In 2002 our tech producer Perry McIntosh for the Ripkin! Show on MOJO 640 told us a story live on air of how he purposely sprayed himself with bear spray to see what it was like...we spent an hour of the 3 hour show taking calls from people who had been hit or used it on others...it was hilarious...could have done the whole 3 hours on it easy.

Johnny B wrote:

In 2002 our tech producer Perry McIntosh for the Ripkin! Show on MOJO 640 told us a story live on air of how he purposely sprayed himself with bear spray to see what it was like...we spent an hour of the 3 hour show taking calls from people who had been hit or used it on others...it was hilarious...could have done the whole 3 hours on it easy.

Those are always my most favourite topics.  The ones where listeners have stories you could never have imagined.  Those listeners who know how to play the game should be on a salary because they make the shows. 

I remember producing with Stafford one afternoon, and we were doing an hour on the best bars and bar stories in the city.  Lines were jammed.  I got a call from a regular wanting to talk about something that happened to him at the Cock Door.  I assumed it was going to end up being a gay joke and said thanks, but no thanks and hung up on them.

I mentioned it to Mike during the next break.  He replied, "Le Coq d'Or, you fucking idiot".   .   

I miss Mike a lot!
 

Boy that's true.  Those shows at their best were pressure cookers.  All of us, op, producer, host, everyone were concerned about putting out the best we could, and there was no time to 'filter'. 

A very different world than former disgruntled CBC hosts experience nowadays, including 'accidentally' sniping guests from other shows .  

g121 wrote:

ig wrote:

.
He replied, "Le Coq d'Or, you fucking idiot".   .   
.
 

Those were different times .. what was accepted was different ..

I once had a manager who would often bellow: "You fuckin' asshole" .. he'd say it to anyone & he'd say it often .. & everyone just laughed .. if he didn't call you that, get worried that he didn't like you.

See... it would make a great call-in topic .  One of our producers had to work an on-air shift over a holiday and he threatened the boss that he was going to open the lines and let people call in and ask what members of the staff were 'really' like.  Can you imagine .

RadioActive wrote:

ig wrote:

Bill Carroll and I were coming back from brunch, stepped off the elevator onto the second floor… and walked straight into a scene out of a disaster movie.

People were pouring out of the newsroom. Crying. Gasping. Stumbling. This was back when the place was actually full of humans, so it looked like a full evacuation.

We asked what was going on. Nobody could get a sentence out. Just tears… and the repeated mention of one very well-known name.

So naturally, we reached the only reasonable conclusion:

The intern had snapped and gone on a shooting spree.

Honestly, at the time, it tracked.

We moved down the hallway like idiots in a horror movie, bracing for the worst… and then it hit us.

Not bullets. Air.

Or more accurately, the complete lack of breathable air.

Within about three seconds it became clear this wasn’t a massacre. It was a much more newsroom-appropriate disaster: someone had made a spectacularly dumb mistake that turned the place into a chemical war zone.

The only real casualty? The traffic report. Hard to deliver that when you can’t see or inhale.

Meanwhile, a voiceless David Bent is at his desk, pounding away on the keyboard like nothing’s happening. People are collapsing around him, eyes watering, lungs shutting down… and he’s just locked in.

Because fuck it.  He had a newscast to finish and hopefully be able to read.

The intern wasn’t fired. And honestly, there was no reason he should have been.

It was dumb. Legendary, even.

But not “active shooter” dumb.

PS.  Avery is one of the nicest and smartest people I've ever met.  She and Agar in the mornings were brilliant.  It was like watching olympic level team figure skating.  She doesn't suffer fools, she made an exception for me.  As I write this, I have to say Donna Tranquada. & David were the same amazingly tight team. 

We had an awesome newsroom.
 

I love stories like this. It's the kind of thing you'd almost only hear about in broadcasting. Weird things happen behind the scenes that are often more entertaining than what's on the air. This just would not happen in, say, an accountant's office. The tales you never get to hear to on air are sometimes the most fun part of the biz. Everyone who worked in radio or TV has them. Luckily, none of the ones I went through were ever quite as serious as this!

I have an intern story - and it's about me. I think I've told it on SOWNY before but it was a long time ago.

I was a 15-year-old kid and somehow wangled my way into getting permission to go to CHIN Radio as an "observer" on the weekends. I was told to come in at 6 AM on a Saturday and they'd show me how everything worked. I was so excited I could hardly sleep. I had been a radio obsessed kid ever since I first discovered CHUM in the 60s. And I didn't care that CHIN was mostly ethnic and I didn't speak anything but English. This was a real honest-to-God licenced radio station!

I could not believe my luck. 

My first morning there, I was so nervous I could hardly stand it. As they showed me where the AM control room was, I was determined that the two people in there - morning show host Mark Burns and his producer, a wonderful lady named Zirka Radj, would never know it. I had met Mark once before and that's how the opportunity came to be. 

In those days, stations still had turntables, and a record was playing on air, while Mark came out of the announce booth and was discussing something with Zirka. Determined to make an "I'm a pro" impression, I went up to Mark, who was facing away from me, and slapped him hard on the back, declaring a vigorous, "Good morning Mark!"

What I didn't know was that he was holding a cup of coffee, which promptly spilled all over the record as it was playing on air. I was absolutely mortified. Had I just blown my shot at radio in the first 15 seconds? 

I must have apologized for 3 minutes straight. They said it was OK, and incredibly, as they wiped up what they could of the spill, the disc kept playing fine on air! I thought they were going to throw this trouble making idiot know-nothing teenager out of the place, but they let me stay and I was there for another 6 months. That's where I learned about board operating, production techniques (from former CHUM announcer Moose Latreck, aka Fred Snyder) and all the other weird things that go on behind the scenes in radio. 

I'm grateful to them to this day for not letting that first dumb accident be my last. 

But hey, it could have been worse - at least it didn't involve bear spray!