever involved with was in Fort Lauderdale. There is a small tunnel on US-1 called the New River Tunnel. We started asking listeners on the air what they thought of toll booths on the New River Tunnel. We never said they were going to put tool booths in but lots of people jumped to that conclusion. We had a lot of fun with it.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The best April Fools day put on I was ever involved with was in Fort Lauderdale. There is a small tunnel on US-1 called the New River Tunnel.

Heh. There's an April Fool's bit waiting to happen. "We've been informed that the US Geologic Survey has determined that the New River is no longer new, and that it will have to be renamed." You can take it from there...

 

[Paul_Warren]

I don't remember the year, but it was during that brief pi$$ing match between 'KB and WGR over who was "first in AM stereo" in Buffalo, and I think it was Stan and Danny on mornings. So...late 70s?

'KB was first, but for some reason was holding off promoting it. WGR was running the pilot to light up the stereo indicator and open the wideband on receivers, but running only mono programming (which was also not legal).

Anyway, IIRC, someone out at the shared transmitter site patched each station onto the other's right channel during the morning show for a bit. The memory is hazy, but I don't recall either host embracing the joke, and few listeners probably knew what was going on.

 

[Tom Wells]

I don't remember the year, but it was during that brief pi$$ing match between 'KB and WGR over who was "first in AM stereo" in Buffalo, and I think it was Stan and Danny on mornings. So...late 70s?

'KB was first, but for some reason was holding off promoting it. WGR was running the pilot to light up the stereo indicator and open the wideband on receivers, but running only mono programming (which was also not legal).

Anyway, IIRC, someone out at the shared transmitter site patched each station onto the other's right channel during the morning show for a bit. The memory is hazy, but I don't recall either host embracing the joke, and few listeners probably knew what was going on.

As an engineer, I'd love to hear an aircheck of what that actually sounded like !

 

[Radio_bored-Op]

cant forget - - about when shredd and ragan ( at the time),mornings -
...at 10am, claimed (?adam 12) "called in sick" soo they stayed on -
then at 3, ....(talent?_cant remember, but he had car trouble), or sumpin'
and couldnt make it -in - they stayed on 12.hours, and were pretty
liberal w/ the free form of the songs they were "permitted" to play ....
-
they kept bitchin' and sayin nooo to april's gag, and no, seriously
(in tom ragan's )grrr...voice, "this sucks" seriously, i just freekin
wanna go home!!!
-
it is noted,this prank "worked" because at the time, this
is when s&r played 8-10 songs, per hour... it was raved as
one of the best days at the station (for the music they selected);
dont know if that says that much about the current state of rock today.