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DID I JUST HEAR THAT? Those Radio Bloopers

B

b-turner

In a little border town of 30,000, I'm happily playing the top 40 hits on the only FM in town. It's just before Labor Day around 1979, give or take a year. The news director is bilingual, doing local news for the Spanish language AM and for the FM top 40. Concluding the newscast, the news director reads a press release for "The Labor Day Grand Prix Race" to be held at the ranch where the movie set for The Alamo was built. Unfortunately the news director does not realize the word Prix is pronounced "pree". The word is pronounced as it would be in English, several times in the press release, concluding with "so for a day of family fun, bring the kids out to watch the Labor Day Grand Prix Race at the Shahan Ranch north of Brackettville".

I recall straining to hold back uncontrolled laughter as not to humiliate the kindly news director while awaiting my cue. It was truly a Less Nessman moment.

The owner of that ranch, named Happy Shahan (Shay-Han) was a fellow that seemed not to have the time to verbalize all the conversational words. A new receptionist answers the station phone number. It's Happy. Instead of saying "Hello, this is Happy Shahan", Happy just says "Happy Shahan". The new receptionist quickly responds "And a Happy Shahan to you too sir!". You can't make this stuff up! The receptionist thought it was some Irish greeting or holiday she was unaware of.

Happy was a nice guy. When he set his mind to something it happened,no matter how impossible it might seem. He had the idea of building a movie set on his ranch to 'boost the town'. Locals thought why would Hollywood come out to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere to shoot a movie. Happy simply went out to Hollywood, got a motel room and started calling and visiting folks, not giving up until somebody would talk to him. He had no connections or inside tips. He just went out there and talked until somebody listened. That's pretty amazing considering he pulled it off.
 
My favorite was one evening in the fall of—I think—'04 or '08 , a well known female anchor at ABC radio (I think she has since retired): “Now this ABC News update, the 20__ Presidential Erection...”!!! As this (iirc) was during one of the Clinton matches, this had to have been a Freudian Slip! P=)
 
Uncle Kaimbridge said:
My favorite was one evening in the fall of—I think—'04 or '08 , a well known female anchor at ABC radio (I think she has since retired): “Now this ABC News update, the 20__ Presidential Erection...”!!! As this (iirc) was during one of the Clinton matches, this had to have been a Freudian Slip! P=)
Click to expand...

Ever since I did the same blooper as a kid, I have followed those "election" gaffes... and they are countless.

Mine was, in 1960, in the few seconds between ABC News and ABC election coverage, "This is WCUY, Cleveland Heights. Stay tuned for the latest erection results."

Not nearly as funny as saying it in the Clinton context.

On the same station, I also said "WCUY, Cleveland Heights, ninty-poo point pee on your FM dial". Soon after, I realized that the microphone and I were enemies.
 
there is Casey Kasem bloopers online, especially on YouTube, including the famous blooper where Casey recorded a transition from upbeat song to a sad song that meant to be a dedication to someone's dog that had passed away and he went on potty mouthed tirade over always doing a death dedication after a upbeat tempo.

also, there's a blooper online of Barry White cutting a promo for the Texas all-black college Paul Quinn College (which when this was made was still based in Waco before the all-black college moved up north to Dallas in 1990.) in which he swore alot while he was cutting the promo for air.
 
How about Ronald Reagan forgetting that his mike was on, before one of his radio addresses in 1984: "I just signed legislation that makes Russia illegal. We begin bombing in 5 minutes."
 
I'll have to dig through my hard drive, but I remember finding audio of two different ones:

1.) On a station called "Sunny" a jock reads the station positioner as "More Music, Less ****... er.... TALK"

2.) I think it was a Fox News Radio update, the anchor starts coughing like something flew down her throat... and eventually had to just cut to commercial because she couldn't talk.

I know I have audio of both SOMEWHERE. Gotta dig for it though
 
DavidEduardo said:


Ever since I did the same blooper as a kid, I have followed those "election" gaffes... and they are countless.

Mine was, in 1960, in the few seconds between ABC News and ABC election coverage, "This is WCUY, Cleveland Heights. Stay tuned for the latest erection results."

Not nearly as funny as saying it in the Clinton context.

