There are many things that I miss about not being on the radio anymore. One of those things is the creative sessions that my buddy Tim Timmerman and I would have. We would get together once a month or so and toss around idea for bits that we could use on our radio shows. It was not odd to spend 6 hours in the production studio writing and producing these bits.
I think these sessions started with us creating “Fan Club” commercials for each other. These were phony commercials that promoted our personal fan clubs. “Join now and receive your membership card printed on high quality construction paper! Show it at local restaurants to get a free glass of ice water! As an added bonus, Keith will send you an autographed Post-it note!”
Around Halloween, we did another phony ad for the “Keith Allen Halloween Joke Book.” It was just a dumb excuse to tell some bad Halloween dad jokes. “You’ll be a hit at your party with (joke #1). And then there’s (joke #2). And don’t forget (joke #3). Order yours now for just 6 installments of $29.95. Send your check or money order to ME!” and then we’d throw in one last punch line “….it’s good for the bones!!”
Post Halloween brought our ad for the Keith Allen Crappy Candy Auction. The bit had me as the auctioneer trying to get people to bid on the crappy candies that kids got on Halloween. “Who’ll give me a dollar for these circus peanuts? Bit O’Honey! Get your Bit O’Honey here! No one wants these, so come up and grab your free orange and black wrapped chewy things!”
Christmas was always fun because every year we’d create ads for “the toy your child REALLY wants this year!” Keith Allen (or Tim Timmerman) Action figures! Each year would feature a new run of figures: Bowling Alley Keith, Shuffleboarding Tim, Lion Tamer Keith, Racquetball Tim, etc … These things were completely ridiculous.
We also had a bit where we said that we had a direct line into the PA system at the local mall. This allowed us to monitor it to see if there were any big sales or holiday specials. The bit would always start with us saying, “Let’s see what’s going on at (Mall Name or later on the made up store Save Mart)…” When we’d play the bit there was a cheesy version of Jingle Bell Rock that played and then the announcer (voiced by one of us) would come on and announce that gopher traps were on sale or something like that. The announcer always seemed to be drunk and there was usually some sort of bad punch line to end the bit. I would always come on after the bit was over and say something like “Thousands of people are out of work and THAT guy still has a gig!”
Now, I tell you all of that to set up one of the quickest, silliest and dumbest bits we ever wrote. The fact that this bit aired on country stations, Hot 100 stations, and pretty much any format we ever worked, still makes me laugh.
It was the middle of May and Tim came to the radio station for our creative session. We start rattling off things for June, Summer, and such. He tells me June is National Accordion Awareness Month. For whatever reason, that was the thing that really stuck with me. Accordions! What could we possibly do with accordions? I don’t recall who came up with the idea, but we produced this little sweeper to play in between songs. Now, you have to imagine you are hearing your favorite song, then you hear this crazy accordion thing followed by another hit song.
In a previous blog, I tried to describe what this sounded like. That never really did the bit any justice. Well, luckily, I just happened to find one of the few sweepers we played between songs when I was doing mornings at B-95.
The song playing on the air fades out and the announcer says:
Then the next song would play. It was so out of place and so funny to me. I used this bit for years even taking it to other stations. Honestly, I probably thought it was funnier than the listeners. Maybe I thought it was funny to think about just what the listener was thinking when they heard this? I don’t know….
Thanks, Tim, for making me laugh all these years later. Thank you, dear reader, for allowing me share my insanity with you.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 