April Fool’s Day
I celebrate April 1st like some people celebrate Christmas. This is my holiday. It's also
too good of a promotional opportunity to waste by either doing nothing, or doing
something lame. There's also the "but we don't want to piss off the listeners" theory.
This will be my 30th April Fools in this business. I've gotten ten po'ed calls in all those
years. The rest were "Geez! You got me AGAIN!" Minneapolis, Tampa and Birmingham
do such monstrous stuff annually that the listeners often call in advance to find out
what that year's entertainment is going to be. And since it’s the day the Spring Book
starts, in lieu of the several hundred thousand you have budgeted for TV, this is a good
substitute.
There was a great line in “The Sting” that applies to April Fools. It went something like
“The bigger the lie, the easier it is for people to swallow.” This is showbiz. Make it big
and showy and spectacular.
This year it’s on a Friday. Here’s stuff from past and present April 1st’s. Attaching recaps
from the last two years. Remember, I have tons of copy for fake spots and websites.
Bon Appetit'!!
* “We don’t do April Fools”. Well, Pizza Hut bought the Liberty Bell. And they seem to
be a moderately successful company. Google does something every year and if this
whole internets thing doesn’t prove to be a fad, then they’ll be seen as being successful.
So why can’t you?
* I have tons of copy for fake products and services that could be turned into spots-towebsites bits. Just ask.
* We’ve all tweaked our websites for holidays. All Access, flipped their website for the
day. Hits exploded. My goal is that a station do their site as if it was in a fish tank. With
live fish just swimming around in front of the graphics.
* Why not do a fake format for the day? Fly 92 in Albany introduced the All Ringtone
Format. There has to be, for any formatic bits, a lead-in. A reason why this is happening.
I can walk you through that and share all my copy.
* Keith Abrams and I were THIS close to launching a radio station in Denver by flipping it
to all Chinese for 48 hours. All the imaging was written. Everything was set to roll…and
then corporate HR got involved. Whoops. Which was especially sad since Keith had
come up with some great material. So I saved it and when KDOG in Mankato made a
formatical adjustment last April 1 (a real one) this was the opportunity to do all this
stuff. Thus was the debut of the Kung Pao format. Mike, Dwayne and Brad got all of the
music off the internet. The whole thing was ready to go within 24 hours of saying “Hey,
you know what would be fun…?” So don’t overthink this stuff. It’s not rocket science.
What if you went all Chinese for the weekend after a music research report showed that
this was the niche in the market? So…we launched Hot in Norfolk with the fauxrmat last
year. And. It. Was. Large.
* Wild in SFO was set to announce another big Bomb concert in 2006. So they just used
this as an op to announce the lineup. Listeners had to go through about 15 pages of
loops on the website before finally arriving at a “Gotcha!” graphic and the info they’d
been searching for.
* KLUC alluded to an flip to a “Party” format, which was really just a tease to the kickoff
of their annual Party Cruise to Mexico with 100 drunken listeners.
* IN ‘09 there was a morning show walkout at KLUC. They set up a fake VM for people to
yell at Cat. Our producer, Showkiller was instructed by Cat to just come in the next
morning (today) and just run generic liners, music and commercials. Again, Showkiller
knew nothing. This happened all the way until 7:30 this morning. Even Morning Zoo
traffic was outcued as 98.5 KLUC traffic. Then, at 7:30, we had Cat come on with a
prepared statement that had lines like, “just like our new president has said, we have to
embrace change.” At the end of the one minute “explanation” was the APRIL FOOLS!
* From Dave Ryan at KDWB in Minneapolis from ‘08: we did The World's Worst April
Fool's Prank that fooled no one but instead kind of spoofed April Fools jokes. We gave
out prizes to people who answered trivia questions correctly. And if they answered
wrong, we pulled out one of Crisco's teeth. We stopped when he had two teeth left so
he'd still be able to eat. Sounds effects will make the bit
* And in 2009, Dave followed this up with having the same winner for every contest that
morning. Also did the “Britney Spears voicemail where she talked dirty to an old
boyfriend”. Audio was on the station website, low volume…which suddenly went to
“10” with “Hey, everybody, I’m looking ay gay porn and I LOVE IT.”
