Paige Nienaber’s Midweek Idea Dump: April Fool’s Mega Dump

It’s been a year since I started writing for Radio Ink, and I don’t think I properly introduced myself. I consult 100+ stations on Marketing and Promotions, which, in 2025, pretty much covers everything except tower maintenance.

I’ve been doing this for thirty years and have spoken around the world on the topic. Along the way I’ve written a couple of books including The Encyclopedia of Radio Promotions. Email me at [email protected] and I’ll tell you about it. I also do a weekly podcast called Three Radio Promotions In Three Minutes, so look where most podcasts and women’s fall fashions can be found.

There. I feel like we’re friends. And now on to some topical and rapidly-pending Dumpage.

April Fool’s

It’s a Tuesday this year.

If your audience ever needed something fun, now would be the time. The first-ever plastic surgery for pets is in the queue somewhere. 

I celebrate April 1st like some people celebrate Christmas. This is my holiday. It’s also too good of a promotional opportunity to waste by either doing nothing or doing something lame. There’s also the “we don’t lie to our listeners” theory. Really? If you ever invited the audience to a car dealer for pizza and fun, you just lied to your listeners. No one has ever had fun at a car dealer.

And since it’s at the start of the Spring Book in diary markets, in lieu of the several hundred thousand you have budgeted for TV, this is a good substitute.

By now you’ve maybe received memos from corporate about the dangers of April Fools. Well, if Sports Illustrated can interview a guy who throws a 116 mph fastball and Taco Bell can buy the Liberty Bell, then we should be able to do something subtle and innocuous. I mean, even print media gets it more than us.

When we can’t play a quietly meowing cat in the background or announce that Massachusetts is initiating a new school policy that can get kids to say their “R’s” correctly or have each shift done in a different language, then the terrorists have won.

In all of these years I’ve only twice seen a station get in any sort of trouble. And that was because they were idiots. Literally a thousand April Fools stunts. And one really didn’t even count: ONE LISTENER complained and a spineless manager popped the #1 night guy in a very large market.

• Don’t scare people.
• Don’t in any way shape or form mention a client or an actual product without their permission.
• Don’t do anything that will make people want to jump in their cars and drive QUICKLY somewhere.
• Don’t fake a contest. 

Everything else should be fine. But… I also understand if you’re not allowed to. No judging.

The Winner Of April Fools 2022 – This distinction went to Hubbard in Brainerd where they sold the naming rights of an iconic landmark to a realtor. You would have to live here to truly understand how much they nailed it.

People’s Heads Will Explode – In terms of contests, you can do this as long as you don’t take any real callers or offer a prize. JB and Sandy did “ID this song!” and it was exceptionally easy. They then took 10 callers who all got it wrong. Exasperated, they named the song and moved on. Could be done with a Secret Sound. Play a dog barking and then take callers saying, “A 747 taking off,” “One of those baggage carts you can rent from a machine at the airport,” etc.

A Casino For Amish – A fake spot for this is on the table at a station.

Happy Mother’s Day! – Tommy Chuck gave a few people heart attacks with some imaging at Hot in DC: they thought that it had snuck up on them. Done by Power 96 with running imaging for all the Hallmark Holidays.

Nude Country – Done by a Summit “New Country” station where they rebranded as “Nude Country…the best station to listen to when you’re naked.” The jock bio photos were all strategic nudity like in Austin Powers.

Waterless Swimming Pools – Happening somewhere in the South, where a station is going to do a remote at a client that sells waterless pools. Designed by NASA so the astronauts at ISS can swim laps. Water? Too heavy. You swim in chlorine bubbles. “You can swim without getting wet and not have to worry about waiting an hour after swimming.”   

The Sea – JACK in Vancouver switched to an all Sea Shanty format in 2021.

In Case You Have a “Fun” Restaurant As a Client – Burger King once marketed a Whopper for people who were left-handed.

Chowdah Heads – WROR in Boston covered a news story about a new state initiative in the schools to get kids to pronounce their R’s correctly. From Ken West: A guy left me a voicemail saying he called the governor’s office and was told there was no such referendum. His quote to me was: “You guys are (adverb) (anatomical term) for doing that. Goodbye. Forever.”

We Apologize – Q-107.5 in Memphis did the tried and true “We Apologize” bit and the OM called the morning guy at 6:40 and did the “Damn it, I told you not to do this again and again. Wait? Do you have me on the air? Play a song and we need to talk NOW.” Of course CJ was pulled and never came back and they started running an apology message from Chris.

