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Horrible shows you know you worked on or listened to.

J

jhead

I know alot of radio professionals read this board. I know most people who post on this board have started out in small markets producing/hosting great shows or mediocre shows. Has anyone ever worked on a show they knew...deep down...was not going to last 1 year, 6 months or 6 weeks?
 
The absolute worst was my own. Many years ago and far away. I have, in the interest of good taste and personal embarassment, destroyed all transcriptions. I was terrible.
 
The show I did for several years on WRFG had to be the pinnacle of radio underachievement.....it was really bad! Playing album sides so we could go outside and burn fatties didn't help....my tongue got three times larger after the all request albumside! I had muchroom tea one night before an all nighter.....tripping in a radio station(lot's of colorful blinking lights and such) is an experience beyond description. Thank Gawd those days are past.......
I really wanted to be a jock when I was a kid. It was a cold awakening when I heard my voice on tape for the first time. I actually worked at a commercial station for about 1 year(for Captn' Herb)but I was (beyond description)BAD! Herb still has a tape of me and the newsguy doing an on-air report about a fire in downtown Austell which he plays for anyone bored enough to listen. If it wasn't me.....it would be really funny.
Thankfully, there was no Radio-Info back then. You guys would have been cruel.....
 
It comes from TV, but it still goes down in the annals of B-A-D...

Major election night coverage on an aspiring all-news station not in Georgia back in 1996...

After 8pm, it was unscripted coverage, switching between the studio, the "map in the basement", and the various remote sites around the area.

Station GM/on-air talent, station owner, news director, acting chief engineer kept arguing about where to throw it to, what to say, what to cover next...

The big suprise of the evening was the fist-throwing fight in master control between the GM/on-air talent and the acting CE. Oh, BTW, the acting CE never worked on a transmitter in his life. He was only supposed to be on site for a few days to tweak the studio lighting, and they kept asking him to do more, which allowed him to quickly build his fifedom and start having a fling with the weather person (a married woman at the time), but I digress...

We made it through the night and closed shop, then went to the bar across the street. A beer brought a whole lot of reflection before I started my 100 mile commute back home (and NO, I did not drive drunk) .

It made me happy to get a job offer from a GA radio station two weeks later, but that was going from the frying pan into the control-freak fire. That's another story...

Even though the coverage was special programming, it was a wonder it aired at all!
 
littlejohn said:
The absolute worst was my own. Many years ago and far away. I have, in the interest of good taste and personal embarassment, destroyed all transcriptions. I was terrible.
Click to expand...

I think the worst show I ever did was just after I took one last swig out of my coke can as I was walking into the station to start my shift, only to find out that a bee had flown into the can. It stung me on the tongue.
 
jhead said:
I know alot of radio professionals read this board. I know most people who post on this board have started out in small markets producing/hosting great shows or mediocre shows. Has anyone ever worked on a show they knew...deep down...was not going to last 1 year, 6 months or 6 weeks?
Click to expand...

Me. 20 years ago. I was working at WCEH in Hawkinsville. A few years ago I found a cassette skim of one of my shows. I sounded like Cleavon Little's character Prince from the movie FM! Not cool on a small market country station. Needless to say, I have "misplaced" that air check.
 
When I was a kid, I never understood the appeal to the "Dr. Demento Show"? Does that count?
 
Mr. Bill said:
It comes from TV, but it still goes down in the annals of B-A-D...
Click to expand...

Since you put it that way, Bill.............

ABC affiliate local Morning show, 1998. Brand spanking new Director/TD. He was doing graphics and just got promoted, and was filling in for the regular Director, who was on vacation. This was his first solo act.

It's a small market, so only the weather guy and a main anchor. The problem was, the main anchor hadn't shown up! This was the first time in twenty years that she over-slept! Wrench in gears #1. Because of that, the producer and everyone's scrambling to set the weather guy to anchor the entire show by himself. Well, he's never reported before, or even read a script in his life. He just builds weather maps and talks about them for three minutes.

One minute before air, the main anchor shows up, so the scramble is on again to get her in the chair. Show opens, camera tight on her, and she-looks-baaaaaaaad (insert sheep sound effect for "bad" here). Hair's a mess, no makeup and she looks like she just woke up with a plethora of bags! I'm running Master Control and feedbay, so I'm loading up the tapes for the show. She starts off, and reads random stories out of the script! She was WAY out of order. Meanwhile, our little director is about to explode because he doesn't know where to go next. He punches up tape that she talked about a minute ago, another tape she's not even touching, the wrong camera, weather graphics. You name it, it went to air that day!