* John Forsythe at KOB-FM in Albuquerque shared a pissed off voicemail when a hotel’s
housekeeping staff showed up an hour early after they did Big Earl/Edmonton’s Double
Daylight Savings Time. Channel in Wichita hit a homerun with it too.
* Wild in Oklahoma City was the station that inserted a story into their morning news
about the opening that day of the new minimum security facility for Level 3 pedophile
mentally ill sex offenders…in that market’s nicest, swankiest suburb. Lots of staged
phone calls from concerned residents who couldn’t believe this had been built across
from a pre-school. “I mean, what the Hell were they thinking? No fences?” “I went to
the community meeting and the head doctor was talking all this crap about
rehabilitation-through-trust and they’re not going to lock them in at night?!” People in
that suburb awoke to hear belatedly that child rapists were moving in down the block.
* Z-90 in San Diego did all of their imaging in Arabic and Swahili in 2008 after a planned
bit about kids who have more then one truancy not being allowed to go to prom fell
through: an actual bill was being introduced in California that proposed something
similar.
* And in yet another Art Imitates Life coincidence, B-92 in Charleston did the toilet
flushing ban…and there was an actual sewer outage involving 10,000 homes. Wired in
Saskatoon did it last year with a great “spot” and website. The payoff, at least for me,
was that I got to see Blake sitting on the toilet. (I’m into that stuff)
* 97 The Eagle in Virginia Beach played off the recent lights in the sky and the sonic
booms by having aliens break in and interfere with the morning show. They enlisted
Twitter and Facebook to help perpetuate it.
* And in an example of Life Imitating Elliott, Fly 92 in Albany legalized prostitution at
12:01 am on the 1st in 2008. One of the best acted bits I’d heard in years.
* Last year, everyone was buzzing about Octomom, so Rob Johnson from Newcap in
Halifax added his skillz as the “doctor” at Fly in Albany: We got a “call” from a woman
who worked at the Adirondack Pregnancy Research Institute Laboratory (spells APRIL).
This is a fertility clinic in the area and her boss, Dr. Yadsloof (april fool’s backwards) is
planning on inseminating his wife with 12 embryos in order to break the record of
octomom. Their sole purpose is to break the record and get notoriety for the clinic. We
had the doctor on first. Pompus ass! Then later had the wife/mom/ninomom on. She
stated that they had no desire to keep the kids unless a couple of them were cute. She
would consider selling the ugly ones. They just really had no marketing budget and this
was the best way to get the word out about their clinic. She hoped to write a book
called His and Mine plus 9 and go on Oprah. The record of Ninomom was their only goal.
Tons of calls…of course we put the irate ones on that believed it. Got a call from the NY
state right to life. They wanted this guy’s license. The payoff…we told our listeners that
the Dr. wished to release a statement but did not want us to go on the air with it or talk
to us again on the radio. We directed them to our website. We said that the statement
would be there in its entirety. And of course it was the “Gotcha!” payoff.
* From John Forysthe at KOB-FM in Albuquerque in ‘08: The red light cameras has been
a heated issue here. Besides the normal "it's unconstitutional", ""causes more
accidents", etc...the Mayor and the Governor are on opposite sides. The hand held cell
phone ban was also a hot topic. Well, tomorrow (in our world) the police are gonna start
handing out tickets for consumption of any food (including water) while behind the
wheel. We have the interview taped with the spokesperson from NMTD (New Mexico
Transportation Division) which doesn't even resemble the real DOT (Department of
Transportation) which sounds made up. We also have calls from "listeners" who will
have just been pulled over for driving with Starbucks, breakfast burritos, etc.
* Which was followed in ‘09 with a campaign to defoliate the City of Albuquerque and
cut down all the trees because of allergens.
