Years ago, I was listening to the radio and the DJ asked people to call in to say what they would do with a million dollars. After a while, a storm rolled in and the DJ started asking people to call in and report what they were observing with the storm (which is what they usually did during storms). A woman called in and asked, “Do you want to hear about the storm or can I tell you what I would do with a million dollars?” The DJ replied, “Uh, sure, you can tell us what you’d do with a million dollars.” I think he was wondering like me why she would be thinking about that when there was a storm raging outside. She started talking about some conspiracy theory, saying the Constitution of the United States was currently suspended and had been since Franklin Roosevelt was president. After listening to her nonsense, the DJ asked, “So you would use the money to…?” She replied, “Let people know about it!” I think he ended the call as soon as he could.
A more-heartwarming call happened shortly before Christmas one year. The morning DJs reported that someone had stolen $1000 worth of toys that had been collected for needy children. Shortly after that, a man called and said, “I’m not much of a shopper, but if you buy the toys, I’ll donate $1000 for them.” The radio station accepted the donation. Folks from the station went shopping and filled the station’s van with toys to be donated.
Are there any callers you heard while listening to the radio that stick out in your mind?
The old lady that called the Larry King Show many years ago and basically said “I don’t know why Jews, Muslims, Christians and all the rest can’t just get along. I mean, we all just worship Jesus our own way, don’t we?”.
An NPR quiz show called “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” where a caller got sufficiently flummoxed that while trying to come up with an answer actually said “Wait, wait, don’t tell me.”
There was a call-in segment on local public radio where the host challenged listeners to come up with a combination of three foods, any two of which go well together, but all three of which go poorly together. (As in, A+B, A+C, or B+C are all acceptable combinations, but A+B+C is not.)
First caller: “Snails, garlic, and chocolate syrup.”
Host: “No, not quite.” [explains challenge again]
Second caller: “Ice cream, sprinkles, and anchovies.”
What was the DJ’s solution? Because the question, as framed, seems non-sensical. If A+B, A+C, or B+C are all acceptable combinations, then what makes A+B+C not acceptable?
Salmon, butter, and a bagel. (“You can cook salmon in butter, and you can put salmon or butter on a bagel, but you’d never put salmon on a buttered bagel.”)
There used to be a local live TV game show that asked trivia questions and people would call in with answers. I know it sounds crazy but it’s what I remember. One night the question was, What is the name of the lines that run from your nose to the corners of your mouth? A young kid called to answer, “Booger valleys?” We laughed, but the host evidently had no patience for foolishness, and said if he got any more dumb answers like that, he was going to stop the show. We watched with renewed interest to see what happened next, but there was no more fucking around.
Heh, just about all of Art Bell’s callers were kind of memorable (though I wonder how many were paid actors instead of crackpots). I remember the guy claiming he was flying over Area 51.
In the 80s, I used to listen to the “Fred Fiske Show” on WAMU in Washington DC. One night a very upset young/teenage girl called in saying her father caught her masturbating. She was asking Fred Fiske what she should do, sometimes crying, sounding very anxious. Fiske didn’t know what to say, and kept talking about calling a “sex squad” or something for help. At one point her father got on another phone at the same time and said something like “honey,… I just want to talk to you…” It was very eery.
I don’t recall any follow up— it might have been a prank call. Fiske was a nice guy and it was a general call-in show, unscreened.
I didn’t her the call myself, but was told it by someone who was working at the radio station at the time–CBC Radio in Toronto, the weekday afternoon show, in the 1980s. They had a wine expert on and people were asked to call in and ask him for wine pairings. It was a lazy summer day, the show was low-key, and the guy working the kill switch on the 5 second broadcast delay was not paying attention when someone called in and said “it’s a nice day here, and I’m poolside wondering what wine you’d recommend for eating pussy.” Kill switch guy scrambled but was too late. It boomed through the station and went out on air. The wine expert didn’t miss a beat but said, “I think a nice light Chablis would be just perfect. I particularly like…” He was so smooth no one called in to complain. Even station people were “did I hear what I think I heard?” Urban legend? Given the person who told me, I don’t think so.
I was in another station talking about the logging industry and industrial accidents. Someone called in to reference the Worker’s Comp manual, the Fallers and Buckers Handbook. It didn’t come out that way. I started laughing, in part because I had been worried I would make the same mistake and I don’t know if the delay button was hit on time.
When I was a teenager in the early-mid 90’s I listened to KZEL out of Eugene, Oregon. Classic rock. I always caught the morning show (I can still hear it: “It’s Cyd and Mark - mornings, on KZEL – Oregon’s Classic Rock”).
Anyway, they were doing some stupid call-in game called “What’s in Cyd and Mark’s pants?” where callers had to guess what random item one of the two hosts had in his pocket. The winner got a gift certificate or something. A lot of people called in and played despite it being… less than creative.
Halfway through the show some guy called in and breathlessly exclaimed that Mick Jagger had just been assassinated outside of Heathrow. This was pre-internet of course and the two hosts were like “yeah, right… really?” and the caller kept imploring them to turn on the news… supposedly it was everywhere on TV. The hosts cut the call short and cued up a very long commercial break and when they came back they reported that the call had been a hoax… probably. Nothing was being reported on TV or any of the news radio stations, anyway.
An uncle of mine was listening to KROQ in Los Angeles when the infamous “I murdered my girlfriend” call was aired. The podcast Criminal recently discussed this incident.
Oh, yeah, I remember all those stories about a charity having their Christmas presents stolen, and the community rallied to replace the gifts. Those stories largely went away after it was revealed that most of the thefts were inside jobs.
When I was in 9th grade, a local rock station had a “Torture Chamber” every evening where people could call in and nominate someone (late 1970s) so I called in and nominated the algebra teacher. “And what school does Mr. Wilson go to?” (I called him Mr. Wilson, because we did too.) I was a minor celebrity the next day.
Did Mr. Bell ever have one of those “Howard Stern” callers?
The ones I heard were all inappropriate, but the worst one was somebody who called a TV station in Oklahoma City, about an hour after the bombing, and he posed as an onsite reporter until he did his thing. That station put their live broadcast on YouTube within the past couple of years, in about 15-minute segments.
As a late 1980s data entry operator, I stumbled onto Bob Larson’s show on one of the Christian stations, and gotta say, he could be very entertaining at times.
One of my co-workers took one for the team and kept her Walkman on for the program that followed, and one time, they had a caller who claimed that her church’s prayers led to the resurrection of a dead baby. I said one time, “If there’s anyone you need to worry about, it’s people who send money to the guy who’s on AFTER Bob.”
On the later 80’s I was listening to a popular radio station in Lansing Michigan. Being interviewed live by the DJ was none other than Tim Curry. He was in town with a revival production of “42nd Street:” He said that no matter what type of shoe he was going to be in the first thing an interviewer would ask about would be Rocky Horror.
Also, when I was listening to the same station at another time the DJ had a message from a veternarian at Michigan State University. He had been called to Alaska as he was a specialist in sedating wild animals, and this was when they were trying to clean up oil covered animals after the Exxon Valdex disaster. The vet said they were running out of towels locally because they could only be used once. So a local packing company said they would mail towels for free and a whold room at their place was filled with donated towels. I bought some.
Off topic: We recently got a new Gordon’s, which is a restaurant supply and bulk foods store that does not require a membership. They sell Dawn dishwashing detergent in 5-gallon buckets, and I thought of oil spills when I saw that display.
