The Real Bob James, Creative Services Director/Production Manager, WMIL-FM, WOKY-AM, Milwaukee, WI
If you've been in radio for any length of time, you've probably heard of the Real Bob James, and you've certainly heard and laughed at the outrageous material from the American Comedy Network. Bob was the Founder, Creative Director, and Vice President of ACN, but his resume' hardly begins and ends there. Over twenty years ago, Bob was writing speeches and press releases for Ohio Congressman Charles Carney. He has been on the air at a number of stations including WZMX, Hartford; WRKI, Danbury; WABC, New York; WNBC, New York; WKIS, Orlando; WGAR, Cleveland; WHLO, Akron, and more! He was PD at WRFD, Columbus and APD at WWDC in Washington, DC. He was a free-lance writer, producer and performer in LA and worked on a number of shows including Entertainment Tonight. He has done stand-up comedy and produced a local television show ala Saturday Night Live that netted him four local Emmy Awards. He wrote and produced song parodies and comedy bits for ABC Radio Network in New York. He was co-host of Coast-to-Coast, a national talk show on Independent Broadcasters Network. He co-founded and served as Senior Consultant of the Morning Show Consulting Group, and he's a lot of fun to talk with, too! RAP checks in with Bob as he celebrates his first year anniversary at WMIL/WOKY, Milwaukee. His incredible background in radio, television, and comedy is being put to wise use at the Milwaukee stations as his unique style of writing and production help keep WMIL at the head of the pack with radio that's simply fun to listen to.
R.A.P.: You went from radio to television and back to radio. Why did you leave television?
Bob: I worked for local television in Cleveland, WEWS, Channel 5, where I won four Emmy awards. After that, I thought I was pretty hot, so I went out to LA. There, I died this horrible financial and psychic death. I thought, "Hey, I've got Emmy awards -- I can be in television!" Well, that didn't work out, but some interesting things happened while I was out there. I got a call from this agent saying Chuck Woolery was leaving a show that Merv Griffin was producing. He asked if I would like to come in and try out for this part for a game show. So I went down there and had an interview, just the producers and me sitting across from each other. Then they said, "Would you like to come back and try it with a couple of people?" So I came back and tried it with a couple of people, and they got a few laughs out of it. Then they said, "We'd like you to come back and do it for cameras." So I came back and did another little shtick for the cameras. They later said, "Look, it's between you and the weatherman from Channel 4. We'll call you." Days passed. Weeks passed. I finally called them and said, "What's up? They said, "Well, you didn't have any local television experience here in LA, so we went with the weatherman from Channel 4." The weatherman from Channel 4 was Pat Sajak, and the show was Wheel of Fortune. I came close, but I didn't get it.
I did get on Entertainment Tonight for the first six weeks of the show, and then, Andy Friendly, the guy who hired me, quit. And when he quit, this other guy came in and fired everybody Andy hired, including me.
I also did some writing for Columbia Pictures Television, a show called "Mag" which featured this guy everybody thought was going to be the next Steve Martin. I wrote for the pilot for this show, but the guy didn't get very hot. That's when I thought maybe I'd better get back into radio.
R.A.P.: Is this when American Comedy Network came about?
Bob: Basically, yes. I went to Orlando, Florida, where I met Andy Goodman. It was Andy Goodman and me along with Dale Reeves and Michelle George -- we put this little American Comedy Network thing together.
R.A.P.: It turned out to be a major accomplishment. How did ACN come into existence, and how do you explain its success?
Bob: I think ACN was a pretty big deal because of its timing. We sort of showed up on the scene. Back in the early eighties when ACN began, it began as something called Katz Creative. It was a separate little creative arm of a broadcasting company owned by Dick Ferguson. The Katz rep firm owned about half a dozen radio stations, and Dick Ferguson had this idea that we could put together comedy. At the time, I was doing this morning show down in Orlando, and he bought a radio station in Orlando that happened to be our competitor. He came down acting as sort of the interim GM and heard my program and thought, "Maybe this guy can do for me and my five other radio stations what he's doing here, and we'll do some type of network thing." The whole thing was very vague. Nobody really knew what was going to happen, but we all agreed that it would be possible to do something which nobody was doing yet, and that was write contemporary, funny comedy bits -- short-form one minute, one and a half minute radio sketches and parody songs.
