Courtesy of Matt at Big Apple Airchecks, Here’s a relatively rare aircheck featuring Charlie Tuna… NOT at his longtime home at 93 / KHJ, but in San Diego!
KCBQ featured one shotgun jingle – heard often enough on this 10 minute composite, but always well placed after one of Tuna’s jokes. Charlie Tuna is… well, himself, sounding comfortable and every bit as good as in L.A… with those pipes! Didn’t he and Charlie Van Dyke share a cellar somewhere?…
The first time I ever went to California and the first time that I ever heard Charlie Tuna was when he did mornings on KCBQ.
I later heard that he was not allowed to do a show in LA for six months because of a clause in a contract that he had with an LA station, so he commuted every day from the LA area to KCBQ.
Steven Green
Charlie Tuna is known to TV audiences for announcing Casey Kasem’s America’s Top 10 as well as the game show Scrabble.
Does anybody know what the constant reference to the Academy Award speech was about?
Howard Stern should not be in this catagory.
He should have his own catagory. He is a talk show host, not a D J, he doesn’t play music, and doesn’t deserve to be in the same catagory as Larry Lujack , Don Imus, The Grease man, Wolfman Jack ECT….
Howard is good at what he does but… he is not as good as the classic radio personalties / dj’s…
I don’t believe howard stern could do a radio show… I mean a real radio show… with music, no nudity and video…
Exactly! Although he WAS a deejay-SLASH-talk show host at one time before his show evolved to its current all-talk form.
God bless Charlie Tuna! When I was in the Navy
from 1979-’83, Charlie Tuna was one of the
weekly shows that came to the aircraft carrier
on disc from AFRTS. It was apparently created
using his famous phone calls and was ALWAYS
outstanding! By the way, you can do your own
impression of Charlie by saying, “Charlie Tuna
on the telephone….” and then make up the
craziest thing you can think of. I have heard
an aircheck someplace where he calls the
telephone company and gets…Lily Tomlin doing
Ernestine! Oh, and the legendary KCBQ
“shotgun” jingle comes from TM’ Productions’
legendary “Shockwave” package. (drumroll) KCBQ!
I was in the Navy in boot camp at this very time. I recall one incident involving Charlie Tuna on KCBQ that was fun and painful at the same time. I was working for a week in the mess under the supervision of a Petty Officer First Class who was a country music fan and insisted that the radio be tuned to the local country station. After a week of listening to this station, and knowing Charlie Tuna was on KCBQ (a bit of home as I used to listen to him on KHJ), I took advantage of the Petty Officer’s absence from the mess hall one morning and changed the station to KCBQ. Great to listen to Charlie Tuna, for about two hours. Then the boss returned and asked who had changed his station. When it was pinned on me, I was forced to do two hours of sit-ups, push-ups, and running the grinder as punishment. It was worth it.
The Last Contest… Banned because it blew out phone lines in every city that played it… It was a great contest – the stations gained listeners gave away very little – since once a package was “offered” it was gone – winner or not…
The Academy Awards references are because the awards are coming up…
I actually have the entire “Last Contest” aircheck on cassette and open reel tape. Greats from that era, Don Rock and Roll Foxx, Charlie Tuna, a very young JoJo Kincaid, and others.
Sure would like to replace my lost cassette of the telescoped (without all the commercials across a week) but full version of The Last Contest. Anyone know a source?