An episode of an old TV show I caught recently (okay, it was *Magnum, P.I., *if you must know) featured a story about a radio DJ who mentions getting “the look” from listeners when they met her- a surprised reaction based on the character’s actual appearance not being what the listener expected it to be.
The idea that these surprised reactions would happen makes sense, because people will make a mental image of someone based on partial information, their own background and their experiences, but I’ve never heard a radio personality say that he or she gets odd looks from listeners when they meet them in person because the host or DJ doesn’t appear they way they thought they would.
Is experiencing “The Look” an actual phenomenon that people who work in radio or doing voiceovers experience, or was the whole idea just something made up by a TV writer for dramatic purposes? If by chance any of the Teeming Millions has experienced “The Look”, how do you react to it and deal with it? Since I have a face for radio and a voice for silent movies, I don’t think it’ll ever be an issue for me, but I’m curious. Thanks in advance.
My anecdote is as a giver of “the look,” not a recipient.
When I was in high school, in the early 1980s, I worked part-time in my father’s hardware store. One evening, a slender, short man in his 30s came into the store, looking for a particular plumbing part. He was wearing a jacket with the logo of the local top-40 radio station on it, with the name “Bill” embroidered on it.
As he and I talked, while I was helping him, I realized that, for a little guy, he had a fairly resonant voice. And, then, it all clicked in my head – with that voice pitched more deeply, he was the afternoon DJ on that station. His “normal” voice wasn’t quite as pronounced as his radio voice, and he looked nothing like I’d pictured the owner of that rich voice looking like.
I’ve never worked in radio, but I used to have a job where I talked to the same people on a very frequent basis. I remember meeting a woman that I had talked to only on the phone for a couple of years. Her first reaction was something like “Is that really you? I had imagined …” and proceeded to describe someone completely different. I still remember that encounter after so many years.
I dabbled in radio a long time ago. I remember having the reaction behind “The Look” numerous times when I met people I’d only heard on the air. I don’t know whether it showed.
Looks don’t matter much in radio (although maybe that’s not as true now, with media so interwoven). So a person with a “10” quality radio voice who isn’t much to loook at is better qualified than a “7” voice in a better looking person.
I had an amusing thing happen once with a well-known local DJ:
Very few listeners knew he was black, because he had a very preppy, white-sounding voice. When I did some work for the station he was on, I was told that he liked to joke with people who would meet him in person for the first time, and were invariably shocked.
Late one night, I had to drop off some tapes* to the booth where he was working. I called the booth from a pay phone** across the street, and he agreed to come downstairs at his next break and buzz me in.
When he told me, “I’m easy to spot - I have blonde hair and blue eyes”, I realized he was pulling my leg.
I responded, “Really? That’s interesting! I always thought you sounded like you were black”.
I could almost hear his jaw drop over the phone.
We both busted out laughing when he came down.
*I said it was a long time ago!
** See above comment.
I’ve gotten The Look from not only being on the radio but from working in phone-based customer service for years. Many’s the time I’ve been told I don’t look like I sound; the consensus seems to be I don’t look like I have the mouth and attitudes I have. Turns out that though I look exactly like my mom, I have my dad’s brain and deployment thereof.
After 46 years in the radio biz, I only recall once getting The Look. I was out on a remote and some guy walks up and asks “which one are you?” I answered and he laughed and shook his head. “I always thought you’d be a big fat guy!” he said. I replied “Sorry to disappoint you!” I’m average height and average weight and have never had a deep deep voice, and I can’t understand why anyone would picture me as a big, fat guy.
My husband is routinely mistaken for a woman on the phone. Doesn’t help that his name’s masculine version is very close to the feminine version. The last time he called his grandmother, she thought he was cousin Maria.
He doesn’t sound the same in person.
Does nobody else freak out when they see Archer’s voice come from H. Jon Benjamin’s face? This phenomenon is certainly real.
In old time radio, the studio audience for “Fibber McGee and Molly” would be very startled that the black maid “Beulah” was voiced by a white man - leading to big laughs when “she” first spoke (which the radio audience presumably wouldn’t understand): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibber_McGee_and_Molly#Recurring_characters
I laughed when one friend, a loyal listener of the How Stuff Works podcast, had seen a picture of Josh and Chuck years ago, but had them switched in his mind. He met them in person and was just silent while his brain processed that the taller, skinnier guy was… Josh? Wha…? And that’s Chuck?
They walked on before he could say anything to his heroes.
We have a local DJ, he does early evening show when all the kids listen while driving home from school. I had to meet him one day to give him some reminders about ball game times and such. I always thought he was a young hip black guy. Turns out he was an old, gay white guy. Weird.
I have a sort of opposite story. In the early '90s I delivered pizza for a mom & pop place in Downtown San Jose. One of my fellow drivers, who I worked with for about a year, was a Radio-TV major and had a show at the university. After he graduated, he got a job as a fill-in DJ at one of the local rock stations. Within a couple of years, he became the lunchtime DJ, and thus became well-known in the area.
I eventually became the general manager of the restaurant. Four or five years after dude got his break, one day the lunch deliveries were off the charts so I was helping out the driver. I grabbed a run, looked at the address, and saw it was going to my old friend at the radio station.
I hadn’t seen him since he’d left the restaurant, and I almost didn’t recognize him. He’d gained weight - not in a bad way, he’d filled out and was no longer the scrawny guy I’d known. He’d cut off all his hair. He’d grown a beard. There’s no reason to think someone would look the same after four or five years, of course, but I was still surprised by how different he looked.
So he got “the look” from me. He did not, in fact, look the way I expected him to.
There was a woman I and several employees had spoken with over the phone. Her name was Antoinette, and her voice was sultry and sexy with a “breathless” quality. She kind of whispered, and it made you strain to listen. People described her as having a “bedroom voice”.
After a few years worth of occasional phone conversations I got the chance to meet her face to face. She was a sweet little old lady with an oxygen tank she wheeled around with her. What a shock!!
Eons ago, my dad and uncle did a polka music show in Baltimore on Sunday mornings. Their engineer was the morning DJ at the country music station where they broadcast. As the show became more popular (seriously - it was a big deal with a very dedicated group of listeners) I was brought it to answer the phones, and I got to meet the DJ.
I don’t know if he picked up on my reaction, but the pudgy, buck-toothed guy with the messy hair was not a match for the amazing voice I’d heard over the air. On the other hand, when they had a substitute DJ/engineer, he definitely fit his voice. I had a major-league teenaged crush on him!
I’d never heard about the concept of “the look” mentioned by name as such before, or after, Magnum, but it was parodied in Wayne’s World II, where Wayne and Garth go to the radio station to meet with the DJ that sounds like Harry Shearer, and are surprised when he actually looks like Harry Shearer.
In my case, I haven’t had the opportunity. We had a DJ with a very deep, resonant voiceon our local radio station. He has since gone to national work, but I’ve never seen a picture of him. I am sure he doesn’t look like what his voice sounds like, though!
Something like this turns up in Woody Allen’s “Radio Days” - the main character loves listening to a radio show “Masked Avenger” the hero of which has a wonderful heroic voice. He’s voiced by Wallace Shawn.