One woman showed up at the station and demanded to see Chris but they wouldn’t let her, so she started to write him a letter and when she got to the date, paused and went, “Oh….(fudge).”

It didn’t end there. Maybe the biggest client on the station calls and demands to see the team. He’s livid. He’s going to pull every spot on the cluster. They go out to his casino, meet in the boardroom, and for 15 minutes he goes Cromagnon on them. And then pauses, says, “Gotcha! I’m buying lunch. Let’s go.”

Diapering Seals – John and Tammy at KSON in San Diego did a story on La Jolla’s new initiative to diaper seals so they will stop polluting their pristine beaches, funded with money transferred from the community’s school lunch program. This. Was. Huge. One listener emailed, “But if they wear diapers, how will they mate? They’ll go extinct!”

Freaking Gary Busey – Sunny and Rowdy at KVOO in Tulsa got actual darn help from actual darn local Gary Busey, to talk about The Gary Busey Pathway To Serenity that would be a nature walk that would, ironically, destroy a beautiful pristine park when it was built. Sadly, and really, Gary went so far off the rails when he was recording his part that they had to scrap it. 

Faux’reos – Oreos made with toothpaste were among the pranks done on co-workers at Z-95.3 in Vancouver. And yes, people have a sense of humor about getting busted.

Cats, Cats & More Cats – WQYK in Tampa, John Jay & Rich and 95.3 The Gorilla in Biloxi all had the very subtle sound of cats meowing in the background all morning. At the Gorilla, one commuter called Billy Sexhauer after the bit was revealed to say she’d pulled over to look for the cat in her car but when she turned off the car radio, it stopped. She started driving, it started meowing again. Huh.

PPM Friendly – In the quest to claim they play more songs every hour, Radio 104.1 in Hartford and Jammin’ in New London started playing 41 second songs. “Who else in Hartford plays 84 songs an hour?!”

Inaugural Flight – Working with a locally based regional carrier, Hubbard in Cincinnati flew with for the first flight of a new route from Cincy to an airport that was 17 miles away. And they even got full buy-in from the airline and the owner was there to cut the ribbon.

Kitty Vending Machines!! – It was only a matter of time and 93Q in Syracuse created one in 2016.

If The Red Light Is Rocking, Don’t Bother Knocking – Radiowave 96.7 in Windhoek introduced a red light district to the market.

I’m Hunting Rabbits – Fargo is having issues with jackrabbit infestation, so Y-94 started running a spot describing the process to get your bunny hunting license. The cops even got involved.

Closed For Business – Sister station Froggy 99.9 in Fargo got TV coverage when they announced that local Targets would be closing. (From 11 pm to 8am.)

For Whom The Bridge Tolls – A toll plaza opened up on one of the biggest bridges in Panama City and Mandy from Island 106 was among the first to take a selfie as she paid her $2.34 toll. It’s $1 for tourists.

Proof That Listeners Are Pervs – KLUC in Las Vegas ran a spot for a family nudist resort that includes a link to the client, which then forwards to the station site and a “Gotcha” message. Hits blew up. And the home page? Nothing but stories about cats.

Something’s Up – Hot 93.5 in Sudbury tried something new: We decided to pretend that ‘something’ was going on today, and people were doing weird things in order to prepare! The on-air calls were HILARIOUS and the reaction with listeners was awesome! 

We got LOTS of “what’s going on” but also lots of people playing along!

Always Assume The Mic Is On – The morning show at Maxima in Tampa “accidentally” left their mic on all morning. From Nio Escondido: AMAZING!!! I had people calling, texting, and emailing me all morning long. They blew up our phone lines, text, and Facebook as if we were giving away $1000 every 60 seconds. 

I think we probably had the greatest TSL day ever!!!

Plastic Surgery For Kids – Mix in Boise ran the fake spot for the Early Childhood Cosmetic Surgery Center and got their share of hate calls.

Pothole Patrol – Mix in Buffalo did a story on residents being fined $50 for potholes within a certain distance of their house. That kind of struck a hot button.

PetsByMail.com – I have tons of copy for fake products and services that could be turned into spots-to-websites bits. Just ask.

Like… – Kevin Callahan had just arrived at KSON in San Diego in ’11 and was poised to take them to #1, so their first AFD we did Callahan’s Feline Cuisine: a chain of restaurants that serve meals made from cat. You need a spot and you need a website. We did a 12 hour turn around on both of these for herbal steroids at one of the stations. It’s not rocket science.

Just Add Water – We’ve all tweaked our websites for holidays. My goal is that a station does their site as if it were in a fish tank. With live fish just swimming around in front of the graphics.