Imagine, back about twelve or thirteen years ago, nobody was doing parody songs the way they do them now. I mean, occasionally when the football team would get into the Rose Bowl or something, the local station would do a funny rah-rah song about the football team, but the only thing that was available on the syndicator shelves back in 1981-82 was pre-recorded stuff that was sitting on the shelves for years and years like the stuff Mel Blanc did. Nobody was making contemporary comments on what was going on in the news and about our human foibles, and how we were back then. When you think about it now, you think, "Well, that's no quantum leap," but since nobody was doing it, I guess it kind of caught on. Now everybody is doing it. Every time I turn around there's a new comedy service out there that's joking around with what's happening.
R.A.P.: Was ACN actually the first comedy service of its type?
Bob: I think we were the first syndicated service that called ourselves a network, and that was just to distinguish ourselves from the others out there. I think Stevens and Grdnic were out there, but again, I don't think they were making comment on what was happening in the world during that time, although they're doing that now. They have their own comedy service. We're good friends, and they're wonderful, talented people. They also did a morning show in New York for a while, and they worked in St. Louis. They've been all over. They have comedy albums out, and they're very funny people. But back when we started, I don't think they were doing the contemporary stuff.
At that point, Ronald Reagan was still in the White House. So if Ronald Reagan did a stupid thing one week, then the next week, or even faster than that, there would be a bit on his stupid thing. The baseball strike was on, so we had our baseball strike song done and ready to go. Whatever was happening in the news that had some shelf life, we would comment on. There were things going on in South Africa. We did this big thing called The South African White Sale, and got Sears real pissed off at us. Do you remember the jingle they had? "America Shops at Sears...." Well, our version went, "South Africa Lives in Fear...." I think we had an affiliate in Chicago, and that funny jingle we sent them was broadcast over the air. And, of course, that's where Sears is located. Well, they heard it and sent a cease and desist order and threatened to sue us for one million dollars if we didn't destroy that parody because it inaccurately, in their opinion, would make an average listener think that Sears somehow was keeping down the Blacks in South Africa, and that was the last thing we were thinking of. We just used a contemporary song that was in everybody's mind and set it to parody something else. We were a little company. We might have won the lawsuit but lost everything else. So, discretion being the better part of valor, we pulled the spot and told our affiliates to pull the spot. Whether they did or not I couldn't tell you, but that's what we told them to do. There was a lot of stuff like that. A lot of people got mad at us, so we knew we were doing our job.
R.A.P.: Did you find yourselves getting a lot of calls from lawyers?
Bob: In the beginning we did, and then later on we didn't. I think we ran the same track that Saturday Night Live ran when they first started. There were a lot of people who were so shocked that somebody would say anything like that. You know, we would make comment on people who smoke cigarettes and the cigarette companies. We'd make comments about the airlines. There were just three of us doing the writing, me, Andy and Dale. One of us might come back from a vacation which involved an airplane ride, and we'd be pissed off about that. So, we'd write a bit on that. We would make a comment that, from our perspective anyway, was true, and we'd have those people calling us.
We did a thing on Whitney Houston called "Don't My Songs All Sound the Same." It was to the tune of one of her big hits. We noticed that all she was doing was very formulaic songs -- she would come out, she would sing, she would scream. It was like a situation comedy. There was a formula they were following to make hit songs for Whitney Houston. So, we said that, and that got Arista Records, or whatever label she was on, kind of ticked off.
R.A.P.: Did you ever have to settle?
