“Call YOUR Radio Station just for FUN”

Sometimes in LIFE… and while you are at “WORK” and you have your radio on… YOU will hear something,  that you just have to immediately  call that radio station and then, add… “Your two cents to their conversation!”

Where I was working… and in my office, I was suppose to answer the telephone … as they had four incoming call-in lines, and see to it that those calls… were all answered by the correct person.

On this particular day, while listening to the Jack Carneyprogram… whatever he was talking about,  his voice sounded so much like something my brother, “Tommy” would also be saying … that, and immediately … I decided to call into his program and tell him, a few important pieces  of information!

Evidently there was an open line, and I was talking to  “Jack Carney”… and what I was telling him… was that “he” sounded exactly like my brother, “TOMMY”.

Jack Carney  needed more information and had  ask me … “Where does your brother work?”

Without even  thinking… I just gave the  name of the Company and was telling “JACK”” and also without  knowing that the whole wide world  were  all listening … to our conversation  just exactly as to how and what a terrific person he, my brother “Tommy”  was.

And then want on… that he could do his job on the radio… if he was not so busy…  where he was working and went on  bragging… just how great he, “TOMMY”  my brother was!

Just being on the radio show with “Jack Carney” for maybe ten minutes… was tying up the work phones where…  I was working and also the telephone lines at the place where “Tommy” was working.

I just had to get  off the phone with “Jack Carney” and listen to the radio… and all of the conversations, that were going on… and take note of  my… tying up the telephones…

 As… it did seem to be  a “wild fire” of some wild  excitement of   Companies and  for the persons working for those companies… almost too much excitement had  started … because I was bragging about my brother, “TOMMY”  as to how good he was… just as good as “Jack Carney”…  on the radio!

“Do you remember …Jack Carney?”

 

******************************************************

 

Jack Carney

1932 – 1984

Jack Carney was born in Los Angeles on August 23, 1932.  He attended UCLA, where he studied law until, out of curiosity, he took radio classes, eventually abandoning law for a career in radio.

Carney’s radio career began in New Mexico in 1951.  He moved through several small market stations in the southwest before becoming well known as a rock n’ roll DJ serving up hits to teenagers in Phoenix, Milwaukee, Atlanta and Boston.

Carney arrived in St. Louis in 1958 as a rock n’ roll DJ on WIL.  Six weeks after he joined the staff, his sense of humor and bizarre stunts brought WIL from #7 to #1 in St. Louis.  Carney invented a character named Pookie Snackenberg, who became a hero with St. Louis teens.  Carney once asked his listeners to pull the tuning knobs off their parents’ home and car radios so the dial couldn’t be moved from WIL.

Carney’s ratings success at WIL brought about a job offer from WABC and he was off to New York City in 1960.  This proved to be a bad move for him.  He only stayed a few months in New York and then left for a stint of West Coast radio jobs.

Carney returned to St. Louis in 1971, taking over the KMOX morning spot from Jack Buck.  He was an instant success.  The Jack Carney Show ran from 9 am to noon and made Carney a legend as a St. Louis entertainer and live-commercial pitch man.  St. Louis Post-Dispatch broadcast critic Erik Mink said, “The effectiveness of Carney’s commercials was due to his mastery at weaving them into the fabric of his program.  The two elements were so intimately intertwined that often it was impossible to tell where the program stopped and the commercial began.”

During his KMOX years, virtually every celebrity that passed through St. Louis stopped by to say hello to Jack Carney.  He completely dominated morning radio and became a fixture in the St. Louis community for over 13 years.

Tragically, Carney died of a sudden heart attack at age 52 on November 27, 1984.  He was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2001 and is also a member of the St. Louis Radio Hall of Fame.


Posted in Family, Grandma, Today and tagged with 1 comment.

Comments

  • Chris says:

    Great story! I wonder if my late mother listened to the radio at work in St. Louis, and if so, what she listened to. She was an office worker there from the early 1960s until we moved to Ohio in 1983. As a young man, I once had a job where I worked alone in a large storage room, cataloguing documents for a law firm. I was the only person in the whole building. I listened to the radio while I worked, and would call in for the contests. Remember when they would give a prize for correctly answering a trivia question, or to the fifth caller or so? I got so good at it, that one day I won again, but gave a friends name. The station had a limit on the number of times a person could win each month. As fate would have it, when I went to retrieve my prize at the box office, tickets to a performance, my friend’s parents were in line too! In fact they were practically next to me. I was in a panic. I didn’t want to have to explain to them why I was pretending to be their son! I felt like a criminal. I was able to get the tickets without them figuring out the scam I had run. I waved goodbye, and headed into the auditorium. They probably wondered why I was sweating. Anyway, I learned my lesson and never tried such a stunt again. Take care.

Leave a Reply to Chris Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *