Frantic antics on the radio

Lisa Ferguson

Friday, Feb. 27, 1998 | 10:44 a.m.

What would you do to win a pair of concert tickets?

Would you walk Las Vegas Boulevard on a chilly fall morning wearing nothing but an adult diaper?

Would you shave your spouse's head bald, then eat a stomach-turning concoction off their shiny scalp?

Well, maybe you wouldn't. But rest assured somebody else will. And that's who radio stations are counting on to take part in their zany, on-air stunts.

Mostly done for publicity's sake, stunts are a popular feature of morning (and in some cities, afternoon) radio programs.

Industry insiders agree that such gags are a good way to attract new listeners, while keeping devoted fans entertained by putting the bravest (or craziest) among them through all sorts of torture tests and awarding them with prizes -- from T-shirts and show tickets to untold amounts of cash, and of course, their 15 minutes of fame.

Some stunts, however, are more intriguing than entertaining.

The folks at KVBC 105.1-FM hope that former White House intern-turned-media magnet Monica Lewinsky is tuning in.

The Las Vegas talk radio station is stirring up local airwaves with its offer to pay the 24-year-old Lewinsky $5 million to spill the beans during an interview on their station -- under penalty of perjury, not to a mention slew of other conditions -- about her alleged affair with President Clinton.

But what began as a standard radio stunt has become a "serious offer," according to Dane Wilts, general manager of Radio News Co., which represents KVBC, who assures that the station has the money to put where its mouth is.

"There's no hidden agenda in the offer, it's pretty straightforward," Wilts says of the proposition, dated Feb. 11, which is posted in its entirety on the station's web page (www.kvbcfm.com).

"She doesn't have to pose naked, she doesn't have to do anything weird," he assures. "Basically, (she would) just give an interview and do it truthfully ... and we'll give her $5 million, so that's what makes it a serious offer."

A copy of the offer was faxed to Lewinsky and her attorney, William Ginsburg, but so far, the station has not received a response from either.

Wilt is, of course, keeping his fingers crossed that she will accept the offer before the station's March 12 deadline, mostly because, he says, he'd like to see the scandal laid to rest.

"We should be talking about more important issues, but that's what the public wants to talk about," he says. "If we make this offer (and) she accepts, we get to the bottom line on this thing and we move on with our lives."

But whether she does or doesn't talk, KVBC still comes out a winner. "There's definite publicity value in the offer. I'm not gonna shy away from that," Wilts says. "That's definitely part of the deal here, to attract listeners and get people to check out our station if they've never heard it.

"Talk radio does all sorts of goofy things. If we were an all-news (format) station ... we couldn't get away with an offer like this," he says. "I'm trying to get across to the general public that talk radio can have personality, that it's not just a bunch of geriatric Republicans sitting around complaining about Clinton, that it can be fun (and) irreverent, a little more hip."

No way to tell yet whether the promotional ploy is working, as the radio industry's next local ratings survey, which gives Las Vegas stations' most recent rankings, is not available until April. If it's any indication, though, "the phones have been incredibly hot," with callers wanting to voice their opinions about the alleged affair as well as the station's offer since both began making headlines, Wilts says.

Local lunacy

KVBC's offer is one of many radio station proposals made to Lewinsky that are creating a buzz on the nation's airwaves, according to Frank Miniaci, radio editor of Radio and Records magazine.

"That one's pretty common," Miniaci says, adding that he's "written about a dozen and I've heard about at least 30 or 40" others, with price tags ranging from $10,000 to KVBC's $5 million. "Everything from ... (asking her to) call in to prove that she had sex with the president to having her do an exclusive interview to admitting it on air.

"The thing is, everybody knows that your shot of getting (a response from Lewinsky) is like winning the lottery," he says. "They know it's not going to happen but they're prepared to pay it, most of them I think, because (the station would) ... get national coverage. It would never happen."

Still, Cat Thomas, program director at Top 40 station KLUC 98.5-FM, thinks the offer was a stroke of radio genius. "When I saw (the station's ad promoting the offer) on TV, I said, 'Damn, I wish I had thought of it.' "

In the past, listeners of KLUC's morning show, hosted by a team which calls itself "The Breakfast Flakes," have bobbed for prizes in cottage cheese and, more recently, puckered up to a red Corvette for tickets to The Artist Formerly Known as Prince's show at the MGM Grand Garden last fall.

Stunts, Thomas says, are "the fun part" about working in radio. "It's the element of the theater of the mind and people thinking, 'Wow, that was wild.' You have to design them so that people can draw that picture (of what's going on) in their mind, and that's probably the most difficult part. If stunts go astray ... it's (because) they don't sound compelling on the air."

"I think it's hit or miss," Tony Bonnici, general manager at rock station KOMP 92.3-FM, says about stunts that the station's "Rock and Roll Morning Show," hosted by Craig Williams, regularly performs.

It was their stunt that had frigid listeners, donning Depends adult diapers and with the aid of walkers, strolling the Strip from the MGM Grand hotel-casino to the Fremont Street Experience to win tickets to the Rolling Stones concert here last year.

Last December, Troy Huckle, a local union carpenter, won an all-inclusive trip to Cancun, Mexico., courtesy of KOMP.

And all he had to do was slather his jock strap and cape-wearing self in cooking oil and lard, let Williams spray paint him blue and gold and perform a 25 foot-long "Pete Rose-style dive" on a piece of plastic in the valet parking lot at Boulder Station hotel-casino.