Bob: No, although there were threats. There were always calls saying they were very angry and wouldn't let this happen and that we'd pay for this and that. The only company that really served us with papers was the Sears Corporation. I was there when the sheriff came in with the papers. We eventually put together a little tape called "ACN's Most Famous Lawsuits" although there were really no lawsuits. It was a collection of all the things that made people mad at us. I had a seven-year run there with ACN, eight years, actually, and it was a lot of fun.
R.A.P.: Prior to ACN, you had been a morning man for several years at several stations. Were you using this "ACN style" of comedy on the air at these stations?
Bob: I was doing the ACN type stuff basically, but not exactly. When you're a morning personality, you get up at three o'clock in the morning, and you only have limited amounts of time to think about things and write things down. I'd go in and do a show, then go out and do an appearance and what have you. So it's difficult to really put together some high quality stuff. On the other hand, when your job is nothing but reading the paper, paying attention to television, writing comedy material and producing it, then the level of quality comes up.
We had our own studios at ACN, and we did all the writing and all the production. I shepherded the production, but I was in on the writing sessions, too. We'd write it then cast it. We'd bring people in, and I was there trying to make the words have some life. When you write something on a piece of paper, it doesn't necessarily mean it's funny. You have to make it funny in the studio. You've got to catch that lightening in a bottle in the studio. So, even though I did the ACN stuff when I was working on the air, I think the quality of it got a hell of a lot better when I was off the air and turning all my attention to writing and producing comedy material.
R.A.P.: Were you producing song parodies as a morning personality?
Bob: Yea, I did parodies, but I sang them myself and sucked. And back then, there was no such thing as a MIDI. Nobody sat around interfacing with their little Casio. I would get songs that had instrumental segments and put those together, adding them on to each other to make it work. It was like dark ages kind of stuff.
R.A.P.: While you were doing mornings, before ACN, did you get into much trouble with your comedy material? Did you get the attention of any lawyers back then?
Bob: Well, I got into some trouble when I was in Akron. I did a thing called The Barberton Report where I would make fun of people in this goofy city of Barberton. It wasn't really goofy, but I portrayed it as a funny suburb with unusual people. I got in trouble for that -- phone calls and what have you.
And when I was in Cleveland I did Cleveland Crimebusters. Cleveland is a funny town, or was when I was there, and is the butt of a lot of jokes because the river caught on fire and people were throwing baseballs off the top of the terminal tower at one time. I mean, nutty things happened in Cleveland. If you have a warped outlook anyway, you can kind of screw with what's going on and do something funny with it.
R.A.P.: Looking back, how would you say ACN affected the way morning shows were presented?
Bob: One thing that happened is that ACN turned into a tool for managers. It was supposed to help morning personalities do a better job, but something else happened in some markets. You had managers in some cases who saw the personality on the air as a light bulb. It really didn't matter what person you screwed in or screwed out, if you know what I mean. You could screw in a new light bulb every time you needed a new one, and ACN would always be there. You would always have that consistency. The character would still be there even though the disk jockey got fired or left. Another guy who knew how to use ACN could come in and make a smooth transition.
I think we changed the way some morning shows are done around the country, but I think we stifled a lot of creativity, too. We stopped the young people. There's maybe a five or six year generational span there that never learned how to be good radio personalities because they had ACN. They didn't have to think. They didn't have to write. Other people were thinking and writing for them. You had some General Managers and programmers saying to their air personalities, "Do you think you're better than that song? Play the song and shut up! The song cost a hell of a lot more to produce than what you could come up with. It's much better quality material." Well, that's the way ACN was being used, too.
So you've got all these young people who probably had a lot of things to say and had a lot of magic in their souls who were told just to do the shtick about Reagan on the ACN thing, play the fake commercial, and don't say anything. Keep playing the music. I feel bad about that, but at least I had a chance to put a few bucks in the bank.
R.A.P.: When you left radio for television, at WEWS-TV in Cleveland, you were the creator, producer, and writer of the Cleveland Comedy Company? Tell us about this show.