Fake Artists – One of the stations created a fake artist.

Music For Dogs – Why not do a fake format for the day? Kiss in Boise once introduced the All-Ringtone Format. Townsquare launched a station with a format geared at dogs. Townsquare in Albany once made it on freaking DRUDGE with their Santa format. There has to be, for any formatic bits, a lead-in. A reason why this is happening. I can walk you through that and share all my copy.

All Chinese, All The Time – Keith Abrams and I were THIS close to launching a radio station in Denver by flipping it to all Chinese for 48 hours. All the imaging was written. Everything was set to roll… and then corporate HR got involved. Whoops. Which was especially sad since Keith had come up with some great material.

So I saved it and when KDOG in Mankato made a formatical adjustment one April 1 (a real one), this was the opportunity to do all this stuff. Thus was the debut of the Kung Pao format. Chris and Dwayne got all of the music off the internet. The whole thing was ready to go within 24 hours of saying “Hey, you know what would be fun…?” So don’t overthink this stuff. It’s not rocket science. What if you went all Chinese for the weekend after a music research report showed that this was the niche in the market? So… We launched Hot in Norfolk with the fauxrmat. And. It. Was. Large. John Shomby still has people mention it.

Using It To Promote Your Show – Wild in SFO was set to announce another big Bomb concert in 2006. So they just used this as an op to announce the lineup. Listeners had to go through about 15 pages of loops on the website before finally arriving at a “Gotcha!” graphic and the info they’d been searching for.

Using It To Kick Off A Promotion – KLUC alluded to a flip to a “Party” format, which was really just a tease to the kickoff of their annual Party Cruise to Mexico with 100 drunken listeners.

Keeps Them On The Edge Of Their Teeth – From Dave Ryan at KDWB in Minneapolis: we did The World’s Worst April Fool’s Prank that fooled no one but instead kind of spoofed April Fools jokes. We gave out prizes to people who answered trivia questions correctly. And if they answered wrong, we pulled out one of Crisco’s teeth. We stopped when he had two teeth left so he’d still be able to eat. Sounds effects will make the bit.

Britney Spears Talks Dirty – The next year, Dave followed this up with having the same winner for every contest that morning. Also did the “celebrity voicemail where she talked dirty to an old boyfriend.” Audio was on the station website, low volume… which suddenly went to “10” with “Hey, everybody, I’m looking at porn and I LOVE IT.”

Double Daylight Savings Time – The morning show at KOB-FM in Albuquerque shared a pissed off voicemail when a hotel’s housekeeping staff showed up an hour early after they did Big Earl/Edmonton’s Double Daylight Savings Time. Channel in Wichita hit a homerun with it too.

Meet Your New Neighbors – Wild in Oklahoma City was the station that inserted a story into their morning news about the opening that day of the new minimum security facility for Level 3 pedophile mentally ill sex offenders… in that market’s nicest, swankiest suburb. Lots of staged phone calls from concerned residents who couldn’t believe this had been built across from a pre-school. “I mean, what the Hell were they thinking? No fences?” “I went to the community meeting and the head doctor was talking all this crap about rehabilitation-through-trust and they’re not going to lock them in at night?!” People in that suburb awoke to hear belatedly that child rapists were moving in down the block.

Area 97 – 97 The Eagle in Virginia Beach played off recent lights in the sky and the sonic booms by having aliens break in and interfere with the morning show. They enlisted Twitter and Facebook to help perpetuate it.

Octomoms – In 2010, everyone was buzzing about Octomom, so Rob Johnson from Newcap in Halifax added his skillz as the “doctor” at Fly in Albany: We got a “call” from a woman who worked at the Adirondack Pregnancy Research Institute Laboratory (spells APRIL). This is a fertility clinic in the area and her boss, Dr. Yadsloof (April Fool’s backwards) is planning on inseminating his wife with 12 embryos in order to break the record of octomom. Their sole purpose is to break the record and get notoriety for the clinic. We had the doctor on first. Pompus ass!

Then later had the wife/mom/ninomom on. She stated that they had no desire to keep the kids unless a couple of them were cute. She would consider selling the ugly ones. They just really had no marketing budget and this was the best way to get the word out about their clinic. She hoped to write a book called His and Mine Plus 9 and go on Oprah. The record of Ninomom was their only goal. Tons of calls… Of course, we put the irate ones on that believed it. Got a call from the NY State Right to Life. They wanted this guy’s license.

