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RADIO PRANKS & HIJINKS

F

F.M.Hertz

Since today is the 1st of April, I'm reminded of some great pranks that either my friends or I would pull, sometimes on the air, sometimes just to blow off steam for our own amusement.

Some of the classic April Fool's pranks I remember, especially in the Pittsburgh market, include:
-O'Brien and Garry playing "Pineapple Princess" throughout their whole show.
-John Cigna saying that a UFO landed in North Park, and that the authorities were on their way there to check it out. Listeners were calling in to the station saying that Army trucks were heading North on Route 19. It turns out that the Reservists were on maneuvers/drills that morning.

So, what are some of the pranks that you remember throughout the years? If you were on the air, how did you execute them?
 
Yesterday on Market Place (NPR) they announced that the Lincoln Memorial would now be known as the "Ford Lincoln Memorial" and that the Government was in talks with McDonald"s to buy the naming rights to the St. Louis Arch.
 
This goes back many decades, It was Saturday Night and I had 1/2 of the full-time air staff from the station I was working for at my house for our weekly Mystery Science Theater 3000 viewing, I had a 10ft satellite dish, well anyway I was saying it was time to have some fun so I turned on the radio, and when the week-end jock went on the air, I turned off the transmitter waited about 30 seconds and turned it back on, we sat and waited for his next talk break, and again I turned off the transmitter. this time I get a call from the weekender and explained what was happening so this time I stayed on the phone and....hmmmm nothing happened, so I told him I would be listening, again nothing happened, I called him on the hotline and said I don't hear anything, lets let it go. So the very next break I turned off the transmitter again. we all enjoyed it
 
It wasn't April 1, but the PD & APD tried everything they could to break me up or make me lose my composure on the air. The old stand-by - setting my copy on fire - didn't work. So, they turned a trash can upside down, filled it with cigarette smoke and lowered it over my head. I choked - but I didn't break up.
 
When I worked at KDKA in the summer of 1972, Jim Scott was doing the news on a Sunday evening. This was during the strike, and Chris ??? the production director, who was running the board,"mooned" him during the newscast. Jim snorted out a suppressed laugh, unfortunately during a story about Nixon and Watergate. The next day, an elderly woman called and complained about how he "disrespected" our President. After reviewing the logger, Bill Brady suspended him for a week. To his credit, Jim took it without ratting Chris out.
 
ArEng said:
When I worked at KDKA in the summer of 1972, Jim Scott was doing the news on a Sunday evening. This was during the strike, and Chris ??? the production director, who was running the board,"mooned" him during the newscast. Jim snorted out a suppressed laugh, unfortunately during a story about Nixon and Watergate. The next day, an elderly woman called and complained about how he "disrespected" our President. After reviewing the logger, Bill Brady suspended him for a week. To his credit, Jim took it without ratting Chris out.
Click to expand...
Chris Rathaus? Not a pun on "ratting Chris out", that was his name.
 
Yes, Chris Rathaus...I couldn't remember his name, so I put in three question marks. The message board converted it to an icon.
 
This happened down the road at some un-named university in an un-named neighboring state. But the Chief Engineer and Asst. Chief had a 20 plus year run of practical jokes. One of the best was when the assistant noticed the chief had a habit of leaving his keys hanging from the office door all day. Well in retaliation for yet another joke, the assistant decided to get even by taking the keys back to the shop and firing up the soldering iron. He then proceeded to fill the grooves of every key with solder except the one to the office door. At the end of the day he waited as the chief left and then watched as he tried to get in his car and then back into the building via the back door! ::)
 
This is my favorite from Marty "LET'S BLOW EVERYTHING OUT OF PROPORTION AND TELL YOU HOW GREAT MY LIFE AND FAMILY IS!" Griffin on KDKA AM. ;D

KDKA Radio fined $6,000 for phony giveaway
February 6, 2009 12:00 am
By Dan Majors / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday fined CBS-affiliate KDKA Radio $6,000 for a 2007 Thanksgiving Day prank in which host Marty Griffin promised $1 million to the 13th caller to his show.

According to the FCC ruling, Mr. Griffin, host of "The Marty Griffin Show," at about 9:10 a.m. on Nov. 22, 2007, announced that he would give $1 million to his 13th caller. He said there was a person in the studio with a "briefcase handcuffed to him with $1 million in it."

Listeners called, but there was no payoff.