Bob: That's the thing that won me the Emmy awards, but it wasn't just me. There were a lot of people involved in that show. But as producer of the show, they give you the award. I think it won seven Emmy awards; some other guys got them as well. It was really a team effort. This was about two or three years into Saturday Night Live's existence. We thought Cleveland was one of the funniest cities in the country, so we thought we might as well try it. We put together a group of wonderful young people who just wanted to perform, and we used local people like Larry J.B. Robinson, the "Diamond Man," the guy who owned a chain of diamond stores. He was one of the hosts of the show. John Lanigan was one of the hosts of the show. John is still a disc jockey in Cleveland. Jay Lawrence was a host of the show. All of these well-known local media personalities would come on and be the host, and it was shot like Hee Haw if you know what I mean. We would have one day when the host would come in and do all his shtick. Then we'd have a time when we would do our set pieces. There would be a time to do the news parody. Then, after it was all assembled, we would bring an audience in and have them sit down and watch television screens so we could get their reaction and record the show with their reaction. This was local television, and in local television, they know how to do news, they know how to do sports, and they know how to do weather. They don't know how to do entertainment programming. So, to make it sound good, we had to bring an audience in and sit them in the bleachers at the Channel 5 studios downtown. They watched the TV sets, and we recorded their reaction to it. And, that's how we did it. And every three months, we'd put a new show together. It was quite an experience.
R.A.P.: When you left ACN over four years ago you went back on the air for a few years. What made you decide to get off the air and go behind the scenes in radio?
Bob: I decided I didn't want to be an air personality anymore. It's just too volatile a job, and I think I'm getting a little too old to keep moving all over the country. Most recently, I was doing mornings in Hartford. I had a five-year deal there, and I was enjoying it pretty much. But, things change, and after three years they asked me to leave. It was like, "Hey, Bob, it's nothing you did, and it's nothing you didn't do. This is just what we're doing." They were acquiring new stations, and they were getting rid of debts. And I'm thinking, "Man, I have a family. I want to be with my wife. I want to be with my cat and dog, and I don't want to be moving all over the place." I think it's really a young person's field, the on-air thing. So this opportunity in Milwaukee came up, and I took it. I knew the guy who owned Sundance Broadcasting which has four stations in Phoenix, four stations in Boise, I think, and a couple in Milwaukee. I called him and said, "Hey, I'm ready to work for you in Phoenix." He said, "I don't need anybody in Phoenix. Are you interested in going to Milwaukee?" I wasn't completely interested in Milwaukee, but I flew in and talked to the GM and the programmers and saw some of the stuff they were doing. I was very impressed. It's a cutting edge kind of place. They had the DSE 7000 digital unit in the production room. They bought it when it first came out. They must have paid forty grand for this machine because they wanted to be ahead of everybody else. And they've got Media Touch in there as well. So, here they were with all this new digital equipment, moving toward the future a lot faster than at any place I had been. I thought, "Why not? Milwaukee's a nice town." So I took this job, and I've learned a lot. I didn't have any digital experience before I got here, and now I feel very comfortable with digital. I'd hate to go back to using tape.
R.A.P.: Where did you get the name the Real Bob James?
Bob: Chick Watkins was the programmer in Cleveland, Ohio when I went on the air at WGAR. I came from Columbus where I was doing overnights, and I was calling myself "your Buckeye Buddy, Bob James." So, when Chick put me on eight to midnight, he said, "I'm gonna change your name if you don't mind. You're the Real Bob James."
They say, "what's in a name?" A career, because nobody remembers me as Bob James, but everybody remembers me as Real Bob. Chick gave me the Real Bob James, and it has stuck with me now for the twenty-some odd years. So thanks, Chick, I appreciate it. And I guess I'll thank the Real Don Steele; that's where he stole it from, I'm sure.
R.A.P.: What are your responsibilities at the station?
Bob: I do a little bit of everything. I do all the promos and the imaging for the AM and the FM, for WOKY and WMIL, FM 106. Then, occasionally, a real hard ball client comes to one of the salespeople, and they'll need some help. They come to me, and I'll do some writing, which I enjoy doing. I like doing that because it becomes a real challenge to crack a real tough client.
