removed from the studio

As I live and breathe, it's Tim Spencer! How ironic to see your name, especially in a discussion about being removed from a control room. I was working for you, the only time I was ever escorted from a premisis. I was your weekend parttimer in S.A., and I sucked. I couldn't follow a format. I called you to quit, but said I would still work the weekend. (One of the other jocks put a can on my chair, to taunt me, I guess, cause he told everyone I was fired.) Then your GM, Gary Burns, showed up at the end of the Saturday shift, and told me not to come back. I didn't. He walked me out the door, to make sure I didn't take anything with me...
Seems I came out of that situation better than you did. Hope all is well for you in Memphis.

OMG... I think I worked for this lunatic too. Either that, or he has a brother.

My story was that this lunatic fringe boss called me into his office one day and said that I was doing a great job, and was one of the best sportscasters they had ever had. The listeners enjoyed my airshift, and that I was fired.

It turns out that Mike Roberts, from KOB had called me needing some information about something, and lunatic owner thought that the mighty 770 KOB was going to hire me away.

MikeShannon914 said:

A couple of funny stories that don't exactly fall under the headline of this thread...


Another story comes from one of my journalism teachers in college. He was working for a little New Mexico station early in his career. The owner/station manager/PD was this self-absorbed, evil little man who found fault with anything and everything any of his employees did (I'll leave the owner's name out, as apparently he's still alive and still in NM radio.) Apparently every day was a one-sided shouting match. Now this was a one-horse town, and if you wanted to do radio there, this was where you were stuck. And not being one to quit, my teacher put up with it, and let the emotions build on him and wear him down. He started getting severe problems with muscles tensing up so badly that he could barely walk or move. UNTIL ONE DAY...the owner finally pushed the wrong button with my teacher, and my teacher popped a gasket. He literally leaped up onto the owner's desk, started screaming and shouting and threatening bodily harm, kicked everything off the guy's desk, etc etc. My teacher got him told with no uncertain terms, and left. And strangely enough, no more muscle pain, so more spasms, no more health issues...immediately.

I guess the lesson here is that sometimes your sanity is worth more than a paycheck.

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When I was in New Mexico back in the early 80's, the country station had a major firing. They let go about four people one day, but didn't realize that one of the four still had keys to the station. He came back after signoff (they went off the air at 11 pm), and did exactly that... took the bulk eraser to every cart in the building.

Oh, and this station had converted all its music to cart.

We never knew which jock it was, cause they all headed out of town the next day.

grantchester said:

Decades ago the big thing was to take a bulk eraser to the cart rack. Some guys would just give it a hard spin, and send dozens flying across the room. There were the superglue to the doorlock tricks, and the guys who found out they were being fired, and just never showed up.
The first such story I ever heard, Houston, circa 1973, concerned a jock at KILT, who found out he was being let go. Supposedly he walked into the PD's office, pulled a knife and held it to the guy's throat.
"I hear you're canning me. Is that true?"
Of course, the PD denied it, told him he was trying to get him a raise.
The guy is said to have folded the knife, said "That's what I thought you'd say. I could never work for a lying S.O.B. like you"., got on his motorcycle, and rode away. He never sent a forwarding address for his last check.

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As told to me in 1980 at a small town AM, then KWGH in Big Lake, Texas, by the lady that did the logs for the station. It happened around 1978 as I recall. The place was Kerrville, Texas, then a sleepy Hill Country town of maybe 8,000 at the time.

It seems the only radio stations in the town were an AC, full service AM and an automated Country FM. The AM had gone completely to cart (music library and commercials).

The morning guy on the AM, it seems, was being terminated. He was told just after his shift ended. He was instructed to come back later in the day to get his final paycheck, clear out his desk and turn in the keys. It seems he had an extra key to the building made. After the station signed off at 10 or 11 that night, he spent the night bulking all the reels of country music for the automated FM and then semi-bulked the AM music carts. You know the fading in and out sound of a hastily bulked cart.

On every commercial on both the AM and FM he redubbed them, cracking the microphone to shout "Fxxx You" on each one. He then locked up and was out of town before sunrise, never to return.

It seems the new hire (who had the chance to get his feet wet on the air for about an hour the prior day), signs on the station. He realizes the music cart must be bad and fires another cart only to find the same problem. He fires off the first commercial and gets a shock, then another and the same thing. About that time he realizes the FM reels are blank and the silent detector on the automation keeps firing off commercials with the prior morning guy's two word greeting in each spot the automation fires off.

Listeners and advertisers were calling. They weren't happy. In fact, it was not an easy day for anybody at that station. In fact they shut down until things were resolved. The teller of the story spent her day finding commercial copy, retyping commercial copy, answering phones and trying to do the logs including make goods and the promised bonuses from upset advertisers. She never said who the guy was but she said nobody ever heard where the guy went. She said it was a horrible day but she thought it was a pretty amazing feat the guy pulled off. She was laughing about it by then.

