Apparently three months is about as long as some of us can go before the urge to regroup and play radio overwhelms us. After the fun of the Holiday broadcast in December, the approach of April Fools Day seemed like the perfect target (or excuse) for another event. We are kinda in April Fools mode all year long anyway. Following on the quad-split observation camera approach used at the Holiday show, the decision was made to utilize even more video this time to supplement the audio portion of the program. From his studio out in New York, Dave volunteered to launch a more full-featured WLHA TV program to wrap around his newscast cut-ins live every half hour. What the heck, with the demise of analog TV broadcasting, the high end of the UHF dial was temporarily unoccupied anyway, so how fitting it seemed to launch WLHA analog TV to fill the void. This technically ambitious plan would have the Madison crew providing a radio show with five observation cameras covering the action of live jingle singers, studio musicians, a booth announcer, and multiple WLHA jocks working from multiple studios. Dave would provide WLHA TV programming using a Chroma-Keyed news center set and television graphics. After a couple of intense weeks lining up ficticious corporate sponsors, frantically writing and producing radio spots, and other malarkey involving former staffers participating from all over the country, (Joe Allison, Crazy Nancy, Dan Monahan, and Andy Arns) the designated day (Sat. March 28th) arrived and staff and local guests started arriving, including Chris (Wild Bruce) Kammer armed with party lights and a fog machine. With food and beverages laid out upstairs, the party was ready to get underway.
Charlie Brown and Capt. Jack signed on WLHA AM/FM/Web at 4:30 PM, and did a music program lead up to the main event. At 6 PM, Dave took over the stream from New York for the historic first sign-on of WLHA TV on UHF chan. 64 complete with an animated seal of approval and a line up of special programming including the Capt. Kenny (Rabolt) Show.
From that point, it was back and forth for four hours. Capt. Jack and Wild Bruce were perched upstairs in the radio control room, Nivek and Casey downstairs at the master control console, Ted Kelly at the voice over booth, and M. Scott Young with the WLHA house band and singers in the main studio. Nivek supplemented the talents of our studio musicians with impromptu Theremin accompaniment.
Wild Bruce did a dramatic musical poetry reading (see video highlights for the full treatment of this classic), Jack did a report on the recent Detroit Spring Auto show and a very detailed Mad City Tonight report. Andy Arns checked in with live reports from the big Birkenstock Music Festival in Sun City Arizona and Capt. Al went aloft in Whirlybird 64, reporting in by cell phone with aerial coverage of Spring Break happenings from down in Mexico. The staggering production costs for this event were covered by generous sponsorship and trade outs from Rock Star Brands, Y-Tel Records, Stupid Stereo Steve, Dr. Mishkin and Hole In The Head Productions.
A few technical issues made things complicated. There was a five minute delay over the Web which made it impossible for Madison to monitor what Dave was doing during his segments. The primary recording device intended to capture the outgoing audio/multi-camera video program refused to record (good taste filter must have been activated), leaving us with single camera and left channel audio coverage only from a last-minute, cobbled-together backup DVD recording.
And human error (nice going Mr. The K) left the answer switch on the phone patch switched on, which tied up the main incoming phone line with a busy signal all night, frustrating everyone who tried to call in to participate in the show, and forced a change in plans to abandon all of the planned mystery song capsule contests and other call-in activities. Things kept rolling along anyway, and except for a 10 minute melt-down half way throug h the show when Madison and N.Y. tried to stream simultaneously, the syncronized back and forth streaming effort seemed to actually work.
What is presented below is the mono (left ch. actually) audio from the Madison-originated portion of the broadcasts, with the music telescoped to intro/outro only. To get an idea of what Dave was doing from New York during his segments, we suggest that you click on the links below to watch the video highlights clips and check out the still photos before experiencing the audio aircheck. Radio is an imagination medium. Armed with the visual images in your head from the highlights, use your imagination to fill in the missing images from the audio only aircheck. Unfortunately, the majority of Dave's later live TV inserts were not recorded, so you will also need to imagine just how hilarious they were.
April Fool's Video Highlights, click here
April Fools Show and other recent events photos, click here
6:05 PM to 6:30 PM segment
6:35 PM to 7 PM segment
7:05 PM to 7:30 PM segment
7:35 PM to 8 PM segment
8:05 PM to 8:30 PM segment
8:35 PM to 9PM segment
9:05 PM to 9:30PM segment
Final half hour of the broadcast.
Video signoff of WLHA TV 64, click here