R.A.P.: There must be other people doing commercial production there.
Bob: Mike Cromwell works with me. He's a very good producer and a really good copywriter. And there's Beth Otten, who's the copywriter, and she's very good. They pretty much handle the commercial end of things, and I'm on the periphery of that.
I also help the morning show on the FM with some production, and I do something called Danger Boy for the FM where I get a cellular phone and go out during the morning and do goofy, dangerous things. For example, tickets went on sale for a recent Vince Gill concert, and I'm there trying to cut in line, you know, getting people mad at me. I'll dress up funny and walk into a George Webb's restaurant, which is like a McDonald's here in town, and say, "I think the Dolphins are going to win. What do you think of that?" Then people throw stuff at me. It's kind of goofy, but people seem to like it.
R.A.P.: You sent me a tape of WMIL, and, for the sake of those who can't hear the station, let me say that the station sounds like it's a lot of fun to listen to.
Bob: Yes, and I was talking to Rusty Walker recently, and he said the same thing. It's got a real attitude about it. It's got a fun, up tempo kind of attitude, and that's what they were striving for.
R.A.P.: And a big part of that "fun" sound comes from the produced elements between the songs.
Bob: It just makes sense. As we get into these format configurations with ten songs in a row followed by no-talk triple plays followed by the new song of the week or whatever, there's really not a lot of opportunity for air personalities to say anything. They work the format. That's what they do. And, moreover, all the perceptual studies that come back show that people don't want to hear disk jockeys. Fun disk jockeys show up like eighth, ninth on the list of what consumers of radio want to hear. They want to hear music. And that's why we're playing a ton of music.
Well, how do we make the radio station fun if you don't let anybody talk? I mean, everybody's playing the same music, so how do you make your product stand out from all the rest? Well, fortunately, in Milwaukee, we're the only country station, so that's not too hard. But, you've still got to do something to still make the radio station have a different spin.
When I'm down in the Racine area, I tune in Chicago radio and listen to US 99. I don't want to say anything disparaging about them, but I listen and punch back and forth between FM 106 and US 99, and I prefer Milwaukee. I've got ears, and I listen carefully. I think the caliber of jock is much more up tempo in Milwaukee, and so is the production. I like a produced sound on a radio station. I don't like it to sound like a jukebox all the time, and I think we have that produced sound. I like up tempo, fast, exciting kinds of things and wonderful ideas and concepts.
When I go out and talk to people in colleges or high schools about production and radio and television stuff, I make it clear that radio stations have microphones and buttons and dials and switches and CD players. That's what they have, and that's all they are, just buttons and dials and switches. Where the magic is, where the magic comes from, is in your head and in your heart. And you have to be technically astute enough to know how to use all this equipment to make the magic that you have inside your head come out and grab people. You want to make emotional connections with people. You want to make them laugh or make them cry or make them think or make them get excited or make them call in.
I'm into content. I think of radio stuff as intellectual exercise. You know who the most fun people to hang around with at a radio station are? The news people because they're hooked into what's going on in the world. If you hang around disk jockeys, they want to talk about the cart machines. I want to talk about the stuff everybody else is talking about. In fact, there's even a consultant who says throw away your R&Rs and pick up Vogue magazine. Pick up New Woman. Pick up Highlights for kids. Pick up what human beings who listen to the radio are reading. Don't read R&R; talk about stuff that everybody else is talking about. And that makes a lot of sense when you start thinking about it. Now, that's not a big revelation. Everybody kind of knows that, I guess. I think we just get all caught up in the jargon about radio. There's a radio station that's in your heart and in your mind, that radio station you carry with you everywhere. And that radio station was formed back when you were twelve years old, back when you were really impressed by radio and the magic of it.
R.A.P.: Your title is Creative Services Director "slash" Production Manager, but it sounds like your major contribution is more in the "creative" end of things.
