Happy Hare, the Promo Sapiens Part 2

(Click on at the bottom of this page for HH Part 1)

When Specs Howard and I were manning the morning fort at KYW in Cleveland it was like we could do no wrong. We were in a permanent “zone.” We broke all the rules in a rock and roll format. We produced and ran 300 3 minute daily episodes featuring an anti-hero named Congo Curt, a white hunter who exploited the natives. Cleveland was in the throes of a race war. But the series was very funny and the listeners, even the blacks, embraced Congo. Black militants held Congo Curt up as a shining example of how rotten the white man could be. Congo Curt even had a beautiful girl friend, Veronica, who was domineered shamelessly. The radical womens’ groups loved it. Political correctness is not all that correct if you do it right..

KYW, a 50,000 watt monster owned by Westinghouse, was a very stiff corporate outfit. presided over by an area vice president, Donald McGannon, whose principal mandate was to protect the license. Our huge trends came out month after month and no major political group was busting down the door to heist the license, so we never heard from him.

I went back to San Diego in 1968, and finally returned to the morning show at KCBQ which had slumped from #1 when I left, to #5 after seven years of battering by increasingly aggressive competitors. My mandate was to restore the ratings.

I was no longer the same. Cleveland and WXYZ in Detroit had forced me to re-invent myself. Not so much Detroit, but Cleveland was a direct pipeline to New York. It was the center of the music industry. Major Cleveland jocks in the past had set high standards for me and Specs Howard. and we had met them. Now I was the hero coming home to San Diego and great things were expected of me. The jokes had to be funnier. The music which I insisted on choosing had to be more colorful chosen from a much wider palette. In short, I got everything I asked for. Now it was up to me., no excuses. I had to produce. The new show launched in January of 1969..

The seven year absence had changed not just me but my audience. My core listeners were now older. Teens who had been with me in the hundreds of thousands were now 18-24. What could I do that would snare new teenagers and keep the older ones who had wandered off My first week on the air, Dick Casper the KCBQ GM conducted a survey that showed they had rushed back to be with me. This made me even warier. How could I keep such a wide ranging audience?

In the throes of creativity, it occurred to me that being as I and my audience were older, a brief sortie into the dark world was okay as long as I hit and ran.. I even shared my concern with a few trusted jocks. One of them who became a prominent shock jock in the coming years actually suggested that I say such things as, “I love this city because…well…did you ever see Grey’s Anatomy on the page where it shows a picture of a profile of a woman’s private parts? Take a map of the city and compare it to that picture in Grey’s Anatomy., folks. It is an exact overlay of that picture. That is why I am so attracted to this town.”. I did not ask him for more guidance. There was always the old faithful shtick like a mass charity walk. I had proven that I could rouse 20,000 walkers to walk 20 miles for Cancer or the Heart Fund or Project Concern. But this would be going over old ground.

This kind of thinking shows you the extremes to which even a nice well mannered jock such as myself would go to gain an audience. Then a new spiritual resolve enveloped me. Despite the older audience, I resolved that I was not going to go fishing in the river Styx in search of shtick..

I was paralyzed by a multitude of possibilities. Actually I did conceive of some original “grabbing” campaigns, one of which is so strong even today that I withhold it from this contemporary public arena.

I had given up on my usual divine inspiration when a revelation hit me from out of nowhere. What is more appropriate than to set the round the world record for a jet passenger. I could visualize it. Taking off from San Francisco circling the world, trumpeting San Diego’s beauty and greatness. Delighted, Mayor Curran proclaimed me the official Ambassador of Good Will. He wrote the mayors of London, Moscow and Yokohama asking them to extend to me the courtesies usually extended to an ambassador. He arranged for me to be supplied with a bunch of elegant 6 inch bronze commemorative mission bells which I would bestow at random. at Trafalgar in London, Red Square in Moscow,. and the main drag in Yokohama., then back to San Francisco in a little over 40 hours.

It was so simple. Too simple. I had almost forgotten my most vital rule for a successful promotion, learned in Cleveland. Over the course of two promotions one year, Specs Howard and I offered as a prize, a trip for two to Paris. The response was good but not sensational.

It was a 20 below kind of winter in Cleveland, and soon afterward, we offered a snow blower as a prize. Over 80,000 people responded. The lesson was simple. Few middle class people really see themselves luxuriating in Paris but everyone in Cleveland related to a snow blower. The lesson: Do something to which everyone will relate. Everyone loves San Diego. and they wanted the world to know how great the city is. Being as they couldn’t all go, they anointed me as their favorite son to make the trip.

This promotion was taking on a life of its own. Captain “Hap” Chandler, the C.O. of Miramar Naval Air Base wanted me to wear an orange flight suit emblazoned with all the Miramar squadron patches. He wanted the U.S Navy to be represented on the trip. Of course, I said yes. Sporting my signal orange flight suit, I was going to create quite a stir at Red Square in Moscow. On the day of my departure, he sent the Navy band to play spirited martial music. Over five thousand listeners assembled at the airport to give me a rousing send-off.

What followed is the stuff of fantasy.