By Jim Hagarty
1994
Why is it, the more miserable the world gets, the happier morning radio announcers become? Do they think they can turn back the tide of gloom and doom with a few, well-placed yuks? Or is there a humour pool somewhere they’re desperately trying to keep filled up?
Whatever the reason, they’re all driving me nuts. Not because they’re funny. They’re not. The closest they come to that is corny, which can be darned hard to take at 6 a.m.
No, the reason I’d like to send them all back to broadcast school for a bit of upgrading is their unbridled cheerfulness. They sound as if, so far this week, they all just won the lottery, met the man/woman of their dreams, discovered the secret of life and stumbled upon some swami who gave them a lifetime supply of a potion that will keep them 21 forever.
I’ve been listening to radio all my life and used to love it more than TV. But this, oh-so-glad-to-be-alive stuff is turning me – and my radio – off several times a day.
One such “deejay” wouldn’t know humour if he was sharing an apartment with Bob Hope, Steve Martin and Jerry Seinfeld. However, he seems to be operating under the delusion that he’s the Alexander Graham Bell of humour and works on the principle that if you say something – anything – in a “funny” voice, it will be hilarious. If bone-chilling, vein-popping, heart-stopping aggravation is suddenly redefined as comedy, then I’ll personally walk across the stage to hand him his Funny Guy of ’94 Award.
This man’s biggest contribution to the humour pool is the expression, “Hoo hoooooooooo!” He says it 40 times a morning while he tries his zippy best to cajole us out of bed.
“Come on all you sleepyheads out there,” he chirps. “Time to get out of that nice, warm bed. Come on now. Rise and shine. Hoo hoooooooooo!”
The bad news is, he’s the best of a bad lot because many stations have decided the job of saying, “Now here’s another golden oldie” can only be handled by two young, super-cheerful types whose voices are the very embodiment of glee. And of course, the morning “men” on radio come in both sexes now and often use their differing genders as the subject of their playful banter. The ones that most regularly get me grinding my teeth also have their favourite expressions: he – “heh, heh, heh”; she – “hee, hee, hee.” (What is it with funny expressions that start with the letter “h”?)
“So, Linda, whadju do on the weekend?”
“Well, Don, I got the old bikini out …”
“Yikes. Run for your lives everybody.”
“Oh you. Hee, hee, hee!”
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Heh, heh, heh!”
“How about you Don? Whadju do?”
“Well Linda, I dug out the old golf clubs …”
“Oh no! Call 9-1-1! Call 9-1-1! Hee, hee, hee!”
“Heh, heh, heh!”
Now I ask you: what if you had no choice but to listen to this for four hours every morning? Wouldn’t you be asking around for Dr. Kevorkian’s phone number?
One station, not content to double our pain, regularly opts for three voices on their airwaves. Two zippy men and one zippy woman, conducting a daily contest, can hardly get the words out for laughing so hard at their own cleverness as they poke fun at each other. The topics usually involve: (a) the fat male belly; (b) the non-technical female brain; (c) the bald male head; (d) the female penchant for lateness; and whatever other gender-related things can still be safely laughed at.
Things have gotten so bad, I was forced against my will to turn on CBC Stereo the other day. There, unexpectedly, was a veritable shade tree of an announcer in the ’90s radio desert who stated in a calm, monotone, unmodulated, straight-as-a-tightrope voice: “And now, a selection by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, their rendition of one of J.S. Bach’s earlier works.” No, hoo hooooooooos or hee hees. No yuk yuks.
No exhortations to smile. No commands to rise and shine. And definitely no zippiness.
But if the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation isn’t the answer, maybe the next best solution is to sleep until noon.