Bob: Creative Services people do a lot more than just dub tapes onto a cart. If that's all you're doing, then you're probably an intern. There's nothing wrong with that, but a real Creative Services person is truly involved in the programming of that radio station, and enlightened managers at the program level know that. I'm fortunate to work with Cary Wolff, who is terrific. I sit down with him and say, "What do you need, when do you need it, how many do you need, and how many updates do you need?" He gives me all the copy points, then I go off and write. And he's a fan. Occasionally there has to be a change on the stuff because of inaccurate information or something but, other than that, it's nice to have somebody who just lets you write and likes the concepts.
R.A.P.: For many people, writing and producing funny commercials is hard to do. You've made a career with comedy. Do you find it easy to write funny spots, or do you have your share of tough challenges in that department?
Bob: I just had that situation handed to me the other day. One of the sales guys came to me and said, "I need your help. I'm going to be talking to a person who likes to sell duck meat." He said, "What can you do with duck meat?" And I said, "Well, what I think of when I think of duck is what everybody else thinks of. You naturally think of Donald Duck and all the other characters, but you also think oily and gamey and everything people don't want to eat anymore." "Well," he said, "they sell duck, and they're trying to get people to replace their chicken and buy duck." I said, "Man, I don't know if it's possible to sell duck with humor. How do you do it when the consumers these days are so concerned about putting bad stuff in their bodies? Why in the world would you want them to eat duck?" So, I said, "Look, what I need before I do anything is copy points. I have to find out what it is that these people are selling. I mean, how do they sell the duck they are selling now, and to whom are they selling it? Get me that information, and we'll see if we can come up with something." Well, he hasn't come back to me yet, but I think that is going to be incredibly difficult to figure out how to sell.
Then a guy came up to me from the Beef Council. Again, you're in that situation -- how are you going to sell beef to people when more and more people are eating less and less beef? What do you do? You can't talk about slaughtering cows, and yet he wants something funny. Then the client said the product was holiday beef roasts. So I started thinking, and I came up with a radio talk show called What's Your Beef. People call in, and you get your copy points out with the person on the phone. The talk show host is an abrasive guy who says, "Hello, what's your beef?" And the person on the other end is the spokesman for the beef. Then I had another idea for doing a beef roast, like a roast on television, and people would stand up and do funny jokes about beef. That's just a concept right now. It's not written out yet, but I got this other one done, and they accepted that for the time being.
Then a couple of days ago I get this salesperson who says she has a group of attorneys, and they want a funny spot. Remember, attorneys deal with the lousiest stuff in the world -- people in serious accidents, malpractice suits. What's funny about this? But, sometimes when you're a hired pen, the client decides what direction he wants to go. If he wants to try something funny, you say, "Alright, I'll give it a whirl." I think you have to approach every job -- and this goes for comedy writing as well -- with just a complete open mind and have no notion as to which direction it's going to go until the copy points start coming at you. And I always go for obvious stuff first because I think that's what the consumer thinks of first. For example, the name of the law firm that I had to do the spec for was Rudolph, Rudolph and Rudolph. So, what do you think of? I think of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer just like everybody would. So we have one spot where Santa Claus is calling and he wants to talk to Donner, Blitzen, whatever -- well, you have to hear it to appreciate it. Then we have another spot where someone calls the firm. It starts with the receptionist saying, "The law firm of Rudolph, Rudolph and Rudolph, may I help you?" And the voice says, "Yes, is Mr. Rudolph there?" "No, he's in court." "Then is Mr. Rudolph there?" "No, he's with a client." "Well, is Mr. Rudolph there?" "Why didn't you say so?" You know, that kind of stuff which is actually like an old joke or something.
R.A.P.: Do you have any special techniques you use when writing?
Bob: It's just stream of consciousness. It used to scare me when I'd sit down with a blank piece of paper. I'd say, "Holy cow, they expect me to come up with something!" It's like that column in Radio And Production, "...And Make It Real Creative!" -- it better be good, and it better be creative! And I've got this rep now who tells clients I'm gonna be creative. That's a lot of pressure, and what I've found is: have no fear. Just open up, take a deep breath, and think about what it is you're trying to accomplish. Then start writing.