I call to him and the producer through the intercom and tell them "dude, let's just dump out to a commercial and regroup." Problem about that was that the main anchor didn't have her IFB in, so she couldn't get ANY prompt! Somehow, we get out to a break.

When we come back, fade up from black to see the weather guy trying to help our dear main anchor get her IFB in! She couldn't get it back in, so no way to cue in and, lo and behold, the circus continues for a second time!

I used to have a VHS copy of it, but it got lost in the tons of moves I've had since then. It was HILARIOUS to watch!

On the radio side:

I had just finished pulling an overnighter at the top 40 station in town, and the PT board op was running late. The morning show was on location that morning. The problem was that the board op had no clue what she was doing. She ran "Open House Party" with John Garabedian and Rick Dees top 40 on the weekends. That was her entire resume, and I think she was only doing that for about two weeks before she was given this task. She had no clue on formatics, where the mics were, what to pot up, etc. I had to stay an extra hour to get her straight. Then, I was sent over to the NBC affiliate to get the weather reels for the day. En route, I hear the end of a song, a buzz, her (the board op) voice say something, and the male talent asking whether he was on the air or not!

Major trainwrecks indeed!
 
I had been working for Clear Channel in Newnan for about 8 month when I was approached to help produce a new show for two days (the two days were sept 30 and october 1). The days I was prodcing were test runs for a female host (she had less experience in radio than I did and i had been in the business for about 2 years). The new jock was from Indiana or Illinois and she was going to do a show on Mid-West Georgia. If things went well, I was orignally going to show her the ropes of the board and go back to 15 hours a week. Things went so well that Joe Pedicino wanted me to be her producer for the run of the show. After talking with her and having a meeting with Joe about the progess the show, I had a baaaaaad feeling that Seneca's show wasn't going to last long. The Monday the show was to hit the airwaves, Seneca never showed up to do the show.
 
In the mid-1980's, I produced and Oldies show at a Chicago A/C station. We got a new PD from out of town. The first thing he did was remove: Ides of March, Buckinghams, Impressions, New Colony Six, American Breed, Staple Singers etc because he didn't know them (for the youngsters out there, Chicago had a great music scene ca 1965-1970 plus two legendary top 40 stations, WLS and WCFL that played everything and had amazing jocks).

He made us play "Star Sets" (three songs in a a row) by the likes of Dionne Warwick and added "Southern Cross" by CSN, even though it came out two years earlier. His rationale; they are an oldies band. The final insult was when he took over the show and started calling himself Jim Townsend thinking it would play with all the English people of Chicago. For those who don't know, in Chicago there is a huge Irish population and one guy named Nigel. The station went from top five overall to bottom 20 faster than you can say "Clark Kent." Our show went from number one in 24-45 to number 17 in one book.
 
In the late 70's, (I'd like to forget exactly when), I was anchoring a radio newscast live, with a live in-studio report about two women who had been abducted in the Chicago area and taken to middle Georgia. One of the women was murdered, the other tied to a tree and left for dead. The surviving victim managed to untie herself and stumbled to the road, seeking help. I introed the story and threw it to the in-studio reporter for "a live update." As he read the story and identified the victims, it became apparant to him they had strange sounding names (think..."Frick and Frack"). Unable to contain himself, the reporter began to laugh. I cut his mike and began to read the the next story but I too began to laugh as i watched him slink off into the corner and continue chuckling. Soon, I could not go on without laughing. I never finished the newscast. It is a wonder I kept my job.
 
Straight, no commercial interruptions ever, broadcast of a city council meeting. Dull, boring but one of the highest rated mother's ever! Go figure.
 
Anyone who has read/produced "The Obituary Column of the Air" or "Swap Shop" raise your hands!! ::) Now there's some good radio!
 
OH! Now that I think of it.....out of Frenandina Beach, FL (AM 1550?) .....even worse than THAT was one of those "bidding" shows, where callers would call in and bid on gift certificates for local restaurants, services.....all calls taken live on the air. Boring as watching paint dry. This was back in the late 80's....to their credit though, I guess they preceded "ebay"!!
 
Ah....the ol' "Radio Auction on the Air" routine.....
WSSA, 1570 Khz, used to do that smooze back when it was under different ownership. But I've been told it made good money for the station.....
This same guy now owns a station down on the east coast of Florida.....I'll bet he's doing it down there too.
Yes....it does make for boring radio. But give the guy some credit-it's an innovative way to make money with a station which no one listens to!
 
I give you Herb Jepko and the Nitecaps. Truly two - vomit 'entertainment'. It was impossible for a board opto stay awake for that one.
 
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