Rock School; WKRP In Cincinnati

This is Joe Burns. And Chad P. Hey, thanks for listening to The Rock School Podcast. We think you'll learn something. Now remember, if you want to hear the show with all the music in place, go to KSLU .org and stream the show live Thursdays at five. Sundays at four. It's a new show every week. Now enjoy this week's Rock School Radio Show. It's time for school. Rock School. With your hosts, Dr. Joe Burns. We had women calling up and calling the awful names. You adulterer. You. Man. And on the air, I'm doing this. Man, it's a joke. And Chad P. What he said, they were crashing into cars like big bags of cement.

Class is it. This is Rock School. My name is Joe Burns, a professor in the Communication Department, South East and Louisiana University. I even said this in a while. This is Chad P. A former student and one who must learn. I've learned. I've learned a lot of stuff. I've even said it in a while. I corrected my brother the other day on the internet. That's trying to quote Metallica. That was turned the page by Metallica. Son. That's Bob Seger. That's right. The poet laureate of Detroit. That's you have to learn that. I haven't learned. Ladies and gentlemen, before we get into today's topic, we have something very important to discuss with you, your wallet, your pocket book, your checkbook. This radio station that we emanate from is KSLU, broadcasting from the campus of Southeast and Louisiana University. It is a nonprofit radio station and thus, once a year, we go tote bag crazy. That's right. We need your money. So what we've decided to

do here at the Rock School Radio Network is, you know, we have no values. We put the show up for sale. We sell the show. We sell the show. This Rock School show is for sale. Here is the way it will be done. The dial position of KSLU is 90 .9. So, you can buy this radio show, Rock School, for $90 and 90 cents plus tax, plus tax, how much tax? $10 and 10 cents. So an even $100 buys you this radio show. That's right. The way it works is if you purchase the show, basically, you're in charge. You get to pick the topic. You get with the good doctor and myself. That's right. And we bang out a show that will air what's the date? It will air the 25th and the 28th of March on KSLU. On KSLU. That's right. And it will probably go out to the other. Oh, yeah. It'll go out to the affiliates. They're not to the affiliates. Last year's boss, so to speak, was Diana Laurent. And she purchased the show and demanded the topic of hell, hath no fury like a woman's scorn. That's right. You can buy the

show and it is literally first pay for serve. You can't just say, well, I want it. We need the money. We need the money in hand. 100 dollars. Contact us at this radio station. Give us the phone number first, Chad. Area code 985 -549 -2330. And it doesn't matter if you're a listener in Louisiana or in Connecticut or even in Salamonco. You can just get that money exchanged to US currency. Right. Buy the show and you're in charge. Right. And it's first come, again, first pay. That's right. We need the money. Now, you can't tell us what to play. No, we do the use. You can't. We do the music. Right. We do the music. But you tell us what topic you want. You can have a hand in choosing the music. But legally, you can't tell us what to play. So 100 dollars, the show is up for sale. And we got to do it pretty quickly. We're actually about a week behind what we should have been. But last week, we wasn't really a good show to do it with. Last week, we talked about insane rock stars. That's right. My wife listened to the show and she said to me, you better do a fun show next week because that was a real downer. I thought last week's show was great. It was great. But it still was in a down mode.

If you're going to go into radio, this is a tip from Chad and I. If you're going to go into radio, you need to know two things. A lot of music trivia. And how to speak with good diction. And enough WKRP and Cincinnati trivia to take down a small farm animal. For an hour today, you're going to learn about WKRP and Cincinnati. So, without any further ado, it was written by Tom Wells, lyrics by Hugh Wilson and performed by Steve Carlyle. Darling, if you've ever wondered, wondered what became of me. I'm living on the air in Cincinnati, Cincinnati, WKRP. There you go. There's the theme song for