Sometimes I literally start writing the first thing that comes to my mind. I just start writing because that is the hardest part, getting started. It's the hardest part because you think it's going to suck, and it just might suck. But that's okay. You're writing now. Sometimes I'll be halfway through a spot and have no idea where I'm going. Then I'll start suddenly seeing a different way. Then I stop and start over. That's just a little trick that works for me. I don't know if it works for anybody else. For me, the way to write is to just sit and write, and that's sometimes the hardest thing to do.
R.A.P.: The majority of the writing you do is for the programming end of the station. That must make it a little easier than writing humorous commercials for a hard to please client.
Bob: Yes. And the stuff isn't fall down, ha ha ha, make you laugh funny. It's more attitude. It's more stream of consciousness. It really is. It's me being a disk jockey. I write a liner like I would do it if I was reading the liner on the air, but I write it for someone else to read. My wife made a funny comment. She said, "It's amazing. It's you talking on the radio, but it's somebody else's voice." I think that's exactly what it is.
R.A.P.: Do you have any boundaries you have to work within when writing for the programming department?
Bob: Well, they have a lot of rules at FM 106. It can't be dirty, but they want it spicy. They want it spicy enough for adults, yet the kids around the breakfast table can listen to it, too. I'm not beneath doing a boob joke or something, but I have to watch myself. I also try to be sensitive politically. But, when Wynona was here, I wanted to do, "She's coming. She's the most exciting superstar in America. She's this, she's that...SHE'S PREGNANT!" I wanted to do that because everybody knows she's pregnant. And when she came out on that stage, she was major pregnant. I think she's carrying a little high. Anyway, I wanted to do that stuff, and when I ran that by Cary, it was like, "No, no, we'd better not do that," which was a shame because we could have got a laugh out of that.
R.A.P.: When you have to write a promo, do you always strive to make it funny or put something in it that's going to bring a smile or a chuckle to someone? Is this something you think about going into the project?
Bob: Yes, I do. I always try to figure out something to do, even if it's just one line. But it's not always easy. There's another rule they have. They want the promos clean, and they want them short. And sometimes they load you down with so many copy points, stuff you have to say. They've got a record company involved. They've got a local promoter involved. They've got FM 106 involved. They've got Dial Soap involved. They've got all these people involved, and all these people have very specific words that have to be in the copy. So what do you do? How are you going to make this funny in thirty seconds? But I try. And sometimes the best place to make it funny, make it interesting or whimsical or whatever, is at the top. You can say something at the top, use some attention-getting sound or words, or maybe just use an attitude thing down at the bottom. But, I always try to stick something in there, even if it's just at the end where the announcer says, "...all a part of the 106 Days of Summer from - sing it with me now...." Then we put the jingle in. It's not making you fall down and roll on the floor laughing, but it's a different way to do it rather than just saying, "...from FM 106." It's just a little off center. It's something that's kind of fun.
R.A.P.: Certainly, the country format lends itself well to this "fun" approach to radio. Do you think other formats can support this approach as well?
Bob: CHR does. Certainly AOR does. You can get away with a lot of stuff on AOR. But then you start thinking about the hot ACs or the straight ACs or the "light" stations. Can you do that at the New Age stations? I don't know. I think you can write clever copy everywhere. But we as an industry are certainly over-consulted. There's so much money on the line, and everybody's covering their butts: If everybody is saying, "The Best Variety of Music," then that's what we're going to say. We're not going to do anything differently than that. And it's working in Hartford, so it's gotta work in East Wherever. Will this fun approach to radio work everywhere? I don't know. Personally, I think it would because I think it would cause a listener to pay attention to the radio again.
R.A.P.: It's back to that basic concept that radio is entertainment.
Bob: You know what radio is in my opinion? It truly is a business, a very, very tough bottom-line business. And God bless radio. It has been around and will continue to be around, even with this information superhighway coming in. There's always going to be a need for radio, I think. And it is constantly changing. That's one of its greatest strengths.
