April Fools Day Bits

A word of caution for radio shows from today's Tom Taylor column...

Time to revive the annual tradition here of suggesting a little time-out, for second thoughts and some advice from real pros. Today, the hard-earned counsel of consultant Alex DeMers of DeMers Programming – “The best advice we can give is to make sure you've vetted your April Fools concept with a wider group of internal experts than your morning show co-host. While you may lose some of the fun of shocking your co-workers with a great bit, having other stakeholders in on the secret beforehand will likely cause less stress during the aftermath. The personalities and stations that pull off great April Fool stunts are the ones who know their listeners the best. They have a good handle on not just what appeals to their fans and can make them laugh, but they also have a good idea just how far they can ‘fool’ their listeners without risking a really negative backlash. The smartest product managers also keep in mind ‘the little things’ - like the law, Public Safety, FCC regulations, advertisers and their superiors.” The FCC has a “Hoax rule” – and they definitely investigate complaints. Final word today from Alex DeMers – “April Fools stunts are like fireworks...best handled by professionals.”

In my 20+ years of radio, I was involved in exactly three stunts, and two of them were in college. The first one was a fake concert we staged in the cornfields outside Champaign-Urbana. We pretended it was a weekend festival, and we introduced each of the bands as if we were on stage, played live music from albums, and even on-stage banter (when we could find it). Of course it seemed pretty obvious to us that it was a bit--The Beatles played there and it was 1984--but people still drove around looking for the concert.

The next year my co-host and I called my mom on the air (my co-host at that time was a girl) and told her that we had eloped to Las Vegas because "we had to". My mom didn't say anything for about ten seconds before saying "I think you better talk to your father." When I told her it was an April Fools joke, she said she was going to kill me.

We never did it during the Steve & Garry years, and we only did it once during my Landecker years. That time we pretended like John was doing a bit with a zookeeper and was bit by a snake. People called us with ways to save his life, as Catherine Johns took over the show.

Looking back, I'd say that none of those bits were that funny. Maybe because the whole idea of making people feel foolish isn't that funny. It could also just be that I'm getting old and crabby.