A radio story from radio legend Gary Owens….
I used to have a running battle at KMPC about the air conditioning.
We had three separate booths from which the disc jockeys broadcast. Invariably, during the hot summer months the air conditioning in mine was always on the fritz.
I’d walk down the hall and it would be 72 degrees; in my booth it would be about 87. I’d work in my t-shirt, and I’d be perspiring and I couldn’t think, and nothing would be done.
I’d ask each day, “Is the air conditioning fixed?”
“Oh, they tell us it’s going to be taken care of today.”
Three months it went on.
So one day I came in and was doing “bad air conditioning jokes” on the air: “Because our air conditioning doesn’t work, it’s so hot in here that…”
And they sent a man over from KTLA-TV. He said, “Mr. Owens, I’m here to fix the air conditioning.”
I said, “Thank God you’re here!”
He walked around to where my engineer, Bud Stalker, was. Stalker was playing the cartridges and stuff, and suddenly Stalker starts laughing. He said to me, “You won’t believe what just happened!”
I said, “I’ll believe anything.”
“The man walked over here,” he said, “and the record was playing. He reached over and turned down the on-air monitor knob…and then he said, ‘Is that any cooler?’”
And then the guy left! We never saw him again.
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Nothing surprises me with gary.
Great set of pipes, slightly goofy, and we share the same birthday, albeit he’s a few years older then me.
I remember as a 17 year old kid in 1984, I wrote into his weekly show “Gary Owens Supertracks” carried locally here in Halifax at the time by CHNS, and he actually used my request on air for elvis…I called the station and got the program discs with the request on them. It freaked me out that I actually heard my name said by gary owens, and he actually pronounced it right. mustve had someone do some research, as it’s far from a common name in north america.
Also have a note he wrote me shortly after. He couldn’t write me a full letter, as he got his head stuck in the pencil sharpener at the time 🙂
soon after, I went to work for the station and got the rest of the programs when they went into the dumpster….