WKRP and Cincinnati. Now, if you're in the world of radio, you adore the show because it really did show a lot of the truth of radio and then we're going to talk to you about what's true and what's not true. You wanted to talk about the characters and we'll get to them in just a second. But even for the cursory watcher of WKRP, here's a piece of trivia. You probably know or should know. What was the first word Dr. Johnny Fever said before they went to a rock and roll format at WKRP? If you remember, WKRP was 16th in an 18th station market and in came Andy Travis, the new program director, and they were playing, if you remember, elevator music. The last song they played was the Mormon Tabernacle Choirs version of the Paul Anca Hit you're having my baby or in that case, you're having our baby. And Dr. Johnny Fever was sitting in there and incomes Andy Travis and hands him a whole bunch of rock records and says we're

going rock and roll. You are no longer Dr. Johnny Sunshine, you are now Dr. Johnny Fever, play this rock music. So there's two pieces of trivia. What was the last word that he said and what was the first rock song ever played on WKRP and Cincinnati? Do you know either of them? No. The last word he said was bugger because it's the word that got him fired at his last rock show. And the first rock song ever played on WKRP was Ted Nugent's Queen of the Forest. Take those to your grave, huh? Rock School. You know the thing about it is I was not able to just simply watch the

shows and get these. I purchased wanting to do this show because I love the show and wanting to actually do a rock school show. I purchased the season, the first season of WKRP, picked it up off of the shelf at Best Buy. Oh, bad. It's awesome. None of the rock songs are in it. What? They're all gone. The show is originally videotape. It was one of the first shows ever shot on videotape because it was cheaper to get the rights to rock songs than it would be if it was filmed. The problem is once you send it out on videotape or DVD now, once you send it out, you have to repay all the royalties. Oh, wow. So all the music is gone. It's replaced. What do you mean the music's gone? It's gone. They've replaced it with bad production rock music. So what I had to do was actually go to a website where someone, a person who was a big fan of the show, actually went in and found every single song that had been taken out and told me what song was actually in there. So are you talking about like when they shot a scene of them spinning a record and you could hear the audio, that's now gone. On TV,

you could hear the real song, and believe it or not, the show was responsible for hit songs. Oh, I'm sure it was. But now, if you look at it on DVD or listen to it on DVD, it's a cheap imitation. That's right. It's a piece of production music with heavy guitars, and it was really disappointing. In fact, I haven't even watched any of the episodes that I didn't really care about. So, which is really too bad. Okay. What's the name of the man that owns W .K. European Cincinnati. Mr. Carlson. Mr. Carlson. What's the name of the disc jockey in the morning? Dr. Johnny Fever. Dr. Johnny Fever, who is actually Johnny Cool, Johnny Duke, Johnny Style, Johnny Midnight, Johnny Sunshine, Professor Sunshine, Riptide, and Heavy Early. What's the name of the newsman? Less Nessman. Yeah. He has one, two awards. Can you name either of them? No, one of them. Which one? The coveted, uh, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the coveted silver sale, silver sale, and the Buckeye News Hawk award. What is the name of the highest paid employee? She answers the phones at the front desk. I can't remember. Jennifer Marlow.

Okay. And we'll come back in a little bit with the man who actually does your job at the radio station. I said at WKRP, a lot of songs became hits because of it. Yeah. In the first season, there was a show called Ferryman's Memorial Homes, where a guy who sold caskets, came in and had them create a commercial that was so offensive. Selling caskets and they recorded this jingle. There ain't no way to deny it someday. You're gonna buy it in the, if you've worked radio long enough, that happens. You have to run offensive commercials. Blondie's Heart of Glass was featured in the show. It became a hit because of the show so much so that the label, Christmas records, actually presented the producers with a gold record for the album Parallel Lines, which hung on the wall. And if you look at older shows, it's there. It's there. Nice. Really not. I'm not kidding you.