* Because of large media coverage of pit bull attacks and local controversy over these
dogs as pets, Hot 89.9 in Ottawa ran news stories about a new law that people could
keep their pitbulls…if their teeth were pulled out. The operation costs $3000 by-theway. The station was actually there for some of the procedures.
* In ‘05 it was April Fuels Day with free/cheap gas at KOB-FM in Albuquerque, Wild 96.3
in Ft. Wayne, Wild 94.9 in San Francisco, Mix 93 in Kansas City and KLUC in Las Vegas.
(KLUC imaged it as April Fools being for amateurs; the station is taking the day off from
punking the audience.) At Foxy 99 the promotion was set up by the Big Worm computer
virus which terrorized the station website all week. In Oklahoma City at Wild 97.9, the
premise started to be set early in the week with a feud between the GM and the
morning show that ended with them locking themselves in the studio all Wednesday
before management broke down the door. They were pulled off the air and forced to
pump and pay for gas this morning.
* 96X in Edmonton ran spots from The Virginity Clinic for “home hymen repair kits”. And
they debuted www.advantageurine.com, a website that sold drug-free urine for people
who have to take drug tests for work.
* High levels of H2O in the water in Birmingham, Alabama in 2005. At least according to
a fake spot from the Water Department that ran twice an hour all day. Massive numbers
of phone calls to the City blaming the H2O for headaches and diarrhea. They also sent
an intern out in a prison jumpsuit with handcuffs. Just wandering neighborhoods. He
was surrounded by cops and arrested. Good times.
* www.dhmo.org is a faux website that warns peoples of the dangers of dihydrogen
monoxide. The next boutique drug. Sweeping the schools. It’ll kill you if you take too
much. Odorless. Tasteless. It’s in EVERYTHING. Lead the effort to get it banned in
schools in your city. The problem? The schools SELL IT in vending machines. No laws
against it yet. So they don’t care and are making money off it. Shame on them.
* 98PXY in Rochester covered the grand re-opening of a bankrupt ferry (which had
become a community scandal) as a brothel.
* The Point in Birmingham did the Pet Tax bit in 2005. Over 600 people went to the
station website to sign a petition to stop the tax, the phones were flooded with pissed
off people and local veterinarians were downloading the petition to post at their office
for people to sign.
* Ace & TJ from 95.1 Kiss FM in Charlotte were in the middle losing their third wheel,
Angie, to another opportunity. So they brought in the obnoxious hick woman from
Wisconsin who was on the first episode of “Survivor”. She went out of her way to offend
Southerners. Crass. Rude. The audience was horrified that this was the new Angie.
* BT and Lee Valsvik from Cities 97 in the Twin Cities had a comedian named Russell
Stolnack on the air. He’s a professional impersonator. His goal for April Fools was to
have 3,000,000 people hear his pranks. So it was one Radio interview after another. On
KTCZ, he played the owner of a clock company who was talking about Daylight Savings
Time and the adding of various states and communities that were exempt from it.
Belinda Jensen, from Channel 11 is the meteorologist for the show and they “got” her
totally.
* In Syracuse 93Q did the Blue Bin Census, a new program for tallying the population.
People were instructed to put out their trash bins with the number of people living in
the household, written on the side. And 95X listed Paris Hilton’s cell phone number,
getting tons of calls to a station phone line.
* Q-102 in Philly earned a spot in the Radio Hall Of Fame with a bit in '93 that had
people believing the Ben Franklin Bridge, one of the only ways to get across the river to
New Jersey, was being closed for good that morning. The reason? Talks between
Philadelphia and New Jersey, over who had responsibility for bridge repairs, had broken
down. Demolition was to begin that evening. The Q-102 van was hung from a crane 150
feet in the air, directly next to the bridge, and the morning show "broadcast" from
inside of it all day, as the story unfolded. Even TV stations were fooled and they
besieged City and State authorities for info on the story. Q-102 interviewed "experts"
(played perfectly by station employees) on the impact that this closing would have on
commuting and they talked with people from the EPA about the environmental impact
the demolition would have on the river's ecosystem. This is one of the all time great
April Fools stunts. When you think about April Fools, think BIG. This was beyond big.
