Congratulations to our Great Turkey Giveaway Contest winners, whose names were announced in the News-Herald
last week. I hope they all had a marvelous turkey dinner.
I chuckle every year when I see the goofy turkey adorning the Turkey Giveaway coupon page. It reminds me of the great turkey drops—both fictional and real—that I have enjoyed.
The fictional turkey drop is one that just about anyone who was alive in the late ’70s remembers instantly when you mention WKRP
in Cincinnati. WKRP
was a hilarious sitcom with running gags that have become part of pop culture, such as beleaguered news reporter Les Nessman’s imaginary office defined by masking tape lines on the floor and the firing of cynical DJ Johnny Fever for saying “booger” on the air.
But WKRP’s
biggest claim to fame—if you don’t believe me, Google it—is the Turkeys Away
episode.
If you are my age—or if you’ve watched this episode on TV Land or via Netflix, you are already laughing. I can’t even talk about the show without becoming slightly hysterical because it is such a hilarious incident of marketing gone awry.
In case you haven’t seen the nowsyndicated and oft-downloaded show, it is the account of a well-meaning Thanksgiving promotion, the brainchild of station owner Mr. Carlson. Unbeknownst to his staff, Mr. Carlson arranges a helicopter flight over a mall parking lot to drop a Thanksgiving surprise for the public. Newsman Les Nessman is stationed at the mall to document the event, which quickly turns ugly. Nessman covers the scene as if it were the Hindenburg disaster, describing the helicopter’s arrival and noting that objects are falling out of the helicopter, plummeting to the earth from two thousand feet in the air. What are they? In horror Nessman realizes they are live turkeys! “Turkeys, hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement,” reports Nessman. His colleagues back at the station listen, appalled at the carnage. “Oh, the humanity,” cries Nessman.
I know, it’s sick and silly. But it is also one of the funniest sitcom moments in history.
Thesecond turkey drop that makes me laugh was real—well, almost real. Thisturkey drop also involved a radio station—this time a real one—KDON FM 99.7 in Monterey, California. The “Mr. Carlson” at KDON FM 99.7 was Walt Jackson, a DJ with a twisted sense of humor a la WKRP’s
Johnny Fever.
I was a stay-at-home mom, with two little boys and plenty of time to listen to the radio as I played with them or cleaned house. So, I entered several KDON 99.7 contests and won free records or cassettes and once, front-row-seat tickets to a Jefferson
Starship
concert. One of my favorite contests—and most difficult—took place in November. Participants not only had to be the ninth caller when a demented-sounding turkey gobble sounded, they also had to know the last nine songs that had been played. However, the prize was inclusion in TheGreat Thanksgiving Turkey Drop. I wasn’t sure just what that meant, but remembering the ridiculous WKRP
Turkeys Away
episode, I couldn’t resist.
I carried a tablet around with me for days, quickly jotting down the songs that had played. Finally, after days of dashing for the phone at the sound of the turkey gobble and hitting redial over and over, I got through! I shushed the kids and proudly read the last nine songs off my list and I won!
My prize was the dubious honor of attending the KDON 99.7 Great Turkey Drop. That meant getting up in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving and joining a hundred other “winners” on a football field at a local high school. Above the field hovered a giant hot air balloon with none other than my favorite DJ Walt Jackson aboard.
We learned that the competition wasn’t over. Contestants were given bright blue KDON Great Turkey Drop T-shirts and led out onto the field. We were informed that, as any WKRP
fan knows, turkeys cannot fly. So Walt Jackson would not
be throwing live turkeys out of the hot air balloon. Instead, he would throw a very appropriate substitute—rubber chickens.
Each rubber chicken had a number on it that corresponded to a prize. The prizes ranged from free tapes or records to a free dinner at a fancy Monterey restaurant to the grand prize of $1,000. At the sound of another turkey gobble we were allowed to dash onto the field to catch the rubber chickens that Walt Jackson was gleefully tossing to the earth. Fortunately they did not hit the ground like sacks of wet cement. No, they tumbled and flopped into the grass like you would expect a rubber chicken to do.
It was a fabulous fall day and one that will live, not in infamy, but in insanity. The picture of 100 people dressed in bright blue t-shirts clamoring for rubber chickens at dawn is not a sight soon forgotten.
I have forgotten what my prize was—obviously it was not the $1,000. It doesn’t matter; it was enough to have been a part of the Great Turkey Drop.
But I do wonder what became of my rubber chicken….
As God is my witness,
I thought turkeys could fly!
Arthur Carlson, WKRP in Cincinnati
Leave a Reply