Blondie. Heart of Glass. Rock school. Blondie's Heart of Glass actually made popular by WKRP. And I got another one. After the break, we'll do it and tell you about another song that was made popular by WKRP. Okay. Who does your job, who is the salesperson, Herb Tarlink, good for you, who is the biggest client at WKRP, John Blank, Red Wigglers, the Cadillac of Worms, who also does part of your job there. The person who writes the commercial copy, the words for the commercials, Bailey quarters, Bailey quarters, who I was in love with, by the way, yeah, building and traffic. Who is the afternoon, actually would be the nighttime DJ?

What's his name? Venus Flytrap. What did Venus Flytrap do before becoming a disc jockey? I don't remember. He was a teacher in New Orleans. Oh, cool. How about that? We got time for one short, quick one. One of my favorite episodes was Mike Fright. This was during a city -wide garbage strike. Johnny Fever jokingly tells all the people to dump their garbage on the steps of City Hall and they do it and he gets a terrible case of Mike Fright. This is something that people think never happens to disc jockeys. They say something and all of a sudden they lose the ability to talk on Mike. Do you ever get nervous sometimes when the microphone opens? Sure. I'm telling you, after years and years of disc jockey work, there were still times when the mic would open and my stomach would cramp. Nervous right now. Just a little bit. And inside of that one, Chuck Berry's rock and roll music plate and it sounds like this, rock school.

Love that song, Chuck Berry, rock school. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever said anything on the air that people took literally and you just kind of minted it as a joke or anything like that? All the time. Yeah. All the time. One time I ran a consistent bit, the woman who did the news at the local television station. Heather was her first name. I don't want to say her last name, but the running joke was that I was in love with her. Okay. And the secondary part of the joke was that the guy I did the radio show with Brad was in love with the weather guy. Okay. And that was the joke. I mean, I was in love with the woman who did the news and he was in love with the weather guy and over and I married and over Valentine's Day, we would call her up and what was fun as she played with us and we'd get her on the air and she would, you know, Joe, you know, I can't run away with you and the weather guy didn't like it and we'd get him on the air and he would get upset and we'd have harps playing and all that. We had women calling up and calling the awful names, you adulterer, you, ma 'am, and on the air, I'm doing this. Ma 'am, it's a joke. It's a bit.

It's a bit. We're just having fun here. My wife can hear the radio the same way you can hear the radio, but they took it that I was actually having this affair on the radio and I'm thinking lady, my wife can hear the radio just like you, but I've done all kinds of bits like that. I remember I cursed on the air one time and didn't mean to. It just came out and there's no way to, you know, TVO the radio. Hello, KLSU. Oh, I caught all kind of heck for that. KLSU, thanks for listening to the radio station. I'll do my best not to curse. Who else listens to us? KSCL and Shree Port Louisiana. We don't curse on this here radio station. iTunes. Got us on iTunes. We get back. I'll tell you one more song made popular by WKRP in Cincinnati back in a minute, rock school. Okay, another neat piece of trivia about WKRP in Cincinnati. At the beginning when you're watching the opening credits, they show a tower, everybody

thinks it's a radio tower. Radio people know for a fact it can't be a radio tower. It's not shaped correctly. It's a television tower. It's the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati. Oh, the things you all don't know. Yeah. I also love watching it when they show Dr. Johnny Fever and he says, and here's a brand new song by so and so and he puts the needle down on the record. There's no way you can do that. No, wrong. No, no, no, no. Buy us. Once again, we pitched it at the top of the hour, but again, this radio show is for sale. The radio station we broadcast this from our flagship station, KSLU, is a nonprofit station. So if you'd like to buy rock school, it is for sale for $100 to get to pick the topic and help us pick the music. You can't just pick all the music yourself. That's pretty much against FCC law, but you get to pick the topic and help us pick the music or we'll just do all the work for ourselves. I'll tell you what, I'll go one better than that. Last year's purchaser actually came in and sat in with us. Yeah. If you're local, if you're here in the Hammond, Louisiana area or maybe Baton Rouge, if you're in driving distance of this here radio station, come in. You can

