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11/21/2007: "Happy Thanksgiving, You Turkey ... :-)"

It's the Thanksgiving Weekend here in the States, an opportunity to take a break and (hopefully) pause to give thanks for the many blessings we all have in our lives. Here at the Home Office, it's going to be a working weekend as we roll out a lot of changes to the site - but more on that in a later post. For now, let's talk turkey ...

One of the lesser known facts about my life is that I'm a frustrated radio wannabe. Back in '80-'81, I did a two-year stint on the air at the campus radio station KUCR, followed by a 3-month internship at KCAL in the Inland Empire ("96-7 K-CAL FM ... Redlands, Riverside, Saaaaaan Bernadino ... ) . Ah, the memories.

It was my time at KCAL, and meeting the folks working there, that convinced me that the DJ life was probably not for me. The staff was a combination of young folks on the way up (or hoping to be - and included a young Cynthia Fox) and grizzled vets of the LA Radio scene on that long slide downward. If you remember Dr. Johnny Fever from Cinncinnatti's fictional WKRP, then you know what I'm talking about.

Actually, it was an item over at LARadio.com that got me thinking of the past. "WKRP in Cincinnati" was in many ways a spot-on parody of radio in the Seventies, and there were many memorable moments (I particularly recall the way they handled the real-life tragedy of fans getting trampled to death at a Cincinnati Who concert during the show's run). LARadio reminds us, though, of the famous Thanksgiving 1978 episode where the crew at the Mighty KRP learned a valuable lesson about everyone's favorite Thanksgiving fowl:

In it, news director Les Nessman, played by Richard Sanders, is on the air describing WKRP's publicity stunt - a helicopter is flying above Cincinnati, towing a banner that says "Happy Thanksgiving From WKRP." A flock of turkeys is dropped from the 'copter. Of course turkeys can't fly, and a panicky Nessman wails, "Oh, the humanity! The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! Not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this!" Station manager Mr. Carlson brushes the incident off by explaining, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly."

The pained look on Carlson's face as he delivered that last line to Andy Travers was priceless.

May your blessings continue to be many!