The payoff… We told our listeners that the doctor wished to release a statement but did not want us to go on the air with it or talk to us again on the radio. We directed them to our website. We said that the statement would be there in its entirety. And of course it was the “Gotcha!” payoff.

Driving While Talking – From KOB-FM in Albuquerque in ‘08: Red light cameras have been a heated issue here. Besides the normal “it’s unconstitutional,” “causes more accidents,” etc…the Mayor and the Governor are on opposite sides. The handheld cell phone ban was also a hot topic. Well, tomorrow (in our world) the police are gonna start handing out tickets for consumption of any food (including water) while behind the wheel.

We have the interview taped with the spokesperson from NMTD (New Mexico Transportation Division) which doesn’t even resemble the real DOT (Department of Transportation) which sounds made up. We also have calls from “listeners” who will have just been pulled over for driving with Starbucks, breakfast burritos, etc.

The Defoliation Station – Which was followed in ‘09 with a campaign to defoliate the City of Albuquerque and cut down all the trees because of allergens.

Defanging Pitbulls – Because of large media coverage of pit bull attacks and local controversy over these dogs as pets, Hot 89.9 in Ottawa ran news stories about a new law that people could keep their pitbulls… if their teeth were pulled out. The operation costs $3000, by the way. The station was actually there for some of the procedures.

April Fuels Day – This is going to be the play at a lot of stations this year. Cool.

Clean Pee & Rewriting The Past – 96X in Edmonton ran spots from The Virginity Clinic for “virginity repair kits”. And they debuted AdvantageUrine.com, a website that sold drug-free urine for people who have to take drug tests for work.

H2O In The Water Supply! – High levels of H2O in the water in Birmingham, Alabama in 2005. At least according to a fake spot from the Water Department that ran twice an hour all day. Massive numbers of phone calls to the City blaming the H2O for headaches and diarrhea. They also sent an intern out in a prison jumpsuit with handcuffs. Just wandering neighborhoods. He was surrounded by cops and arrested. Good times.

www.dhmo.org is a faux website that warns people of the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide. The next boutique drug. Sweeping the schools. It’ll kill you if you take too much. Odorless. Tasteless. It’s in EVERYTHING. Lead the effort to get it banned in schools in your city. The problem? The schools SELL IT in vending machines. No laws against it yet. So they don’t care and are making money off it. Shame on them.

Ho’s On The Water – 98PXY in Rochester covered the grand re-opening of a bankrupt ferry (which had become a community scandal) as a brothel.

Pet Taxes – The Point in Birmingham did the Pet Tax bit in 2005. Over 600 people went to the station website to sign a petition to stop the tax, the phones were flooded with pissed off people and local veterinarians were downloading the petition to post at their office for people to sign.

Professional Pranksters – Cities 97 in the Twin Cities had a comedian named Russell Stolnack on the air. He’s a professional impersonator. His goal for April Fools was to have 3,000,000 people hear his pranks. So it was one Radio interview after another. On KTCZ, he played the owner of a clock company who was talking about Daylight Savings Time and the adding of various states and communities that were exempt from it. Belinda Jensen, from Channel 11 is the meteorologist for the show and they “got” her totally.

The Blue Bin Census – In Syracuse, 93Q did the Blue Bin Census, a new program for tallying the population. People were instructed to put out their trash bins with the number of people living in the household, written on the side. And 95X listed Paris Hilton’s cell phone number, getting tons of calls to a station phone line.

Top Five Ever – Q-102 in Philly earned a spot in the Radio Hall Of Fame with a bit in ’93 that had people believing the Ben Franklin Bridge, one of the only ways to get across the river to New Jersey, was being closed for good that morning. The reason? Talks between Philadelphia and New Jersey, over who had responsibility for bridge repairs, had broken down. Demolition was to begin that evening. The Q-102 van was hung from a crane 150 feet in the air, directly next to the bridge, and the morning show “broadcast” from inside of it all day, as the story unfolded.

Even TV stations were fooled and they besieged City and State authorities for info on the story. Q-102 interviewed “experts” (played perfectly by station employees) on the impact that this closing would have on commuting and they talked with people from the EPA about the environmental impact the demolition would have on the river’s ecosystem. This is one of the all time great April Fools stunts. When you think about April Fools, think BIG. This was beyond big.

Top Three Ever – Equally large was something I was lucky enough to help with in 1999 when KUBE in Seattle faked a movie shoot. The film was called Dead Air (after my still un-completed novel) and it “starred” Wesley Snipes and Brad Pitt. They ran spots in commercial rotation for four days, recruiting extras for a nightclub scene to be shot during the day of the 1st. Essentially KUBE put on a live play for the couple hundred people who were locked in the club all day, believing they were actually part of a real shoot and that Pitt and Snipes were due at any moment to do their scene. I played film director Jerry Clifton and basically abused the extras for three hours as we blocked scenes, adjusted camera angles, rehearsed and did light checks.