come on in and be on the air with us. This show will air well on the 25th and 28th. That's right. Get around to doing it. First pay, first come in and do the show. We're handsome men. We bathe regularly and brush our teeth on a fairly regular basis. Correct. The song, Hot Blooded by Forner, was helped to be a hit by WKRP. In the show, a date with Jennifer, where Les Nessman gets a date, he is seen getting ready for the date while listening to Hot Blooded by Forner. And the record company said, you made it a hit. Here you go. Rock School. Yeah, it's a quick question about WKRP on

the show. The disjockeys were the coolest of cool. The boss pretty much didn't know what was going on. I think that you become a radio general manager. You have to have that lobotomy to have the good part of your brain taken up. The news guy, Les Nessman, who by the way is my favorite character, because he was such a nerd. Yeah, it was just so funny. And Herb, who wore the ugliest backster suit in the world, I think so. Do you think that they stereotyped those positions because that's kind of the first thing that comes to your mind. I'm the radio news guy. So you must be the little squirmy nerdy guy that gets the AP wire with the glasses and they were from my radio station. Where are they? Oh, yeah. The nighttime guy, the Venus flytrap, who brought women to the radio station. My guys did. Cool. I didn't want them too, but they did. We caught one of my nighttime guys with five women one time. What'd you do? We clapped. Nice job. Wow. I should fire you. Way to go. Well done, young man. Welcome to the bottom of the hour. I'm Joe Burns. I'm Chad. Let's do seven days and 70 seconds. I'd love to tell you that was a joke. It wasn't. It's true. It was. March 1st. That's a Monday through Sunday. March 7th. On March 1st, 65 years ago, in 1945, the

Who Leeds singer, Roger Dahltree, was born in London, England. Tuesday, March 2nd, 35 years ago, Linda McCartney is arrested for a personal possession of marriageawana in Los Angeles, California, A. 1995. 15 years ago, on March 3rd, Billy Berry, who is the drummer for R .E .M., he collapsed during the concert performance in Switzerland from a brain aneurysm and he underwent successful surgery. 40 years ago, on Thursday, March 4th, Janice Joplin is fined $200 following the performance in Tampa, Florida, for using obscene language during her show. March 5th, 1955, Elvis Presley made his television debut during an episode of Louisiana Hayride. March 6th. Let's go 40 years back, cult leader Charles Manson releases an album in hopes of raising funds for his legal defense. Only 300 copies were purchased. 10 years ago, on March 7th, that's a Sunday this year, but 10 years ago, no stranger to law, rapper Foxy Brown is arrested for driving without a license after crashing her SUV in New York City. OK, more neat trivia questions. If you get into radio, there

is always outside of the radio studio a big room where people get ready in television. It's called the green room in radio. It's called the bullpen. Yeah. Yeah, we have one here. It's just a big open room where you sort of sit around and shoot the breeze and sort of get ready to go on the air. If you were in radio at the time of WKRP, you could send a bumper sticker to WKRP and many of them, they put up on the wall in the bullpen. Cool. So you could see other people's call letters, who was, another piece of trivia, who was WKRP's number one competitor in Cincinnati? Do you remember the call letters? No. WPIG, the pig, this upset Arthur Carlson so bad that he wanted his own mascot. So he came up with the WKRP, Karp, and he dressed Les Nessman up as a giant fish and wandered him around on the WKRP Carp Show known as Fish Story. What song started that show? Blue Collar Man by Sticks, Rock

