Ever since the first actual WKRP radio station in Cincinnati began broadcasting in May, listeners and fans of the late 1970’s WKRP in Cincinnati sitcom have been asking: Will they do a turkey drop?
Yes!
WKRP-FM, which airs on three stations from Dry Ridge KY to Dayton OH, on Nov. 25 will recreate the stunt — without live turkeys — which TV Guide ranked among its “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.”
In 1978, during the first WKRP season, station manager Arthur Carlson (Dayton native Gordon Jump) boasted he was “going to make history” with “the greatest promotional idea of all time.” So the fictional radio station dropped live turkeys over a shopping mall, with the birds smashing car windshields and “hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement,” reported WKRP newsman Les Nessman.
The show ended with Carlson delivering one of the most memorable punchlines in TV history: “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!”
The recreation in Hamilton will involve miniature rubber turkeys dropped from the top a fire truck ladder.
"WKRP is bringing the legend back,” says Jeff Ziesmann, WKRP-FM general manager, “but this time, as God is my witness, this time we’ve got it right."
The promotion will take place at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25 — Thanksgiving eve – between Municipal Brew Works and the Casual Pint on Riverfront Plaza, and an adjacent parking lot.
WKRP-FM host Dave Mason will announce the turkey drop promotion this morning, Monday, Nov. 2. He’ll also describe the “1st Annual WKRP Turkey Drop” T-shirts and hats available through the station.
At a later date listeners will be told how they can purchase a $10 rubber turkey for the drop, similar to the yellow ducks sold for the Freestore Foodbank rubber duck regatta Labor Day weekend.
“The turkey that lands closest to the target wins a cash prize, bragging rights and a place in WKRP lore,” Ziesmann says.
Ziesmann points out that the event “isn’t just for fun – it’s meaningful. One hundred percent of the net proceeds from the turkey sales and commemorative T-shirts will support Butler County’s Open Door Food Pantry, helping local families during the holiday season,” he says.
Why no helicopter?
“Due to darkness and potential weather concerns, a helicopter is not a reliable option. Using a fire truck allows us to ensure the promotion can take place regardless of weather conditions,” says Laura Ziesmann, vice president of sales.
The Ziesmanns and partner Randy Michaels, the former WKRQ-FM programmer turned Jacor, Clear Channel and Tribune Co. broadcasting executive, bought the WKRP call letters from a low-power FM station in Raleigh, N.C., in April. It was the first time a Cincinnati radio station had the iconic call letters made famous by WKRP in Cincinnati, a sitcom about a fictional radio station which premiered 48 years ago on CBS.
WKRP in Cincinnati, which aired four seasons on CBS (1978-82), was a beloved ensemble comedy about a struggling low-rated station which had just switched from “easy listening” music to rock ‘n’ roll.
The cast of crazy characters included stoner morning man Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman); late-night DJ Venus Flytrap (Tim Reid), nerdy newsman Nessman (Sanders), program director Andy Travis (Dayton native Gary Sandy), salesman Herb Tarlek (Frank Bonner) station manager Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson (Jump) and receptionist Jennifer Marlowe (Loni Anderson).
Creator Hugh Wilson based the sitcom on a station in Atlanta, where he worked in advertising. Hesseman’s “Johnny Fever” character was based on Atlanta DJ “Skinny Bobby” Harper, who was a WSAI-AM DJ in the 1960s.
"Turkeys Away” was the seventh episode broadcast the first season, on Oct. 31, 1978.
It became such a cultural phenomenon that Sanders re-created the stunt for years for radio stations by dropping gift certificates or other items from a chopper over shopping centers, including at old Forest Fair Mall in 1990.
Wilson, who died in 2018 at age 74, said an Atlanta’s WQXI-FM station manager Jerry Blum had told him about his turkey promotion at a Dallas station in the 1950s.
"He told me that he had been fired from Texas station for throwing turkeys out of a helicopter. I said to him, ‘Jerry, you just won me an Emmy! That's really funny,’ " Wilson said in an oral history co-produced by the Archive of American Television and the Writers Guild Foundation.
WKRP-FM now simulcasts rock hits from the late 1960s, 70s and early 80s on three stations: WKRP-FM in Middletown (97.7); WOXY-FM (94.5) in Englewood, a northern Dayton suburb; and WNKR-FM (106.7) in Dry Ridge, where the studios and headquarters are located for Ziesmann’s Grant County Broadcasters. It also streams at the WKRP-FM website.
