April Fool's Joke Gets Morning Show Hosts in Hot Water

[N2NH]

This is almost as bad as all the people who drank Sunlite dishwashing soap thinking it was lemonade a few years back...

A pair of popular morning show hosts from a Southwest Florida radio station have been suspended indefinitely following an April Fools' Day joke that the station's General Manager believes crossed a line.
Val St. John and Scott Fish, a radio "institution" with 26 years at Gator Country 101.9 between them, told listeners yesterday morning that Lee County's water supply had been tainted with dihydrogen monoxide.
The joke being that dihydrogen monoxide is merely another name for water.


The duo's annual April Fools' Day gags are well known in the region, and the so-called "dihydrogen monoxide hoax" is as old as humor, but GM Tony Renda felt it went too far.
"They made a bad call. It was a bad call," Renda said.
Lee County Utilities, which was forced to field calls from concerned citizens for most of yesterday morning, agrees with Renda.
"When it comes to the drinking water supply, it is critical people understand there is not something wrong," said a spokeswoman for the company. "If we did want the news out there, that's not how we would do it."
Some listeners disagreed with the decision to take the longtime DJs off the air.
"Are you kidding me they did not deserve what happened to them...We have lost it in America," said country music fan who said she will now be patronizing Gator Country's rival The River instead.
But suspension may be the least of Fish and St. John's worries before long.
"My understanding is it is a felony to call in a false water quality issue," a Florida Department of Health officer told the News-Press.

I doubt if they can call this a false water quality issue as much as they want to, but hey, it's Florida so why not?

Hey, there's some dihydrogen monoxide in your water.

[kb2vxa]

It's rumored that Floridians aren't the brightest bulbs in the house but I thought most everybody has heard about dihydrogen monoxide since it was brought to widespread public attention in 1997 when a 14-year-old student, gathered petitions to ban "DHMO" as the basis of his science project, titled "How Gullible Are We?".

That reminds me of Soupy Sales on channel 5 in New York who said something like this.

"Hey kids, last night was New Year's Eve, and your mother and dad were out having a great time. They are probably still sleeping and what I want you to do is tiptoe in their bedroom and go in your mom's pocketbook and your dad's pants, which are probably on the floor. You'll see a lot of green pieces of paper with pictures of guys in beards. Put them in an envelope and send them to me at Soupy Sales, Channel 5, New York, New York. And you know what I'm going to send you? A post card from Puerto Rico!"

The Soupy Sales Show was broadcast live, therefore, no tape of it exists, and no verbatim transcription of his adlib remarks is available. But over the years people who saw the broadcast and Soupy himself have confirmed what was said. Soupy however wasn't fired over the stunt, nor was his show cancelled because of it. After a two week suspension, Soupy was back at on the air. His show ran for about two more years.

[XE1/N5AL]

Of course the suspension might itself be a publicity stunt from the station to get the loyal listeners all riled-up, and to also attract curious new listeners when the personalities return to the air.

[kb2vxa]

If it was it worked very well. Rumor had it he was fired which raised such a howl from fans the station "relented" and "begged him to come back". Ratings shot through the roof, fans won a victory or so it was rumored. Oh, I didn't know the show was broadcast live and somehow I doubt it was but video tapes were made, I don't know if every show was recorded or not. They're around, for one a "best of" compilation is available on VHS at Amazon. I used to have a tape of the infamous birthday show, the crew hired a stripper who performed backstage during the show, White Fang (Frank Nastasi) got him to look through the door he used and the look on Soup's face was priceless. The TV audience knew what was going on, the control room tech put David Rose's The Stripper on. The air feed wasn't all that was recorded, an offstage camera on the stripper also went to VTR and was edited into the VHS tape, the naughty bits blacked out of course.

[W3WN]

Wayddaminit... GM Tony Renda?

If that's who I think it is, when I knew him he was Tony Renda Jr., son of the owner of WSHH-FM. I believe he and his sister now own/control the family business, which includes WSHH and several other stations in town and out of state... including FL.

Little snot. For a long while, during my time as a weekend/overnight board op there, I had the shift after his. He always claimed that "Otto" the automation system was broken or malfunctioning, so he "had" to run the board by hand (translation: He wanted to be a real DJ, not just play tapes). First thing I'd do is put Otto back online... which irritated him (because I was indirectly catching him in a lie) and getting him into some hot water with his dad.

The other major stunt he pulled... the station had a 'trade' deal with one of the pizza shops, trading air time for free food for meetings and such. Well, one day, I get a phone call at home (as did many of the other board ops, I found out later). Seems that someone had been ordering food on the weekends & used up the balance. Of course, since it was 'unauthorized', whomever it was would get canned. The culprit? Jr. He didn't get canned.

He also would tell callers that the next guy (ie, me) would play their requests. Not only would he not tell me, but the music was all on 2 hour tapes, that we had to play in a specific order. No requests possible. Which he knew. Of course, when the callers would complain to management during the week, somehow this was all my fault...

There were other things, but those are three two most detailed that came to mind.

Suffice to say, he is the LAST person who should be passing judgement on the antics of on-air staff. Especially over DHMO.

[XE1/N5AL]

^^^It's a small world and those bad pennies keep turning up!

[N2NH]

^^^It's a small world and those bad pennies keep turning up!

...in all the wrong places. Broadcasting is like that.

[kb2vxa]

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