The fine was in response to an unnamed complainant who said he was told that he was the 13th caller. He sat on hold for 45 minutes and then gave a brief interview, but when he asked about the prize, he was told there was no prize and the call was disconnected.

FCC investigations chief Hillary S. DeNigro said FCC regulations prohibit broadcast stations from conducting contests that are "false, misleading or deceptive." The rules, she said, are "intended to protect listeners from the type of deceptive and misleading contest announcements broadcast by Station KDKA."

The ruling said that CBS, in a response filed with the FCC in January 2008, claimed "the Griffin idea was a joke or prank that could not be seriously regarded as a licensee sponsored contest" and "that the public should have known the contest announcement was a joke."

CBS arguments included: that it was absurd to think a news/talk radio would give away $1 million; Mr. Griffin laughed frequently while discussing the idea; that the notion of the money in a briefcase secured by handcuffs was "preposterous"; and "that fewer than 13 calls had been received, even though more than 50 listeners had called the station."

But Ms. DeNigro, citing "the egregious nature of the misconduct that misled listeners," rejected the arguments.

"Mr. Griffin made no statement on-air to clarify that the offer was a joke or prank, and, instead called the contest 'the real deal,'" Ms. DeNigro said. "The recording and transcript also make perfectly clear that the public was in fact misled by the contest announcements. Mr. Griffin himself admitted during the broadcast that several individuals placed follow-up calls to the station to complain that they had not won the $1,000,000 prize despite having been the 13th caller."

KDKA program director Marshall Adams last night said the station, which has 30 days to pay the fine or appeal, is reviewing its options. Mr. Griffin did not return a call for comment.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories...6000-for-phony-giveaway-328896/#ixzz2RsALpYKY
 
tce said:
It wasn't April 1, but the PD & APD tried everything they could to break me up or make me lose my composure on the air. The old stand-by - setting my copy on fire - didn't work. So, they turned a trash can upside down, filled it with cigarette smoke and lowered it over my head. I choked - but I didn't break up.
Click to expand...

Yeah..do that today and there will be an HR issue.
 
WFOB was an AM/FM combo located in a field about a mile south of the city of license in a beautifull brick mansion. Because the AP teletype machine was so loud, the building was constructed with a small entrance area as you entered the front door. in it was the teletype a coat rack two doors and a window. The window looked into the control room displaying the back of the board op, the impressive board and behond it through another the glow of the tubes in the transmitters.

The evening jock, who also served as newsman, was a stohic fella who never laughed or even snickered on the air no matter how funny things were going on around him.

One of the other jocks had tried time and again to break him up during the 6pm news to no avail. One night found the two alone at the station so while the stohic fella was reading the news the other guy went into another room and took all his cloths off. As he entered the studio he waved you know what in front of the newsreader who began to snicker. Getting his composier he started to read again and it was waved in front of him once more. At that point the newsreader finished his sentence, cut his mike and hit a record.

I'm told the conversation went like this:
naked guy: ha finally broke you up!!
newsguy: Yes you did
Naked guy begins dancing around the room
newsguy: Look again John...points over his shoulder
In the window were the Mayor and the Safety Service Director,,,,,,wait for it,,,,,and their wives. They were there to record an interview and had watched the whole thing.
 
I'll gladly be the wet blanket here.

If I were the PD, anyone who spent time trying to make someone break up during a newscast would soon be trucking his bag of zany pranks to a new job at the local Burger King.

It's a business, not a frat house. I don't need someone giggling through a newscast, and I don't need someone distracted because he's trying to avoid giggling through a newscast. Keep your pants on, do whatever job you're being paid to do, and don't interfere when someone else is trying to do his job. Inside jokes make for lousy radio. If you need comic relief, do it on your own time outside the station.
 
I'll join you in the wet blanket club.

Whomever does that it my shop is canned.
Post haste.
 
Boss Radio said:
I'll gladly be the wet blanket here.

If I were the PD, anyone who spent time trying to make someone break up during a newscast would soon be trucking his bag of zany pranks to a new job at the local Burger King.

It's a business, not a frat house. I don't need someone giggling through a newscast, and I don't need someone distracted because he's trying to avoid giggling through a newscast. Keep your pants on, do whatever job you're being paid to do, and don't interfere when someone else is trying to do his job. Inside jokes make for lousy radio. If you need comic relief, do it on your own time outside the station.
Click to expand...
And if you did that in any other place of business, getting fired would probably be the least of your worries. You'd need a good lawyer for the indecent exposure charges.
 
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