Radio Memories Vol. 13

In 1965, besides WUSC the USC operated Carrier Current station on 730, there were only 6 AM stations in Columbia; WIS – 560 (Middle of the Road), WCAY 620 (Country), WNOK 1230 (Top 40), WOIC 1320 (R&B), WCOS 1400 (Top 40) and WQXL 1470 (CountryPolitan.) Two of those; WCAY and WQXL were daytime only. There were 3 FM stations WCOS-FM at 97.9 (at the time) and WNOK-FM at 104.7. WCOS-FM ran a mostly automated Middle of the Road format in stereo and WNOK-FM did the same in mono with a subcarrier that was programmed with a format of all instrumental songs for local office buildings, in competition with Muzak.  The third FM was a 10-watt WUSC-FM at 91.9 operated by the College of Journalism at the time. On January 17, 1977, the WUSC-AM station was shut down and the station’s programming moved to 91.9. 

While at WUSC, I had set a goal of getting hired by either WCOS or WNOK. Other WUSC DJs were being hired part-time by those stations; Rick Amme and Hal Von Nessen by WCOS, Hugh Munn and George Alexander by WNOK, and Jack Kennedy by WNOK-FM.  

I was eager to see up close and personally what it was like doing a Top 40 show in a real Top 40 Station, so when George Alexander invited me to check out the WNOK remote booth at Gene’s Pig and Chick on Blossom Street, I jumped at the chance. It was just 8 blocks from my dorm room so I agreed to meet him at Gene’s. Unlike the booth that I would eventually occupy at WCOS, the WNOK booth was inside the restaurant across the lobby from the main entrance to the restaurant. So it was common that the cruisers in the audience actually came to the door of the booth to hand their requests directly to the announcer. 

I bring all this up because there was an “incident!” WNOK had a rule that the door to the booth be closed and that no one besides the announcer would be in the studio whenever the microphone was on, regardless of the fact that I was hiding in the booth when George was announcing. It should be noted that this rule was practically impossible to enforce. The best one could do was to close the door as the record was running out with someone from the audience inside, tell them not to speak, and then open the microphone.  That worked most of the time. Another factor in what would become the “Great Chimpanzee Event” was the studio speaker muting. You’ve all heard that horrible feedback squeal that happens when a microphone is held in front of a speaker. To avoid that squeal, monitor speakers in a radio control room are automatically turned off (muted) when the microphone in the studio is turned on. This is why radio announcers typically wear headphones in the studio which are left on so he or she can hear what is going out on the radio, a FCC requirement. 

Enter the chimpanzee, carried in the arms of a pretty girl who wanted to hear a song, no it wasn’t “Guitarzan” by  Ray Stevens; that wouldn’t be recorded for a couple of years yet. So picture the scene, a crowd of raucous teenagers all vying for the DJ's attention, a lot of noise and confusion, and the song is running out. I’m in the back corner of the booth; George is frantically trying to get the door shut so he can go on the air at the end of the song. 

Finally, the door is shut, and inside the booth with monitors blaring out the last refrains of the song is George, me, AND the girl with the chimp. So far the chimp was behaving well. But then, George turned the microphone on, and all of a sudden the chimp was enclosed in silence. Before George could utter a word, the startled chimp began singing the song of his people at the top of his voice. It was pure bedlam until I finally woke up and hustled the girl, the chimp, and me out the door and closed it behind me. I will never forget the look on George’s face. Fortunately none of the powers that be heard what went on. 

I mentioned before that since I’ve started producing the SLOBcast series of podcasts for the SC Broadcasters Association and the Slightly Legendary Old Broadcasters, I’ve become aware that the memories of details of events can get cloudy while broad memory remains accurate.

Up until recently when I’ve told this story, my boss in the story was Woody Windham but recently I’ve begun to think this next story actually happened during the brief period when Woody had gone to Birmingham and my boss in this story was actually Mickey Martin. 

Another of my WUSC friends, Hugh Munn was working for WNOK at the same time I was working for WCOS. One Saturday afternoon, we were opposite each other. Saturday afternoons were pretty dead, the teens were not listening that much because they were either out working or doing something else. The cruising scene wouldn’t start until around 8 PM when the remotes at WCOS and WNOK started. Neither Hugh nor I could remember who called the other, but somehow we wound up talking to each other on the studio lines. Both of us were a tad bored, and we came up with the idea that we would play the same song at the same time or as close to the same time as possible. 

The respective audiences went crazy; the other studio telephone lines were ringing off the hook. When Hugh answered his and I answered mine we both faked innocence, saying that we didn’t know what they were talking about. The button pushers were out of their minds. Then went on for 15 – 20 minutes until my boss (either Woody or Mickey) called in and said “I don’t know what you and Munn are up to, but you’re gonna stop it right now.” It was worth the trip to the manager’s office the next Monday.

Lest you think that Hugh and I were geniuses for coming up with this cockamamie idea, when I share this story today with my old school radio friends, more often than not, I’m told that they did that too.