KUBE hired an actual film crew with a dressing room trailer and other support vehicles. They even dressed up the engineer to look like Brad Pitt, pulled a limo around to the side of the club and flanked by body guards, hustled him in the back door… but not before some of the extras saw him. The place was buzzing about it within seconds. They spent some bucks on this and there was a huge margin for error. Just one person in the club had to go, “Wait a minute. I don’t think this is a real movie set,” and it would be all over. But the Radio Gods shone down on Bridgett, Eric and the rest of the crew and they pulled it off. Perhaps the most labor-intensive stunt of all time. But LARGE.

Fake Concerts – Fake concerts are great. KGGI/Riverside did one at a location in the Verismo Mountains (the station’s GM was coincidentally Steve Verismo) east of San Bernadino. They gave directions all day on how to get to the arena. The directions were legit…to a point. People soon found themselves out in the middle of the desert. These types of stunts require a lot of pre-production so they have the right “feel”. Do artist interviews backstage, have traffic reports and parking updates to aid “concert goers”. Essentially all the stuff you’d do if the show was real.

I did the Hooked On Phonics Tour when it stopped in Charlotte on April 1, 1990 for the opening of their new concert arena (which was fake too). BBD, ABC, U2, C&C Music Factory, BB King, and ZZ Top were some of the artists on the bill. We did all the fake call-in stuff and at least 1,000 idiots bought it, took the day off from work/skipped school, and headed out to go to the concert. Why? It sounded “real” on the air. People just accepted it as fact when a jock called in (with the roar of the concert in the background) to say that kd lang had just joined ZZ Top on stage for “Tush.”

Six Flags Under… – Anything underground is great. Mancow opened an underground theme park in the Oakland Hills on April 1, 1992. The state-of-the-art facility was climate controlled and entirely underground, thousands of feet beneath Mt. Bruno. He interviewed the manager who went on and on about the large variety of rides and food booths, plus the opening of the attached concert arena in two weeks. Mancow gave out tickets and broadcast from the park all day.

102 Jamz in Orlando did this in 1999 with a mall, and 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham did a theme park. The name? Six Flags Under Birmingham. They spent a full week pre-producing this thing and used children of the staff for some of the breaks. Sounded huge and fooled thousands. KLUC did this in 2003 and billed it as “the most fun in Earth.”

Prince – In ’94 both Hot 102 in Milwaukee and Wild 107 in SFO did fake Prince club shows. Each station got their hands on bootleg CDs of Prince in concert. The announcement was made during the morning show that Prince had been spotted at the airport (“listeners” called in) and rumors were that he was in town to do a show and warm up for his arena tour. Throughout the day they talked about the fact that something big was in the works, and later in the day they went out “live” to a club where jocks were phoning in from the Prince concert. They used the CD as background noise and “proof” that this was actually happening.

V-103 in Atlanta did a twist on this in ’97 with a performance by The Artist. They actually filled a club with screaming people who really thought that Prince was coming. The joke was that there was an artist, as in paint and canvas, there to perform.

Driving While Smoking – People don’t like government telling them what they can and can’t do. A couple of the Newcap stations had home runs with new restrictions on cellphone use in the car and smoking in cars when children are passengers.

Fake Celebrity Sightings – Fake celebrity sightings can always be fun. Doing what Hot and Wild did above, The Boss 97 in Atlantic City used staged calls from “people at the airport” who reported that Madonna had just deplaned and gotten into a white limo. They staged some more calls from people who’d seen her in her white limo and pretty much the momentum took it from there. They had a Madonna look-a-like from one of the casino shows cruising around in a white limo, occasionally lowering the rear window at an intersection just long enough for people to catch a glimpse. KRTR in Hawaii has since done this with Madonna, 107.5 Kiss FM/Memphis did this with Ricky Martin in ’99 and KUBE caused a near-riot in Seattle with Leonardo DiCaprio coming to town in ’98.

Helping The Listeners – Don’t want to piss people off? As a radio station, you have the tools and resources to help people pull off pranks on their friends, family, and co-workers. Instead of doing one giant on-air stunt, maybe you could become an April Fools Enabler and help a selected few listeners pull the wool over someone’s eyes. Big for KUBE in ’93.