* Equally large was something I was lucky enough to help with in 1999 when KUBE in
Seattle faked a movie shoot. The film was called "Dead Air" (after my still un-completed
novel) and it "starred" Wesley Snipes and Brad Pitt. They ran spots in commercial
rotation for four days, recruiting extras for a nightclub scene to be shot during the day
of the 1st. Essentially KUBE put on a live play for the couple hundred people who were
locked in the club all day, believing they were actually part of a real shoot and that Pitt
and Snipes were due at any moment to do their scene. I played film director Jerry Clifton
and basically abused the extras for three hours as we blocked scenes, adjusted camera
angles, rehearsed and did light checks. KUBE hired an actual film crew with a dressing
room trailer and other support vehicles. They even dressed up the engineer to look like
Brad Pitt, pulled a limo around to the side of the club and flanked by body guards,
hustled him in the back door....but not before some of the extras saw him. The place
was buzzing about it within seconds. They spent some bucks on this and there was a
huge margin for error. Just one person in the club had to go "Wait a minute. I don't
think this is a real movie set" and it would be all over. But the Radio Gods shone down
on Bridgett, Eric and the rest of the crew and they pulled it off. Perhaps the most laborintensive stunt of all time. But LARGE.
* Fake concerts are great. KGGI/Riverside did one at a location in the Verismo
Mountains (the station's GM was coincidentally Steve Verismo) east of San Bernadino.
They gave directions all day on how to get to the arena. The directions were legit...to a
point. People soon found themselves out in the middle of the desert. These types of
stunts require a lot of pre-production so they have the right "feel". Do artist interviews
backstage, have traffic reports and parking updates to aid "concert goers". Essentially all
the stuff you'd do if the show was real.
I did the Hooked On Phonics Tour when it stopped in Charlotte on April 1, 1990 for the
opening of their new concert arena (which was fake too.) BBD, ABC, U2, C&C Music
Factory, BB King and ZZ Top were some of the artists on the bill. We did all the fake callin stuff and at least 1000 idiots bought it, took the day off from work/skipped school,
and headed out to go to the concert. Why? It sounded "real" on the air. People just
accepted it as fact when a jock called in (with the roar of the concert in the background)
to say that kd lang had just joined ZZ Top on stage for "Tush".
* Anything underground is great. Mancow opened an underground theme park in the
Oakland Hills on April 1, 1992. The state-of-the-art facility was climate controlled and
entirely underground, thousands of feet beneath Mt. Bruno. He interviewed the
manager who went on and on about the large variety of rides and food booths, plus the
opening of the attached concert arena in two weeks. Mancow gave out tickets and and
broadcast from broadcast from the park all day. 102 Jamz in Orlando did this in 1999
with a mall, and 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham did a theme park. The name? Six Flags Under
Birmingham. They spent a full week pre-producing this thing and used children of the
staff for some of the breaks. Sounded huge and fooled thousands. KLUC did this in 2003
and billed it as “the most fun in Earth.”
* In '94 both Hot 102 in Milwaukee and Wild 107 in SFO did fake Prince club shows. Each
station got their hands on bootleg CD's of Prince in concert. The announcement was
made during the morning show that Prince had been spotted at the airport ("listeners"
called in) and rumors were that he was in town to do a show and warm up for his arena
tour. Throughout the day they talked about the fact that something big was in the
works, and later in the day they went out "live" to a club where jocks were phoning in
from the Prince concert. They used the CD as background noise and "proof"that this was
actually happening. V-103 in Atlanta did a twist on this in '97 with a performance by The
Artist. They actually filled a club with screaming people who really thought that Prince
was coming. The joke was that there was an artist, as in paint and canvas, there to
perform.
* Hot 98.1 in Greenville suffered errant signals from Radio Havana in ‘09.
