603 INFORMER / FIRST PERSON
Save the Moose! Radio high jinks and tall tales BY BOBBY DEE / ILLUSTRATION BY JOHN GOODWIN
I
f there’s one thing I’ve learned during my nearly five decades of being in the radio business, it’s that you can’t always
believe what you hear on the air. And then there’s “doomscrolling,” or
obsessively scanning the news and social media for the latest bad news. It seems counterintuitive — if you’re stressed, why seek out upsetting news? Experts say most often, doomscrolling is fueled by anxiety and a desire to gain control in a time of uncertainty. Just a few months ago, I read about a woman who won a radio contest where the 36
nhmagazine.com | September 2021
prize was a brand new Toyota. She was overjoyed ... until she arrived to claim her prize. It turned out to be a toy Yoda — a “Star Wars” action figure. The prize had been described only on the air, not in actual writing anywhere,
so it was no surprise that she, and every other listener, had misunderstood. She, however, wasn’t at all amused by the station’s joke. Joking with, duping and misleading the listeners in an effort to gain attention and publicity have been ploys used by on-air personalities ever since the first one sat in front of a microphone. At one station where I worked for a brief time many years ago, there was a custodian named George. He was a diminutive guy, barely 5 feet tall, but he had a big talent — he could imitate the voices of a number of famous singers. So, whenever things at the station became a bit dull, or the ratings started to take a downward slide, George would be asked to do his thing and give a shot of adrenaline to the listeners. “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re not going to believe this!” the DJ would announce. “Guess who just walked into the station? It’s Ricky Nelson!” And George would launch into his best Ricky impersonation. There weren’t any personal computers back then, so no one could check to see that Ricky actually was on tour in Germany at the time. But if anyone had decided to complain, the DJ already was prepared with his defense: “It was Rick E. Nelson. You just misunderstood.” Another DJ I knew would tape several of his shows in advance whenever he had to be elsewhere. The only problem was, the public was supposed to believe it was a live show. So, to add realism, he also would insert a contest or two into the tape. “If you’re the third caller right now, you’ll win two tickets to the Strand Theater!” he’d say. And then he’d have whoever was available at the station at the time call him on one of the extensions, give him a fake name, and win the contest, so he could tape it in advance. When the show finally aired, the unsuspect-
I was awakened by sirens and a lot of commotion outside. I looked out and saw police cruisers, fire trucks and crowds of people rushing toward the bridge.