School. All right, let's talk about the show that almost everybody knows. With God as my witness. I thought Turkey's could fly. I thought Turkey's could fly. My favorite one. This is a one where Les Nessman is doing a parody of Herbert Morrison's famous coverage of the Hindenburg disaster. Oh, the humanity. That's right. Well, he's dropping. Well, the big guy Carlson is dropping turkeys. From a helicopter. Do you know that's based on a real occurrence? I heard it was. Yeah. It really happened. It was at radio station WQXI in Atlanta. The series creator, his name is Hugh Wilson. He actually worked as an advertiser at the radio station, advertising business, the radio station. They threw turkeys and they were dropping,

as Les Nessman said, like canned hams down into it. He said, they were crashing into cars like big bags of cement. I loved at the beginning of that episode as well, where they paid an airplane to pull. Obviously, they were throwing the turkeys out of an airplane, but it pulled a sign behind it. And Les Nessman went, the sign says, happy, thanks, giving from WU. I didn't show the shot of the guys into booth and they were Malik K, R, P, plotted cheese. That's awesome. Now, there was also another episode that dealt with a real -life situation, it was called in concert, inspired by a real event, the tragic concert by the who, in Cincinnati's Riverfront call of CM, December 3rd, 1979. It was festival seating and this is where people did not have tickets for a seat.

It was when the doors opened, take off. And what happened was the fans crowded themselves around the doors. Some of the doors were open, some of them weren't. The who began running through a sound check and people thought the concert had started and began rushing the doors. Some of the doors were open, some of them weren't. At doors where people could not get in, fans were crushed and died. And in the show, Cincinnati's WKRP gave away tickets to the show. Right. Now, you would think in the show they would have played music by the who. They did not. Okay. In fact, when they learned of the death of the people, they actually played this one by the Rolling Stone, sympathy for the devil. Rock school. These allowed me to introduce myself, I'm a man with a taste. I've been around for a long, long year, so many amazes.

Okay. There's a Rolling Stones now. We got to do a real quick break here, but a real quick piece of trivia to keep you going on WKRP. Do you remember that Les Nessman had a bandaid on in every show and it moved around his body? He did. Do you remember that? I don't know. Why did he have a bandaid on? I don't know. Because he had a vicious dog named Phil. Every time you saw his apartment, there was this dog. You never saw the dog. It just barked viciously and the dog's name was Phil. And every time you saw Les Nessman, there was always a bandaid somewhere on his body because it was apparently Phil attacked him, loved Les Nessman. He had the eyewitness weather. How was it eyewitness? He opened the window and witnessed the weather. Hello radio, University of Ed Salamanca, Spain, thanks for running the radio show. Hello WBSD in Burlington, Wisconsin. Anyone who has worked radio has had to deal with the ratings and we'll talk WKRP ratings in just a minute. Rock school. This is Rock School and we're talking about

WKRP and Cincinnati for the hour. Anyone who has worked in radio in any size market has had to deal with ratings. And the ratings book, that's a little magazine looking thing, but they call it the radio book. It arrives in a box and there it is. It says Arbitron on it. In the show, baby, if you've ever wondered, there it is. It sits in a box on Bailey's desk and everybody walks past it as if it is filled with kryptonite. Yeah. And no one can touch it. And the whole time they walk around it, like it would kill them if like it's the arc of the covenant. They touch it. It's going to kill them. You live by them. You die by them. That's right. And finally, at the end, they open it and they find that they've jumped from 16th place to 14th place. Now, in the world, you know, that's two jumps. That's great. It really is. It's in one book to jump. That's a quarter of a year, three months, one book. That's a great jump to, you know, that would actually secure your place and which means they're doing very well. So the show ends on an up note, but to just the average viewer,

eh, to people in radio, boy, did we know that feeling? Oh, man, did I know that feeling? Really? You just, you set there and you stare at the box over in the corner, I got to open it sometime and you finally do and you, oh, please be good. And then when it's good, you're the happiest guy in the world. And when it's not, you make sure the resume is just as clean as you can get. Then you make it sound like it's your property tax bill and you pray to God that your escrow covered it. I can pay my property tax bill. One of the songs they played in that one, Eddie Money, everybody rock and roll to place, rock school. Everybody rock and roll to play. Hey! Okay, we got time for two more songs, which means we'll play one more song and we'll play the ending theme to W. Carapbean Centenetti. and everybody wonders, what are the lyrics