* People don’t like government telling them what they can and can’t do. A couple of the
Newcap stations had homeruns with new restrictions on cellphone use in the car, and
smoking in cars when children are passengers.
* Fake celebrity sightings can always be fun. Doing what Hot and Wild did above, The
Boss 97 in Atlantic City used staged calls from "people at the airport" who reported that
Madonna had just de-planed and gotten into a white limo. They staged some more calls
from people who'd seen her in her white limo and pretty much the momentum took it
from there. They had a Madonna look-a-like from one of the casino shows cruising
around in a white limo, ocassionally lowering the rear window at an intersection just
long enough for people to catch a glimpse. KRTR in Hawaii has since done this with
Madonna, 107.5 Kiss FM/Memphis did this with Ricky Martin in '99 and KUBE caused a
near-riot in Seattle with Leonardo Dicapprio coming to town in '98.
* Don't want to piss people off? As a radio station you have the tools and resources to
help people pull off pranks on their friends, family and co-workers. Instead of doing one
giant on-air stunt, maybe you could become an April Fools Enabler and help a selected
few listeners pull the wool over someone's eyes. Big for KUBE in '93.
* Just as there’s no sex in the Champagne Room, there’s no nudism in the Cayman
Islands. No nudist beaches. Period. So Ben Maxwell (formerly Rocco The Janitor at
Wired in Philly) at 96.5 Cayrock opened a nudist resort and the station broadcast from
there. It sounded so real that I felt compelled to go and check out the website.
www.freedompointbeachresort.com In the middle of the afternoon, Ben got his old
Sales Manager from Philly on the line and had him be a “guest” drinking Kettle One
martini’s in the Trousers Down Lounge. “Theater”. Their greatest resource. Montana,
who did weekends and is, uh, so hot that cornea damage is always a possibility, did
some of the best breaks in recorded history.
* Fake parades are another great bit. B-95 in Fresno did this with a parade in
Millerton...a town that hadn't existed since a local river was dammed 40 years before:
it's now under about 100 feet of reservoir water. They did all the basic parade stuff,
giving out times, directions and traffic info since a few streets had to be blocked off.
They did play-by-play and announced each float, marching band and dignitary as it
rolled by. Hot in New York did this in '89. Their reviewing stand and broadcast vehicle
were on a section of street that don't exist, i.e.: 10th and Broadway. But Broadway
doesn't start until 12th. Get it? I think they had Will Smith as the Grand Marshall and
they took a few minutes to interview him and he thanked everyone for coming out. V103 in Atlanta did this with the "10th Annual Celebrate Atlanta Parade" in '95. A lot of
production time went into pulling this off and they were even able to use the stunt to
promote a real event they had happening that afternoon.
* Don’t do the “switch DJ’s with another station” bit. No one cares and fewer will notice.
Sorry. But true. I’ve also seen it backfire where people actually preferred the new
morning show.
* KSFM once went bilingual and had every shift done in a different language. The station
went to Sac State and got students from their Language Arts Dept. to come in and do
the shifts. They actually did contests and introed songs in Chinese and Russian. If you do
this, be sure to not pre-promote it. It, and many other April Fools bits, need to come out
of the blue. Act like nothing is out of the ordinary. KSFM staged call-ins from "listeners"
requesting songs, who conversed with the jock in English and acted as if they
understood what the guy was saying, i.e.: "Hey, can I hear the new Puffy song?" (chinese
jibberish) "Oh great! Thanks! I love this station!" Big in Birmingham in 2000.
* In Phoenix at 103.9 Arizona's Party Station, Rick Thomas had children doing airshifts in
'98, as if nothing was unusual. They took the names of the real airstaff, and in at least
one case, were better. Reno did this in ‘06…except for the nights, done by an angry old
60 year-old man.
* Ace & TJ at Kiss 95.1 in Charlotte did the Pets By Mail bit.
http://www.petparcelservice.com/ was the website that fake spots drove listeners to.
The elephants were a great touch.