Nude Beaches – Just as there’s no sex in the Champagne Room, there’s no nudism in the Cayman Islands. No nudist beaches. Period. So Ben Maxwell (formerly Rocco The Janitor at Wired in Philly) at 96.5 Cayrock opened a nudist resort and the station broadcast from there. It sounded so real that I felt compelled to go and check out the website. In the middle of the afternoon, Ben got his old Sales Manager from Philly on the line and had him be a “guest” drinking Kettle One martinis in the Trousers Down Lounge. “Theatre.” Their greatest resource. Montana, who did weekends and is, uh, so hot that cornea damage is always a possibility, did some of the best breaks in recorded history.

Fake Parades – Fake parades are another great bit. B-95 in Fresno did this with a parade in Millerton… a town that hadn’t existed since a local river was dammed 40 years before: it’s now under about 100 feet of reservoir water. They did all the basic parade stuff, giving out times, directions, and traffic info since a few streets had to be blocked off. They did play-by-play and announced each float, marching band and dignitary as it rolled by.

Hot in New York did this in ’89. Their reviewing stand and broadcast vehicle were on a section of street that doesn’t exist, i.e.: 10th and Broadway. But Broadway doesn’t start until 12th. Get it? I think they had Will Smith as the Grand Marshall and they took a few minutes to interview him and he thanked everyone for coming out. V-103 in Atlanta did this with the “10th Annual Celebrate Atlanta Parade” in ’95. A lot of production time went into pulling this off and they were even able to use the stunt to promote a real event they had happening that afternoon.

Bilingual Talent – KSFM once went bilingual and had every shift done in a different language. The station went to Sac State and got students from their Language Arts Dept. to come in and do the shifts. They actually did contests and introed songs in Chinese and Russian. If you do this, be sure to not pre-promote it. It, and many other April Fools bits, need to come out of the blue. Act like nothing is out of the ordinary. KSFM staged call-ins from “listeners” requesting songs, who conversed with the jock in English and acted as if they understood what the guy was saying, i.e.: “Hey, can I hear the new Puffy song?” (chinese jibberish) “Oh great! Thanks! I love this station!” Big in Birmingham in 2000.

Kidz Radio – In Phoenix at 103.9 Arizona’s Party Station, Rick Thomas had children doing airshifts in ’98, as if nothing was unusual. They took the names of the real airstaff, and in at least one case, were better. Reno did this in ‘06…except for the nights, done by an angry old 60 year-old man. Done in 2018 at KSON in San Diego.

More Toilet Flushing – In ’93 Z-90 in San Diego announced that there was a crisis underway at the Sewage Department. Apparently a major clog had developed in one of the pipes and massive spills were imminent. On behalf of the San Diego sewage Department, the station was asking that all people flush their toilets at 12 noon. They pounded this throughout the morning show and advised people to cover their toilets with plastic wrap if they couldn’t be there to flush at noon. A ton of people called the Sewage Department to inquire about timing and the proper procedure for flushing the pipes. Jamz in Birmingham did this in ‘08 because there actually WAS major sewer work happening in town. Phones exploded… with calls from City Hall.

Cash Drops – 102 Jamz in Greensboro got some helicopter SFX and flew around the market dumping cash out the window. They staged call-ins from listeners all around the market who’d “won money” or seen the helicopter. 95.7 Jamz in Birmingham did this ’97 with a real helicopter drop: this time the $100 bills were bills for listening to Jamz. Beware! (I will state for the record, that this was Jamz’ “Bay Bridge:” it put them on the map for good.) Dave Ryan did this at KDWB in 2004 and it was pretty large. Hot in Ottawa did it in ‘12.

For Whom The Bridge Tolls – Do you have any highways in your market that have tolls on them? If you do, then wake up your listeners on April 1 to new and increased tolls. And make sure it’s an odd figure… like $2.38. Stage some calls from “listeners” who haven’t heard of the price hike and who came up short at the toll booth. If you don’t have any tolls in town, now’s the time to start some. B-103.9 in Ft. Myers raised tolls on bridges in ‘10 and made all the TV stations in that market.

The 49th State – Kiss 102 in Charlotte announced the merging of North and South Carolina.

More Pet Taxes – B-95 in Fresno announced in the morning news the implementation of a statewide Pet Tax which had just gone into effect. You get charged by the pound. People were pissed at the state for this latest invasion of their privacy, and flooded the phones in protest. More than a few people called about fish, birds, and gerbils, wondering how much they’d cost. The Pet Tax bit is always big. Ask WIOG in Saginaw, where they did this in 2006.