Sure this was a small market station where this happened, but back then, the number of stations on the radio dial were minimal. You tuned to radio for news, weather and any local information. Considering the number of signals and reliance on radio, the number of folks tuning to that AM & FM had to be about 5,000 or so. You can bet families were eating breakfast listening for the local news and weather as all this happened. She said she heard about it from other parents at her child's daycare...having to explain that what they heard on the radio was a bad word they should never say.

As told to me in 1980 at a small town AM, then KWGH in Big Lake, Texas, by the lady that did the logs for the station. It happened around 1978 as I recall. The place was Kerrville, Texas, then a sleepy Hill Country town of maybe 8,000 at the time.

It seems the only radio stations in the town were an AC, full service AM and an automated Country FM. The AM had gone completely to cart (music library and commercials).

The morning guy on the AM, it seems, was being terminated. He was told just after his shift ended. He was instructed to come back later in the day to get his final paycheck, clear out his desk and turn in the keys. It seems he had an extra key to the building made. After the station signed off at 10 or 11 that night, he spent the night bulking all the reels of country music for the automated FM and then semi-bulked the AM music carts. You know the fading in and out sound of a hastily bulked cart.

On every commercial on both the AM and FM he redubbed them, cracking the microphone to shout "Fxxx You" on each one. He then locked up and was out of town before sunrise, never to return.

It seems the new hire (who had the chance to get his feet wet on the air for about an hour the prior day), signs on the station. He realizes the music cart must be bad and fires another cart only to find the same problem. He fires off the first commercial and gets a shock, then another and the same thing. About that time he realizes the FM reels are blank and the silent detector on the automation keeps firing off commercials with the prior morning guy's two word greeting in each spot the automation fires off.

Listeners and advertisers were calling. They weren't happy. In fact, it was not an easy day for anybody at that station. In fact they shut down until things were resolved. The teller of the story spent her day finding commercial copy, retyping commercial copy, answering phones and trying to do the logs including make goods and the promised bonuses from upset advertisers. She never said who the guy was but she said nobody ever heard where the guy went. She said it was a horrible day but she thought it was a pretty amazing feat the guy pulled off. She was laughing about it by then.

Sure this was a small market station where this happened, but back then, the number of stations on the radio dial were minimal. You tuned to radio for news, weather and any local information. Considering the number of signals and reliance on radio, the number of folks tuning to that AM & FM had to be about 5,000 or so. You can bet families were eating breakfast listening for the local news and weather as all this happened. She said she heard about it from other parents at her child's daycare...having to explain that what they heard on the radio was a bad word they should never say.

The most famous case I know is Roby Yonge at WABC when he started the Paul's Dead story on the air.
They cut him off the air from another studio and had the police remove him from the building and the
rest is radio history.

Roby was a great radio man and had his reasons for doing what he did and passed many years ago.
But even Paul himself talked about it on David Letterman just a few years ago.

More WABC stuff on www.facebook.com/wabctribute

Removed from the studio? No. But I know of a "removed from Disneyland" story.

Morning show was sent to do a couple of days at Disney. Morning host was so hammered coming off the plane (an hour flight at that) that when he got on the hotel shuttle he informed all on board that he wanted to @#$% Minnie Mouse in the @#$.

The Disney handlers took him to his hotel, told him to sleep it off, and he was flown home the next day. My friend who was supposed to board op the next morning got the call to do the morning show the next day and was told to "just do the traffic and news and don't say a word about Disney."

Morning guy then announced he was going to rehab. It wasn't his first trip there, and it wasn't his last. However he's said to be keeping sober now.

I hear there was a "raid" on the WCIE studios by conservative church members who thought the station's contemporary Christian format was too much rock. I didn't witness it, but several people have confirmed the story.

I also heard that Buddy Holiday was walked out of KSBJ - I don't know any of the details, but years later they were on good enough terms that they trotted out a stroke damaged shell of his former self to celebrate an anniversary.

Dan Lewis had to be removed from the KLOW building.

LibertyNT said:

Dan Lewis had to be removed from the KLOW building.

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well, to be fair, as someone who listens to Russ Martin on a normal basis, everyone knows Dan Lewis is pretty much not good at his job. he was a horrible jock who could never made it on his own, he was a sidekick at best and he was a horrible one at that as he had a huge falling out with Russ where it got so bad, that Russ takes time out sometimes on his show to goof on Dan and his failures.

the last time Dan was brought up on the Russ Martin show, they mentioned he was "retired" from radio and doing actions somewhere and most recently did voice overs for a car dealership group named Meador Auto Group who have 2 locations in Fort Worth and one in Commerce.