* In '93 Z-90 in San Diego announced that there was a crisis underway at the Sewage
Department. Apparently a major clog had developed in one of the pipes and massive
spills were imminent. On behalf of the San Diego sewage Department, the station was
asking that all people flush their toilets at 12 noon. They pounded this throughout the
morning show and advised people to cover their toilets with plastic wrap if they couldn't
be there to flush at noon. A ton of people called the Sewage Department to inquire
about timing and the proper procedure for flushing the pipes. Jamz in Birmingham did
this in ‘08 because there actually WAS major sewer work happening in town. Phones
exploded…with calls from City Hall.
* I’ve already sent out the suggestion for backmasking a profane message from an artist.
Plus Greg Runyon shared www.insulting.com, which a repository of faux websites.
* 102 Jamz in Greensboro got some helicopter SFX and flew around the market dumping
cash out the window. They staged call-ins from listeners all around the market who'd
"won money" or seen the helicopter. 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham did this '97 with a real
helicopter drop: this time the $100 bills were bills for listening to Jamz. Beware! (I will
state for the record, that this was Jamz' "Bay Bridge": it put them on the map for good.)
Dave Ryan did this at KDWB in 2004 and it was pretty large. Hot in Ottawa did it last
year.
* 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham was in the midst of the Fugitive, so they promoted that they
were going to post an actual REAL picture of The Fugitive on the website on Sunday. The
chasers went nuts…until it turned out to be Harrison Ford’s booking photo from the
movie “The Fugitive”.
* Do you have any highways in your market that have tolls on them? If you do, then
wakeup your listeners on April 1 to new and increased tolls. And make sure it's an odd
figure...like $2.38. Stage some calls from "listeners" who haven't heard of the price hike
and who came up short at the toll booth. If you don't have any tolls in town, now's the
time to start some. B-103.9 in Ft. Myers raised tolls on bridges last year and made all the
TV in that market.
* Kiss 102 in Charlotte announced the merging of North and South Carolina, while
morning show producer Crash protested by broadcasting from a window washing
platform on the tallest building in town. Right.
* B-95 in Fresno announced in the morning news the implementation of a statewide Pet
Tax which had just gone into effect. You get charged by the pound. People were pissed
at the state for this latest invasion of their privacy, and flooded the phones in protest.
More then a few people called about fish, birds and gerbils, wondering how much
they'd cost. The Pet Tax bit is always big. Ask WIOG in Saginaw, where they did this in
2006.
* Chet in Vegas implemented a new tax on rims in ‘08.
* Mark Gullett, formerly of Wild 98.7 in Tampa, did an underground mall when he was
at WRFX in Charlotte. Directions led people to a field on the outskirts of town. A TV
affiliate set up some distance away and filmed the people who showed up, wandering
around in the pasture looking for a door in the ground.
* KSFM in Sacramento used a fake concert, Spring Dream '94, as their April Fools bit and
used audio from artist interviews at the Grammys, the Oscars and Madonna's "Truth Or
Dare" movie to help paint their picture. The joke ended at 4 pm when they broke the
news, and then announced the lineup for their Spring Jam concert.
* Staging the demise of your station is always fun. I did it to the APD in Charlotte. I had
him convinced we'd been sold to the Hornets and were going Sports. All I needed was
some letterhead from the team and a fax. He freaked and called the trades and most of
the labels.
KGGI in Riverside went off the air in '95 after having the IRS close on the property. It
seems that there had been a gross financial error at the corporate office and the
company owed over four million in back taxes. The station gave out the number for a
special IRS "hotline" for people to call and protest and try to save KGGI. Lo and behold,
the IRS relented after taking the station off the air for only 30 seconds. Very timely with
Tax Day right around the corner. Several of the stations like KDWB/Minneapolis and
WEUP/Huntsville have done non-April Fools demise stunts that totally shook up the
town.
* In '96 KUBE in Seattle did Catch It And Keep It and had people lining up under the
Space Needle to 'catch' prizes that were being dropped from the top. Stuff like Sonics
tickets, big screen TV's, cars and Golden Retrievers.