Morning Show Rim Jobs – Chet in Vegas implemented a new tax on rims in ‘08.

Underground Malls – Mark Gullett, formerly of Wild 94.1 in Tampa, did an underground mall when he was at WRFX in Charlotte. Directions led people to a field on the outskirts of town. A TV affiliate set up some distance away and filmed the people who showed up, wandering around in the pasture looking for a door in the ground.

Spring Dream – KSFM in Sacramento used a fake concert, Spring Dream ’94, as their April Fools bit and used audio from artist interviews at the Grammys, the Oscars and Madonna’s “Truth Or Dare” movie to help paint their picture. The joke ended at 4p when they broke the news and then announced the lineup for their Spring Jam concert.

Killing Off Your Station – Staging the demise of your station is always fun. I did it to the APD in Charlotte. I had him convinced we’d been sold to the Hornets and were going Sports. All I needed was some letterhead from the team and a fax. He freaked and called the trades and most of the labels.

KGGI in Riverside went off the air in ’95 after having the IRS close on the property. It seems that there had been a gross financial error at the corporate office and the company owed over four million in back taxes. The station gave out the number for a special IRS “hotline” for people to call and protest and try to save KGGI. Lo and behold, the IRS relented after taking the station off the air for only 30 seconds. Very timely with Tax Day right around the corner. Several of the stations like KDWB/Minneapolis and WEUP/Huntsville have done non-April Fools demise stunts that totally shook up the town. 

Catch It And Keep It – In ’96 KUBE in Seattle did Catch It And Keep It and had people lining up under the Space Needle to ‘catch’ prizes that were being dropped from the top. Stuff like Sonics tickets, big screen TVs, cars, and Golden Retrievers.

Pranking Each Other – In 2003, both V-103 in Atlanta and The Zone in Chicago had morning people screwing with each other. Totally without tipping them. This was real. A great way to do April Fools and not burn the audience.

Stalled Trucks & Dehydrated Whales – KRTR in Honolulu did the old stalled beer truck bit in ’96 and announced during the morning show that a beer truck had become mired in sand at a road construction site, tying up traffic. They were asking the public’s assistance to help drain the product so that the truck was light enough to be pulled out. The station gave fictitious directions to the scene and encouraged people to bring down coolers and other containers to help syphon off the beer. KZHT in Salt Lake City did a bit that had a semi truck that flipped over on I-80. The problem? It was hauling a killer whale to Marine World in California. People were urged to get bottles of water and rush over to keep the whale wet until it could get loaded into another truck.

Another Fauxrmat – In terms of format flips, Power 96’s morphing into Country 96 in ’98 was classic. The flip was preceded by a recorded announcement from this accountant-sounding guy who explained that, “After months of exhausting research, we’ve discovered that the #1 style of music with the young Latin audience that listens to Power 96, is Country! So welcome the new sound of Country 96!” The announcement was priceless. All the ID’s and imagers were introed by the sound of a rooster crowing and the music was hillbilly. Not Kenny or Toby.

Falling Felines – It’s hard to go wrong when you harm animals… on April Fools Day. To test a scientific theory that cats will land on their feet nine out of ten times, the Morning Freak Show at Wild in Tampa threw cats off the station roof. After several very dramatic splat sounds, they cut the bit short and pretended like they hadn’t done anything wrong. Dave Ferguson suspended them and they spun the stunt into a real bit that aided in the adoption of pets from a shelter.

Chipping The Kids – What about a remote at a hospital where parents are having tiny microchips implanted in their infant’s hairline so they can be tracked, found and returned if kidnapped. Kind of like what they do with dogs.

Plastic Surgery For Kids – The “cosmetic surgery for children” bit was the idea of Goose at Magic in Colorado Springs, where they had a doctor from the “clinic” on to discuss how they do these procedures. No less then two separate listeners were on their way down to, as Goose puts it, “Beat the crap out of the guy.” One listener was armed with a baseball bat to break the doctor’s hands so he couldn’t do these surgeries anymore. Hot in Evansville did this in ’08.

Hot 89.9 in Ottawa ran spots for The Early Life Cosmetics Center. I have the spot if you’d like to hear it. My favorite line was, “Because no one should have to suffer through the embarrassment of an ugly child.” Done by DVD in Detroit where one of the AE’s played a pageant parent with Oscar-worthy skills.

