April Fool’s
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008I pause to remember a couple of my favorites from years gone by here at King and Water in downtown Kitchener.
1. My good friend and co-worker George Michaels (sister station) played a recorded announcement years ago from Bell Canada advising listeners to put their phones in a baggie before leaving for work. Bell was blowing out the phone lines as part of a spring cleaning effort and didn’t want dust getting in your house. The phone calls we got from people complaining their baggies were empty of dust and when was Bell going to get on with it were worth the price of admission. We even snagged a staff member in that one.
2. Years ago, after the retirement of Brian Mulroney, I talked former Mayor Dom Cardillo into announcing his intention to run for the Leadership of the Conservatives. Dom was great. He gave me an interview and we played a clip of Dom saying “I’d like a chance to do for the country, what I’ve been able to do for the city.” If that wasn’t funny enough, Dom also let the audience off the hook by announcing “I’m an RC, not a PC.” His secretary was quite ticked with me for the volumn of phone calls at City Hall.
3. The next year, I talked the late Bruce McKenty, an unspoken Waterloo Councillor, into announcing plans for Kitchener-Waterloo to almagamate..He tossed in the annexation of Guelph and the phones went stupid again.
4. We used to run something called the “Today Poll”, where we would ask a new question every morning and announce the results the following day. Our former Music Director Randy Owen came up with the question “Do you participate in polls?” We had a few hundred people phone in to say no.
5. I’ll end with this one…it’s kinda scary. The year after the loonie came in, we asked if you agreed with plans for the “Two-nie” We even spelled it that way. We made it up, had reaction from the vending industry and the racetracks and sold it so good, our own staff was ticked off at me. Five years later……
that was fun