Top 40 stations back then courted teenagers. So a number of our promotions centered around high schools.
We jocks would host Friday night dances and pep rallies. Those were fine, but at a couple of stations we put together a basketball team made up of the disc jockeys and we would play local high school faculties. Those were brutal.
First of all, out of seven disc jockeys there was maybe one who could dribble. The most exercise most of these guys ever got was rolling joints and opening pop tops.
Meanwhile, these faculties would put together six or seven decent athletes. It’s bad enough they embarrassed us in front of crowds of two thousand or so, but invariably there was one asshole gym teacher who took it upon himself to be Dennis Rodman. He’d elbow us, clock us the face with a forearm and really prove himself to be a big man by outplaying seven stoned undernourished sad sacks.
But the creepiest promotion I ever did was when I was a jock on KYA in San Francisco in 1974. Dean Goss, one of my fellow jocks on the station I’m sure can confirm this story. He gave me shit about it for months.
Here’s the contest: High school girls were asked to send in postcards and I would take one of them to her spring prom. Can you imagine? What parent would let his 16 year-old daughter go out with a 24 year-old disc jockey? I happened to be a nice guy, but on the scale of depravity, disc jockey is just below sex offender.
A winner was selected. I had to rent a tuxedo and buy a corsage. By the way, I loathed proms when I was in high school. I asked if the station was going to provide a limo or some cool mode of transportation? No. I had to drive her in my beat up Mustang.
Not being that familiar with San Francisco at the time it took me twenty minutes to find her place. It turned out she was very sweet. Honestly, my heart went out to all the girls who entered this contest. Obviously you don’t resort to this if guys from your class ask you to the prom. So it was all the Janis Ian “At Seventeen” unpopular girls who vied for this “honor.”
The prom itself could not have been more awkward. I knew no one of course, and all the kids eyed me like I was some pervert. The teacher/chaperones really viewed me with contempt. I’m sure there was a gym teacher who wanted to clothesline me. WKRP IN CINCINNATI missed a bet not doing this episode. My date was very shy and I think more uncomfortable in this environment than I was. Had she been enjoying herself I would have stuck it out, but after a half hour I asked if she wanted to ditch this place and get something to eat? She was so relieved.
It was the only time a date said to me, “This was really a bad idea” and I didn’t take it personally.
The station was mad because I didn’t come back with a prom photo. The whole point was to put that on the cover of their weekly survey they distributed to record stores. What good was the promotion if they couldn’t promote it? The promo director was so mad he wouldn’t reimburse me for the dinner.
The truth is I did have the prom photo. But my date had been through enough. I could at least spare her this.
I can only hope her yearbook showed the same discretion.
That was my last prom. It could have been worse, I suppose. They could have asked me to hand out candy at a middle school from the station van.
from By Ken Levine
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