I work for a small-market radio station in eastern Colorado (well, *that’s * redundant, isn’t it!?) Anyway, one of the segments we do is the Birthday Club – it’s all sponsored and hokey as hell and we have a rollicking good time with it. Our goal is to be entertaining, which means funny, and we (my brother, the program director and host of the Morning Circus) have a number of tools and prompts we use to make sure this happens. Mostly, we draw on our combined 60 years in mass communications and the finely-honed instincts for good poop jokes our father gave us to pull off an award-winning segment. But sometimes we accidentally wade into the manure pile and come out smelling like roses. This morning was an example. Here’s a transcript; some of the names have been changed for reasons that will become clear. The players are Andy (show host) Me and Caller.
ANDY: (punches in the phone line) Good morning, KPMX, you’re on the air. You have a birthday for us?
CALLER: Yeah, today is Jackie R***‘s birthday.
ANDY: And how old is this alleged Jackie R***?
CALLER: Y’know, I don’t really know.
ME: Hey, I know Jackie R***. She’s a good friend of mine!
CALLER: Yeah, mine, too.
ANDY: Yeah, Chaz’s child bride. So, today is her birthday. OK, she’s in the birthday club. And who is this?
CALLER: This is K****
ANDY: Oh, hey, I thought …
ME: Kathy G*****?
CALLER: No! Kathy R****! Your wife!
ANDY: Yeah, I was gonna’ say, I thought I recognized that voice. Obviously, the Suinrazor didn’t! Hey, Sis, how ya’ doin’?
ME: Oh, my gosh! Hi, Babe!
CALLER: Hi, honey!
ANDY: (Uncontrollable laughter)
ME: Hey, in my defense, this is not the first time I’ve failed to recognize my wife’s voice on the phone!
ANDY: Bro, that’s not much of a defense!
CALLER: (Uncontrollable laughter)
ANDY: (Attempts to breathe through the laughter)
ME: (silence – I got nothin’ at this point!)
Okay, so for the rest of the day, I got phone calls from family and close friends, all of whom were very careful to identify themselves fully before saying they enjoyed the hell out of my dumb-assedness on the air. But really, the headphones were cutting in and out, there was background noise, I wasn’t really paying very close attention … are you guys buyin’ any of this? We’ve saved an mp3 of the segment, gonna’ enter it next year in the Colorado Broadcasters Association awards competition. We have no shame!