New Casinos – Power 102 in El Paso, where gambling is huge, decided to get into the action and ran a spot for the Grand Opening of a new casino in that market. The key to success? They made the breaks from the casino sound realistic with a cacophony of slots and other casino noises in the background. Like a lot of these stunts that turn out great, they ran a spot in rotation that included a hotline for people to call. It was actually Chris the Promotion Director’s house line with a machine on it and it rang non-stop for a week. Cesar Chavez was in town for a fight (really), so he came out to check out the casino and “appeared” in one of the breaks. Parking was “so packed” that they used shuttle buses to bring people in from a remote lot at a bowling alley.

The Naturist Lifestyle – Fake remotes can be fun. You just need the right kind of client. Wild in Tampa broadcast from the grand opening of “Natural Life Tampa;” a clothing optional community. They interviewed salespeople who talked about the condos and townhouses, they broadcast from the wave pool, took the tour, commented on the cheerleaders practicing nearby (NLT had its own school system) etc. It sounded great, thanks to a week of strenuous pre-production by Tommy. I’ve got the copy points. Call me and I’ll share them. BUNCH of stations did this last year. WDVD in Detroit did this in 2010. 

Sure To Kill Off HD Radio – Russ Allen introduced “3D Headphones” to the audience at 102 Jamz in Orlando. Local Radio Shacks and Best Buys were flooded with calls from people wanting this new technology. I have copy for it. K-Rock in Kingston did this in ’09.

Tastes Like Chicken – Wild 97.9 in Oklahoma City did a holiday broadcast from “The Reindeer Cafe;” a restaurant that served only dishes prepared from reindeer. You could do a Sunday brunch broadcast from a restaurant that serves meals prepared from human flesh. The other white meat.

PC Breath – The web became the new April Fools Frontier in 1998. JB and Sandy in Austin hit this new playing field with a fake website for PC Breath; a device you blow into and it tells you whether you have halitosis or not. The station bought spots on the competition and they informed the listeners that the first 1000 people to click on pcbreath.com would get the free $40 unit. This website was legit… for the first four or five “levels” and then linked to JB and Sandy’s page.

Tattoo Your Tots – Jamz in Birmingham was the first station to ever do tattooyourtot.com and The Point there did selectyoursperm.com, both of which caused a buzz. The key to fake websites is the spot. It’s got to sound “national.”  Q in Halifax and Oasis in Ft. Wayne just hit homeruns with the Christmas lights ordinance, but if it wasn’t for the fake spot, no one would have known about it. Latino in LA did the Tattoo thing in ‘08. I have the audio. It’ll make you cringe. 

Creating An Urban Legend – We’ve all received those annoying e-mails, that talk about some little boy who needs new lungs and a heart and the Vatican will pay for the operation if he gets ten million e-mails. Dave, and his partners at KDWB created their own fake e-mail and had listeners download it and forward it to gullible friends around the world. It had something to do with a little boy who was born without limbs and was trying to create the biggest rubberband ball in the world.

In Honor Of Miss Delaware – No one has done a fake beauty pageant. All you need is some fake promos for a fake pageant at a fake hotel. You’ll want to make it outrageous though.

Renaming Public Places – Xtreme in Hawaii ran a news item that the Honolulu International Airport was being renamed in honor of their Governor… who was in his last term and universally disliked by all the people in the islands. Got a politician who everyone loathes in your state? This should cause a buzz.

The Ultimate Crib – In ‘03 Wild in San Francisco promoted that they were going to give away “the ultimate crib.” Turned out it was a crib (albeit a really nice one) packed with baby supplies.

Moving The Local Sports Team Out Of Town – KSFM in Sacramento promoted that the Kings were leaving the market and moving to Las Vegas. TV stations and the paper fell for it and they milked it for the whole day before Mr. King (played by Clifton) called in and thanked everyone for their concern, but he’d been transferred and the kids were really kind of excited about moving to Las Vegas.

Busted – JB at KLUC in Vegas reminds us that it’s also fun to bust other radio stations’ bits. Kind of like the “We’re Going To Walk Naked” bit. Yawn. That was old in ’79. Get on the air and let people know that all it is is they’re going to name a dog “Naked” and take him for a walk.

Again Don’t….

• Do the “switch DJs with another station” bit. I’ve seen it backfire where people actually preferred the new morning show.
• Fake the news. That’ll get you dinged. Don’t trade morning shows with another station. I’ve seen that fail two ways: no one noticed, or, they preferred the new morning show. Don’t say that a celebrity like Justin Bieber is going to be at the station.
• Give away things that don’t exist. You will get slapped down HARD by the FCC where they take contest fraud seriously.

There are many things that I missed and that I’ll hit you with as we close in on the 1st. But this should at least jog your thought process on April Fools.