* In 2003, both V-103 in Atlanta and The Zone in Chicago had morning people screwing
with each other. Totally without tipping them. This was real. A great way to do April
Fools and not burn the audience.
* KRTR in Honolulu did the old stalled beer truck bit in '96 and announced during the
morning show that a beer truck had become mired in sand at a road construction site,
tieing up traffic. They were asking the public's assistance to help drain the product so
that the truck was light enough to be pulled out. The station gave fictitious directions to
the scene and encouraged people to bring down coolers and other containers to help
syphon off the beer. KZHT in Salt Lake City did a bit that had a semi truck that flipped
over on I-80. The problem? It was hauling a killer whale to Marine World in California.
People were urged to get bottles of water and rush over to keep the whale wet until he
could get loaded into another truck.
* In terms of format flips, Power 96's morphing into Country 96 in '98 was classic. If you
have the promo tape from that quarter it's got some of it on it. The flip was preceeded
by a recorded announcement from this accountant-sounding guy who explained that
"after months of exhausting research, we've discovered that the #1 style of music with
the young latin audience that listens to Power 96, is Country! So welcome the new
sound of Country 96!" The announcement was priceless. All the ID's and imagers were
introed by the sound of a rooster crowing, and the music was hillbilly. Not Garth or
Reba.
* It's hard to go wrong when you harm animals. At least on April Fools Day. To test a
scientific theory that cats will land on their feet nine out of ten times, the Morning Freak
Show at Wild 98.7 in Tampa threw cats off the station roof. After several very dramatic
splat sounds, they cut the bit short and pretended like they hadn't done anything
wrong. Dave Ferguson suspended them and they spun the stunt into a real bit that
aided in the adoption of pets from a shelter.
* Ditto with hurting kids. What about a remote at a hospital where parents are having
tiny microchips implanted in their infants hairline so they can be tracked, found and
returned if kidnapped. Kind of like what they do with dogs.
* The “cosmetic surgery for children” bit was the idea of Goose at Magic in Colorado
Springs, where they had a doctor from the “clinic” on to discuss how they do these
procedures. No less then two separate listeners were on their way down to, as Goose
puts it, “Beat the crap out of the guy.” One listener was armed with a baseball bat to
break the doctors hands so he couldn’t do these surgeries anymore. Hot in Evansville
did this in 08..
* Hot 89.9 in Ottawa came to the rescue of parents with ugly babies. They ran spots for
The Early Life Cosmetics Center: plastic surgery for babies. I have the spot if you’d like to
hear it. http://www.Earlylifecosmetics.com/ is the website.
* Power 102 in El Paso, where gambling is huge, decided to get into the action and ran a
spot for the Grand Opening of a new casino in that market. The key to success? They
made the breaks from the casino sound realistic with a cacaphony of slots and other
casino noises in the background. Like a lot of these stunts that turn out great, they ran a
spot in rotation that included a hotline for people to call. It was actually Chris the
Promotion Director's houseline with a machine on it and it rang non-stop for a week.
Cesar Chavez was in town for a fight (really), so he came out to check out the casino and
"appeared" in one of the breaks. Parking was "so packed" that they used shuttle busses
to bring people in from a remote lot at a bowling alley. Another key to this being large?
They obviously know their market. Casino's are huge was this was a natural tie-in.
* Fake remotes can be fun. You just need the right kind of client. Wild in Tampa
broadcast from the grand opening of "Natural Life Tampa"; a clothing optional
community. They interviewed sales people who talked about the condos and
townhouses, they broadcast from the wave pool, took the tour, commented on the
cheerleaders practicing nearby (NLT had its own school system) etc. It sounded great,
thanks to a week of strenuous pre-production by Tommy. I've got the copy points. Call
me and I'll share them. BUNCH of stations did this last year. WDVD in Detroit did this
last year..
* Russ Allen introduced "3D Headphones" to the audience at 102 Jamz in Orlando a
couple of years back. Local Radio Shacks and Best Buys were flooded with calls from
people wanting this new technology. I have copy for it. K-Rock in Kingston did this in ’09.
