This is where we swap war stories.   Every month we will post a new radio story as told by the radio personalities who lived them.

(Stations listed are not necessarily the personality's current place of employment. 

These stories were collected over several years.)

This Month’s True Radio Story...

Roberta Gale, evenings, Jersey 101.5, New Jersey

    When I was working in Cleveland on the WMMS Buzzard Morning Zoo with Jeff and Flash in 1988 we decided to do a wacky stunt for Groundhog's Day.  I was going to dress up in a groundhog suit and then come up out of a manhole in the street and announce whether or not I could see my shadow.

 

    Well, first of all, finding a groundhog suit was a story in itself.  I had to call every costumer and theatrical supply company in the tristate area before I finally came up with a beaver suit. Well, okay, it's the same as a groundhog except for the tail - so we snapped it up.  The morning of February 2nd I got in the suit and went downtown with a microphone wired on me to broadcast back to the station.  Well the first problem was the manhole itself. It was so small I could hardly squeeze in, what with my tail and all.  Then I started to get claustrophobic.  It was dark and scary down there with very little air.  And after I pulled the manhole cover back over me it was so heavy I wasn't able to lift it up!   I kept telling myself to concentrate - this is just one of those things that you have to do that you can get through if you just make up your mind - it'll all be over soon enough.

    So the guys come out of their record and I hear them say, "Okay, now lets go to Roberta who's going to emerge from beneath the ground to tell us if she sees her shadow..." Drum roll.

    I started sweating.  I couldn't move the manhole cover!  I felt like I was going to pass out.  All I could do was utter a few weak, "Helps."  I was so embarrassed thinking how this must sound over the air.  Fortunately the guys cut away and I managed to choke out that somebody from the station  better come save me.  When our promotion guy finally got there, he pulled off the manhole cover and tried to get me out.  I thought I was finally home free until I realized I was stuck in the hole!  The darn beaver suit was all bunched up around my butt and I was totally wedged into the hole.  Now every Groundhog's Day is a humiliating reminder of the awful stunt that was, unfortunately, my idea in the first place. 

Jeff McNeal, Afternoon Drive, Y95, San Diego

     In the mid 80's I was working for the NBC station up in San Francisco.  We had a real nice staff and everybody got along great.  And we had lots of engineers and being NBC, everything was lush and they spared no expense - except in the bathrooms.

     When they built the facilities, they had the men's and the ladies' rooms sharing an adjoining wall.  So the toilets would sort of go "back-to-back" if you will, and they would share the plumbing.  So if you sat on the toilet in the men's room, it would rock the one in the ladies' room and vice-versa. 

     Armed with this knowledge, one day I was standing in the hallway talking to some engineer friends, when we saw the music director, whose name was Annette, a real proper, ladylike type, go into the ladies' room.  We always liked to tease her because she had a wonderful sense of humor and was a good sport.

     So I said, "Watch this guys, I'm going to make her think there's an earthquake!"  

     I ran over to the men's side and just took a guess at what seat she'd be on, on the other side.  Of course, it turned out, I picked the right one.  I started jiggling the bowl with my foot to kind of simulate an earthquake, you know?  Well the whole bowl fell off the wall and came crashing to the floor!!  When this happened, Annette went flying up off her toilet seat and running and screaming into the hall!  

     I looked at my toilet, which had broken into several pieces and I was thinking, "Oh, God, I'm gonna lose my job.  The General Manager is going to fire me, there'll be sexual harassment suits and blah, blah, blah."  So I concocted a story that I went to use the bathroom and the toilet just simply fell of the wall.

     So, of course it made the local press that I broke the toilet seat. Then a  couple weeks later one of Annette's friends had a toilet seat with a seat belt attached to it delivered to her as a gift.