"If I'd have gotten a good running start, I could have gone the whole 50 feet," says 32-year-old Huckle. "The crowd went wild."

It was the first radio stunt Huckle has taken part in -- but it won't be the last. "It sure seems so easy to win because people are so unimaginative and not very daring," he says. "It sure doesn't seem like ripping away my dignity. I've done a whole lot worse. I can't even believe how worth it it was."

Says Bonnici: "Sometimes (a stunt) does great theater for folks who are just listening, who do not participate in the stunting, and then sometimes, I think even the (disc jockeys) will tell you, that after they end the day they say, 'Boy, that wasn't worth it.' "

One of those that maybe wasn't worth it -- but worked -- took place in-studio in 1995. Williams recalls that a listener, attempting to score an invitation to a backyard barbecue at the Green Valley home of Las Vegas-bred rocker Mark Slaughter, slurped the innards of a raw ostrich egg on the air.

"This thing was bigger than a football and it weighed about five pounds," Williams says. "This guy tipped his head back and started sucking. While he's doing it his gag reflex is going (so) he's filling it back up as he's trying to empty it."

It took about 15 minutes, but he did it (and won the prize). "He had this look on his face, he was as pale as a sheet," Williams says. "He turned around and barfed right into the garbage can. That was one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen in my life. I still have people coming up to me to this day (who remember) that."

Precisely the point, says Jerry Stern, program director at classic rock station KKLZ 96.3-FM, whose morning show duo, Ken Johnson and Jim Tofte, also have a long history of performing some downright revolting stunts.

"I think with so many radio stations, and so many of them sounding alike, that if a morning show does a stunt, it's primarily to have people remember them," Stern says.

That's the basis of what's referred to in the industry as "water cooler talk," he explains. Standing around the office cooler, "if (listeners) say, 'Hey, did you hear what Johnson and Tofte did this morning?' then we've done our job."

Good luck getting listeners to forget a recent gag, dubbed "Beggar's Banquet," where wives shaved and then ate from their hubby's heads for Stones tickets.

"When they start throwing up all over the station, that's kind of an occupational hazard here," Stern jokes. "But we certainly went all out describing it on the air so people could use their imagination and figure out what's going on."

"It's all about two things: Generosity and cruelty," Johnson says jokingly. "We want to make sure people win nice prizes and do it in the most painful and embarrassing way possible."

'The dumber the better'

Where do they come up with this stuff? While most on-air personalities claim stunts as their own creations, a growing number are turning to the Internet for inspiration.

That's where they find services such as the Almost Radio Network (http://pages.prodigy.com/almostradio/), where radio industry professionals share ideas for shows and on-air bits.

Founded two years ago by Cosmo Rose, morning show host at WXKC 99.9-FM in Eerie, Penn., the Almost Radio Network, besides its web page, also publishes a weekly newsletter to which more than 500 radio affiliates worldwide subscribe.

While Rose's own station doesn't do many stunts, he's heard of a few jaw-droppers in his day, including one in which a vasectomy was performed live on the air. "Stunts can be fun if done sparingly," he says. On the other hand, "there are some shows that are just stunt-oriented."

You're apt to find less stunts while cruising the dial in smaller cities than larger locales, where radio often plays second fiddle to other media outlets, according to Miniaci.

"It has to fight with other media to stand out ... where DJ's are like stars in small towns," he says. "Maybe it seems like (stunts) happen more in smaller markets only because there are more smaller markets than there are larger markets."

One stunt-heavy show, at rock station KLOS 95.5-FM in Los Angles, is hosted by the duo of Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps, better known simply as "Mark and Brian." Their morning show is currently heard in 20 cities around the country. (It was syndicated here, on KEDG 103.5-FM, in late 1993 through early '94.)

But rather than torture their listeners, who typically turn out in droves to witness the team's antics, Mark and Brian, who also hosted an "adventure" -oriented television show briefly on NBC in 1991, prefer to make themselves the butt of their own jokes.

"We've learned over the years, the dumber (the stunt), the better," Thompson says. "If it makes absolutely no sense to do it, good."

Ever wondered if a frozen turkey could fly? These guys did.

So, during a pre-Thanksgiving show one year, they traveled to a remote location in the California desert, inserted a model rocket engine into a frosty fowl and sent it airborne. Some 10,000 curious listeners attended the event.

Still, Phelps says, "you've got to go into (a stunt) with the knowledge that it's either really gonnna fly or this is really gonna suck."

Such was the case when the two got "a wild hair," and took the show into the Washington state wilderness in search of Sasquatch.

"We thought (it would be a) pretty funny show, it looked good on paper," Phelps recalls. "We were there for a good 10 minutes when we realized, 'OK, we're not gonna find Sasquatch. What are we gonna do now?' So it kind of backfired."

When their show was still heard in Las Vegas, they shot "Elvis Bob" (a Fiberglas Big Boy statue nabbed from outside a restaurant, which they modified to resemble the King) over the fountains at Caesars Palace.

"We decided to redo the exact jump that Evel Knievel couldn't (back in 1967)," Thompson explains. "The place was packed.

"The attraction is for people to show up for no apparent reason, to take off work (and say), 'I'm gonna go watch a turkey being launched,' " he says. "It sounds idiotic, but when those 10,000 people are at that location, they're all there for the same reason, which is ... so wonderful that it's silly."

Adds Phelps: "The stunts take care of themselves. But once the stunt's over, now (listeners) know who you are and where you're at on the radio dial, then you've got to give them a good, solid show everyday."

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