Click to expand...

That was also a joke on SNL in the early years with Gilda Radner getting the word wrong.:rolleyes:
 
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Three of mine. On July 4th, 2003 I was asked to guest co-host a radio show on a small AM station. When I was reading the sports scores I accidentally said that The Redsox had won when they actually lost. The host later let me correct my mistake. Although the listeners didn't know as it was my first time as a guest co-host I am a Yankees fan so it could be said that I made that mistake about the Redsox on purpose.

Then in 2004 that same station was sold. They LMA'd the station to a Hispanic Company 6AM-6PM. Anyone was welcome to buy time to host their own show 6PM-Midnight with the remaining time slots sold for infomercials. I bought a 2 hour block every Friday Night. I played a wide variety of music, did a "Weird News" segment, whatever I wanted. I took one Friday Night off for a pre-planned trip. The following Friday Night during the final commercial break of my show I put all my CD's away. There would be about 8 or 9 minutes left of my show. I was going to use that time to talk about the trip. Commercial break ends I crack the mic to begin talking about my trip and my brain just melted. I ended up just mumbling incoherently for about 30 seconds. I just left the station in Dead Air for the rest of my show.

Another Friday Night (some time before my brain melting incident) I was doing my show and the CD I was playing began skipping. That led to me throwing the station into commercials for 10 minutes, while I sat in the lobby and cried. I was so embarrassed about the CD skipping.
 
I was once testing the mic to voicetrack with, “Testicles...1, 2, 3???,” only to find my levels not moving at all. I looked down and, to my horror, the mic was in program instead of audition. Luckily, no one called about it.

I worked at a small market station that hired the receptionist at a local consulting firm. She called about buying ads, the sales manager thought she had a great personality and voice, and the PD decided to give her a shot. I trained her for a couple hours, and she was doing an amazing job, especially for someone who had never been behind a mic before. Convinced she was fine, I headed home (45 minutes away). I almost went off the road when the TOH bed came on, and one of the artists she announced coming up in the next set was “Hootie and the Bullsh*t!”
 
At a small station near Meadville PA in 1979, our evening guy did news headlines at the top of the hour from UPI. Dick Thornburgh was Governor then, and the evening guy read a news story and stumbled a bit in the story, calling Thornburgh "Pennsylvania's Dick Governor Thornburgh" instead of "Pennsylvania's Governor Dick Thornburgh.
 
Not a blooper per se, but...

I was the engineer at a highly-rated CHR station several years ago, and the morning guy would call me occasionally with some technical problem. He would frequently put me on the air without telling me.

I wouldn't find out until later that our conversation had been broadcast. My wife drove to work one morning, listening to me and the morning guy trying to figure out problems with a remote broadcast. Fun stuff.

I suppose he thought there was some entertainment value in having the engineer talking "geek" without knowing it was being aired. I can't recall if I let any objectionable words slip out.
 
Many years ago, 1010 WINS used a live microphone in the teletype room for its signature background sound. That arrangement was modified abruptly, however, after someone in the teletype room had uttered an expletive that was heard on the air. Thereafter, WINS used recorded teletype sounds.
 
On my way to the beach, there is a low-power FM owned by a church. Every year it seemed they were playing the same easy listening songs as I passed through their town. On one of them there was a sneeze which I don't imagine was on the original recording, but maybe it was done by whoever was putting together the sequence of records that was the same every time. And every time, there was that sneeze again.

Last year they were playing Christian music, which seems to make more sense for a church, but that was nice music they played those other years. Actually, it's good Christian music that they play too.
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
there is Casey Kasem bloopers online, especially on YouTube, including the famous blooper where Casey recorded a transition from upbeat song to a sad song that meant to be a dedication to someone's dog that had passed away and he went on potty mouthed tirade over always doing a death dedication after a upbeat tempo.
Click to expand...

(NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV7WF5VVwuo

Kemosabe said:
Meanwhile, on the television side, who could ignore Shepard Smith's cunning, linguistic prowess in the following report?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk5NgML9hCg
Click to expand...

And letʼs not forget Bill O'Reillyʼs (in his younger days) famous Inside Edition meltdown:

(NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_HyZ5aW76c&feature=related
 
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