For April Fools' Day - Come up with the worst formats

[CAwasinNJ]

Try to invent the worst possible formats you can. The more outlandish the better. If you have a particular frequency in mind you can use that, but it isn't necessary. Here are a few to start:

The Buffett Station: By day, investment and financial advice from Jimmy Buffett. By night, the vocal stylings of Warren Buffett.

The John Cage Station: Various performances of 4'33" on a loop. (This one keeps being tried by various stations but never seems to catch on for some reason.)

[oldiesfunhouse]

Here's one Bob FM could try. All Bob all the time. Bob Dillon, Bob Seeger, Bob Crosby (Bing's brother), Bobby Darin, Bobby Vinton, Bobby Brown. "And the Bobs just keep on comin'". Wasn't there an a cappella group called the Bobs? They could play them too.

[fmdj1]

When we had the Goat, my kids kept wanting me to put goats screaming on the air on April Fool's day. Missed opportunity!

[friendlee]

Punk Country!

I wanna whip your cow,
I wanna whip your cow,
I wanna hear her moo,
so do you, so do you,
so do you, so do you!

[amanuensis]

There are easily enough songs that have the word "fool" or "foolish" in the title that you could have them run nonstop for a "fool" day.
www.lyrics.com/lyrics/fool

[Terry]

Start with a fairly distant fuzzy FM signal, in let's say, southern Idaho. Play way-overmodulated old Mexican music with announcers using some obscure European language, say Catalan.

I'd listen for hours trying to figure it out. Did someone mention the word "fool"?

[CAwasinNJ]

There apparently was an a cappella group called The Bobs. This is the first I've heard of them though.

Frank, would this have worked? www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh6c0SOfkH4 Definitely doesn't fit the format but that doesn't matter much on April 1. ;P

[David]

My April Fool's format would consist of 24 hours of comedy routines from Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia, who are arguably the two most hated stand-up comedians of all time. To keep things interesting, I'd intersperse selections from John Cage's "Indeterminacy" LP, and the Shaggs catalog of songs in between comedy routines from Cook and Mencia. (Google "The Shaggs" and Cage's "Indeterminacy" if you're not familiar with them.) At three minutes before the top of each hour, I'd play "The Okeh Laughing Record", an obscure hit from 1922 that features a couple of German opera singers laughing for three minutes accompanied by a melancholy sounding coronetist, as the TOH ID. 😄 I believe Dr. Demento featured "The Okeh Laughing Record" on one of his radio shows many years ago.

BTW, if you want to hear what one local radio station is doing for an actual April Fool's format this weekend, listen to oldies station WDGY online. For those who aren't familiar with WDGY, the station has a long history as one of the Twin Cities Top 40/Oldies stations. But for 24 hours, WDGY is replacing its normal format with a "Country Crossover Flashback" format, a nod to WDGY's country & western format of 1977-1989. The 24 hour April Fool's format flip is part of WDGY's 100th anniversary celebration, which is being marked this year.

[fmdj1]

Apr 1, 2023 3:56:39 GMT -6 CAwasinNJ said:

There apparently was an a cappella group called The Bobs. This is the first I've heard of them though.

Frank, would this have worked? www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh6c0SOfkH4 Definitely doesn't fit the format but that doesn't matter much on April 1. ;P

That's perfect! Think of all the songs I could have edited a goat scream into! Think of all the people listening to the station who would be wondering if they just heard what they thought they heard!

[CAwasinNJ]

I'm not sure how many would know it was a goat that was screaming, but it would be obvious it wasn't the original mix. Younger listeners who know the meme probably would though.


I was thinking more about joke bad formats based on stations' real names.

93.3 Bulls Radio - Continuous replays of the 1997 NBA Finals.

Power 94.9/101.9 - The theme to The Electric Company on repeat.

X96 - Bad Bomm-Chika-Chicka-Bomm 70's soundtracks.

The Zone - The Twilight Zone theme on repeat.

B98.7 - Bee buzzing sound effects.

101.5 The Eagle - All Eagles (the band) music seems too much like a real format.....

103.1 The Wave - "Walking on Sunshine" on repeat.

Z104 - Soundtracks from various Zorro movies.

Mix 105.1 - All Madonna, Phil Collins and Billy Joel. (You have to know the 98.3 The Mix parody commercial to get this one.)