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This Day in Dayton Radio History-April 1, 1993

A

alans613

How can I EVER forget the April Fools Day stunt that Jeff Wicker pulled on Z-93 listeners back on 4-1-1993? This stunt went pretty deep, and actually had me believing that Z was changing formats, because they had short spots airing throughout the previous week of an announcer saying something like GT was changing Dayton radio again and for details to listen to Wicker at 7 AM THURSDAY. The most important part of this hoax was THEY NEVER SAID IT WAS APRIL FOOLS DAY OR APRIL 1. Here it is verbatim. I have this thing on tape somewhere...However, this is straight from my memory banks... ;D
Kim Faris coming out of the news...
JEFF WICKER: Thank you Kim, it's 7:02. At this time, WGTZ, owned and operated by Great Trails Broadcasting, after an extensive research project, has determined it is time to change Dayton radio. At this time, WGTZ Z-93, will become WGTZ, Z-Country...
ANNOUNCER: The most and best country favorites are on 92.9 Z-Country, just the way you like it!("Rhinestone Cowboy" begins to play).
I remember being so pissed off that Z-93 was gone that I stopped recording on tape...However, I did keep listening until time to go to school on my trusty Sharp Walkman while I was riding the big yellow taxi. ;D I remember Wicker and Kim Faris taking calls from pissed off listeners...Until shortly after 8AM, when they finally admitted it was a joke, by going, WGTZ Eaton, Z-Country, NOOOOT! Rock and Roll...and then segued into "Do You Believe In Us?" by Jon Secada.
 
WEBN did an April Fool's Day program in the mid 1970's that even beat that. Anyone have it taped out there. I did and lost it.
 
Alans:

Though certainly not as prominent as Wicker's stunt, that was actually the second time Z changed format to country on April Fools Day...

Don Shannon and I did it on a whim one night while I was still working down the hall at WING. I grabbed the absolute worst hillbilly-sounding country song I could find in WING's record library (remember: way back when, WING aired an early morning country music show at, like 4 am.), and carted it up.

At exactly 12 Midnight, I came down the hall and Don introduced me by some really "country" sounding name and I began to say things (in the thickest southern accent I could muster) like, "Gee, Don...you guys all seem like nice folks here at Dubya-GTZ. I really hate to see good folk like you lose your jobs." We announced the "format change" and went into that awful song I had carted up. (It was a song I had checked on that peaked at like, #66 on the country chart). The phones rang off the hook. We let the song play for about 2 minutes, before we yelled "April Fools" and went back into Def Leppard...
 
Jason Roberts said:
Alans:

Though certainly not as prominent as Wicker's stunt, that was actually the second time Z changed format to country on April Fools Day...

Don Shannon and I did it on a whim one night while I was still working down the hall at WING. I grabbed the absolute worst hillbilly-sounding country song I could find in WING's record library (remember: way back when, WING aired an early morning country music show at, like 4 am.), and carted it up.

At exactly 12 Midnight, I came down the hall and Don introduced me by some really "country" sounding name and I began to say things (in the thickest southern accent I could muster) like, "Gee, Don...you guys all seem like nice folks here at Dubya-GTZ. I really hate to see good folk like you lose your jobs." We announced the "format change" and went into that awful song I had carted up. (It was a song I had checked on that peaked at like, #66 on the country chart). The phones rang off the hook. We let the song play for about 2 minutes, before we yelled "April Fools" and went back into Def Leppard...
Click to expand...


That's hilarious! Do you have it on tape anywhere? I have the Wicker announcement part of that stunt here at the house...Once they started playing "Rhinestone Cowboy" I stopped taping. If i'd known it was a stunt, I would've taped the entire hour...Besides "Rhinestone Cowboy" I remember them playing a Garth Brooks song as well...I can't remember what else they played. All I can remember is that they took calls from pissed off listeners for most of the hour.
 
I don't mean to toot my own horn, but we did pull off a pretty good stunt at WDJX back in 1981. I was doing afternoons and we had set it up with promos about a big change coming. (This was during the Hot Hits trend of shorter playlists.) I don't remember what we called it, and I don't have any tape, but the point was we were only going to play the number one song in Dayton. And we played "The Unicorn" over and over for an hour. With bumpers and liners and spots and phone call requests. Great bit..

Another bit around the same time (but not Fools Day) I found the Spanish language versions of a lot of currents (like Celebration by Kool and the Gang) and I used to play them without saying anything. When people called, I had some line about our "Spanish immersion program" for students taking Spanish in school. Ah, those were the days..
 
alans613 said:
Jason Roberts said:
Alans:

Though certainly not as prominent as Wicker's stunt, that was actually the second time Z changed format to country on April Fools Day...

Don Shannon and I did it on a whim one night while I was still working down the hall at WING. I grabbed the absolute worst hillbilly-sounding country song I could find in WING's record library (remember: way back when, WING aired an early morning country music show at, like 4 am.), and carted it up.

At exactly 12 Midnight, I came down the hall and Don introduced me by some really "country" sounding name and I began to say things (in the thickest southern accent I could muster) like, "Gee, Don...you guys all seem like nice folks here at Dubya-GTZ. I really hate to see good folk like you lose your jobs." We announced the "format change" and went into that awful song I had carted up. (It was a song I had checked on that peaked at like, #66 on the country chart). The phones rang off the hook. We let the song play for about 2 minutes, before we yelled "April Fools" and went back into Def Leppard...
Click to expand...


That's hilarious! Do you have it on tape anywhere? I have the Wicker announcement part of that stunt here at the house...Once they started playing "Rhinestone Cowboy" I stopped taping. If i'd known it was a stunt, I would've taped the entire hour...Besides "Rhinestone Cowboy" I remember them playing a Garth Brooks song as well...I can't remember what else they played. All I can remember is that they took calls from pissed off listeners for most of the hour.
Click to expand...

I wish I did have it on tape. Maybe Don has it, I don't know. It was a very spontaneous thing Don cooked up and I helped with. I think it was done on about an hour notice....
 
My favorite April Fools Day radio moments were these two:

1. The classic WEBN (I think it was) parade which was completely bogus, but people were driving around the city looking for it...

2. This was the most memorable. In the early-90's (90-91 or so) Oldies 103.5 changed formats to "Disco 103.5", which at the time disco was still vehemently hated. I remember being pretty upset about it, and calling all of my friends and were all pretty upset. I think 103.5 fielded a lot of angry calls... oddly enough, it was a joke back then, but would probably work decently today.
 
I remember Z changing to "The International Station" with foreign language announcements one April Fools Day.
WGRR pulled out its foreign language versions of oldies a few years ago, saying something like it's subchannel was leaking onto the main signal.
 
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