to the ending theme? You remember? We can't tell you what the actual lyrics are to the ending theme. Whatever happens to WKRP, they went a few seasons and did they just die out? Are they gone? Here's what happened. The station actually comes to an end after four years when Mama Carlson, the actual owner, the big guy's mom, decides to change to an all -talk format. They get to number six. Why did she buy the station? Do you know why? It was a tax break. If it keeps losing money, it's still a tax break. The problem was when Andy Travis arrived, he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He brought it up. He turned it into a money -making venture and she looked around and went, no, no, I'm making too much money. I need to lose money. And when that was over, she decided to turn it into an all -talk station. They went on to actually create the new WKRP, which was a spin -off on CBS and, nah, it wasn't very much. It was the original that

really made everybody, whoo, I was like, you can't bring in the new class to say by the bell and expect that to take off. No. Doesn't work. Nah. Yuck. If you have worked radio long enough, you are going to play a song that's going to offend somebody. You write about that. Yeah. Somebody is going to call up how dare you play this. You are offending my delicate sensibilities. In the show called Clean Up Radio Everywhere, a man by the name of a player, by the name of Dr. Bob Haillers was the head of the organization Clean Up Radio Broadcasting or Curb visits the big guy, Mr. Carlson, with a list of obscene songs that he wants the station to stop playing or else, or he never says or else what, you know, it's always just a big threat. I got the same stuff, you know, stop playing these or we're going to boycott your station. I never knew what that meant. Okay. Fine. And what happens is in the show, he comes up and he says, you know, I want you to get rid of these and Carlson finally stands up for himself and he says, here's a song. What do you think of this? And it's John Lennon's Imagine and he says, what do you think about this? And he says, okay.

What are the lyrics? He says, imagine there's no heaven. And the guy says, no, we're going to boycott that. He says, no, wait a minute. No wait. Your organization didn't say that. You said that. He said, well, I'm sure that's what the organization would say. He said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you didn't even take it to your organization. You said it. That means you're doing it. That's one person you are censoring my radio station. And at that point in time, Carlson grows a backbone and says, no, you're not censoring it. Do what you want to do. Have at it. I'm playing every song on this thing and I'm playing them louder than I did before. And you sort of see a backbone for the first time in Arthur Carlson. Yay. Carlson. John Lennon, imagine. Rocks go. Imagine there's no heaven. I'm

actually glad that you played that song because it reminds me we got a seasoned assist for that song. Yeah, we do. No, no. Hey, buy the show. Buy the show. We'll talk more about it next week, but it's a hundred bucks. Buy the show. We'll hear it again next week if it isn't sold already. Okay. This is a piece of trivia that no one's going to really care about. So I saved it to the end. Arthur Carlson is based on a real person. Yeah. He managed a group of radio stations across the country. End of the name of Susquehanna Radio based in York, Pennsylvania. Guess who worked for the Susquehanna Radio chain? Dr. Johnny Fever. Me. You. Me. I actually did. I did. One of the radio stations I worked for was owned by the Susquehanna Radio chain. Mr. Carlson was your boss? Apparently. That's awesome. How about that? So that's a piece of trivia that's, uh, you know, pretty much a who cares? Okay. Time for the closing theme and to wrap us up completely. What are the lyrics to the closing theme of W. Caribbean since Eddie? There's no lyrics. No lyrics at all. There's no lyrics. There was a gibberish. Right. There was supposed to be lyrics put to it, but there never were. And they just thought the rock and roll of it sounded really cool. It was just him going, bam, doing the five and the five and the half of the hand.

That's it. I love that song. Yeah. Me too. It was a hard rock number composed by Jim Ellis and Atlanta musician who recorded some of the incidental music for the show. And that wraps it up. I'm Joe Burns. I'm the coolest cat in the land. That does it glasses dismissed.