* Wild 97.9 in Oklahoma City did a holiday broadcast from The Reindeer Cafe'; a
restaurant that served only dishes prepared from reindeer. You could do a Sunday
brunch broadcast from a restaurant that serves meals prepared from human flesh. The
other white meat. Go to http://www.sjc.com/manbeef/ for some copy points
* The world wide web is the next April Fools Frontier. JB and Sandy in Austin hit this new
playing field with a fake website for PC Breath; a device you blow into and it tells you
whether you have halitosis or not. The station bought spots on the competition and
they informed the listeners that the first 1000 people to click on pcbreath.com would
get the free $40 unit. This website was legit...for the first four or five "levels" and then
linked to JB and Sandy's page.
Dave Ryan at KDWB in Minneapolis won the 2000 "Best Stunt" with petsbymail.com; a
website that allowed you to order pets through the US Postal service. Dave was sure to
include verbiage about endangered species (and how the company could get them for
you since it's based "offshore") in the agency-quality spots that ran on KDWB and a
couple of it's AMFM bretheren. He was fielding angry e-mails from animal rights activists
as far away at Oregon. It was a beautiful thing.
Jamz in Birmingham was the first station to ever do tattooyourtot.com and The Point
there did selectyoursperm.com, both of which caused a buzz. The key to fake websites is
the spot. It’s got to sound “national”. Alice in Denver and KOB-FM in Albuquerque hit a
homerun with the Christmas lights ordinance, but if it wasn’t for the fake spot, no one
would have known about it. Latino in LA did the Tattoo thing in ‘08. I have the audio. It’ll
make you cringe.
* We’ve all received those annoying e-mails, that talk about some little boy who needs
new lungs and a heart and the Vatican will pay of the operation if he gets ten million emails. Dave, and his partners at KDWB created their own fake e-mail and had listeners
download it and forward it to gullible friends around the world. It had something to do
with a little boy who was born without limbs and was trying to create the biggest
rubberband ball in the world.
* No one has done a fake beauty pageant. All you need is some fake promos for a fake
pageant at a fake hotel. You’ll want to to make it outrageous though. The Miss Nude
Pre-Teen California Pageant would get the phones burning up.
* Xtreme in Hawaii ran a news item that the Honolulu International Airport was being
re-named in honor of their Governor…who was in his last term and universally disliked
by all the people in the islands. Got a politician who everyone loathes in your state? This
should cause a buzz.
* In ‘03 Wild in San Francisco promoted that they were going to give away “the ultimate
crib”. Turned out it was a crib (albeit a really nice one) packed with baby supplies.
* JB at KLUC in Vegas reminds us that it’s also fun to bust other radio stations’ bits. Kind
of like the “We’re Going To Walk Naked” bit. Yawn. That was old in ’79. Get on the air
and let people know that all it is is they’re going to name a dog “Naked” and take him
for a walk.
* Wild in Reno ran spots for Ecstacy Video, which was in town to film “The World’s
Largest Gangbang III” and was inviting people to go to their website and fill out and
application to be one of the three thousand performers. They did interviews with the
“star”, who I think was one of the sale people at the station, and also with the real Ron
Jeremy. The “broadcast” from the secret location where it was being filmed was classic.
* KSFM in Sacramento promoted that the Kings were leaving the market and moving to
Las Vegas. TV stations and the paper fell for it and they milked it for the whole day
before Mr. King (played by Clifton) called in and thanked everyone for their concern, but
he’d been transferred and the kids were really kind of excited about moving to Las
Vegas.
Don’t…. Fake the news. That’ll lose you your license. Don’t trade morning shows with
another station. I’ve seen that fail two ways: no one noticed, or, they preferred the new
morning show. Don’t say that a celebrity like Justin Bieber is going to be at the station.
Many things that I missed and that I’ll hit you with as we close in on the 1st. But this
should at least jog your thought process on April Fools.