Radio should be an environment. You create an environment in which to sell products. You're trying to make an entire world a little environment, and in there you're going to push cars and what have you. You're trying to deliver audience to make the world go round, to make people walk into a showroom and buy a car. When I started in radio, I thought, "Hey, I got into it because I want to tell jokes, and I want people to love me." Radio has nothing to do with that, actually, but I didn't know that at the time .
R.A.P.: What common mistakes would you say people are making with humor on radio?
Bob: You're really working with fire when you're working with comedy. If you don't know what you're doing, you can really make your client look pretty dumb. A lot of humor is just execution. Sometimes the words on the page aren't very funny at all, but it's how those lines are delivered and in what character voice. I always say, if you don't have a real strong talent who is able to bring off these concepts that you write, then don't use humor. A lot of it is just timing and inflection and phrasing. Sometimes just a funny voice can bring off a funny thing. For example, take that guy on the Budweiser commercial going, "Yes, I am!" That makes everybody fall down laughing. That's a very good concept, and they got the right guy to do it. You have to have the right idea first, obviously, and then know how to bring off that idea, know how to make it jump off the page and come alive. That's the hardest part.
R.A.P.: What do you think about production people as air talent?
Bob: I think a radio station should have nothing but talented production people on the air, people who have creative ideas and also have the skills, the technical knowledge to sit in a production studio and make these ideas come to life.
Now we're creating these duopolies and four-opolies and six-opolies, and we've got all these radio stations, monsters, that eat material daily. They just need to be fed all the time with more creative ideas. And if you have a two-man production team serving four radio stations, you're gonna kill them. That's just not enough people. You just can't hire an announcer with a great voice. If I was running the station, I would hire guys with good voices, but excellent production skills who can do everything. Then you could say, "Okay, you've got this four-hour show, but you also have three or four hours in the production studio, making sure the weekend sweepers and promos sound good."
R.A.P.: What would you say to station programmers and managers to help them get the most out of their creative production people?
Bob: I think you have to have a lot of compassion for your creative people because on one hand you want that left brain, that soft, childlike, fun, bubbly quality where all the really good ideas lie, and yet you have this business grid which is superimposed over the top of them. There's a deadline, and there are copy points, and there are all those things that stop creativity.
Maybe I can answer the question better by asking, "How do you get the best out of me?" You just have to have enough faith in me to give me the pen. Let me do it, and give me the leeway to produce, and don't constantly look over my shoulder. I think that stops creativity, at least it does with me. It's a very subjective thing because some people work really great under pressure. I don't. Some people work better where there's a heavy duty structure. Some people hate any structure, and yet, out of all those little configurations, out comes very good creative stuff.
So, it's an art. There is no right way or wrong way. There are more effective ways and less effective ways, and it's all so subjective. What might be really great for me, what I think is the best work I've done, the client thinks sucks, or it's mediocre at best and it gets on the air and pulls in business. You know what I mean? How do you figure this? I don't know. It's just very strange. It reminds me of an article I read in Radio And Production where the guy talks about something he called the X factor. How come you don't get the job? Maybe it's the X factor. I like that. If you're a religious or spiritual person, you might say you didn't get the job because God didn't want it or because it's not in the plan. Or it could be the X factor that explains why some people don't like spots and others do, or why irritation advertising works sometimes and why sometimes it doesn't. It's very strange.
R.A.P.: A kid in high school or college looks at your resume and says, "Gosh, I would like to have a career as filled with as much success and fun as Bob James." How would you direct them towards that goal?
Bob: I truly believe that all the magic of radio is made in the production room. It's executed in the on-air room, but it's made in the production room. And I think that's where all the great ideas pop up and happen and all the wonderful sounds that you hear are crafted. What you have to do if you're a young person wanting to get involved in broadcasting, especially in the production end, is listen to those promos, spots, and commercials. Hey, get a copy of Radio And Production, and get the tapes that come with RAP. Listen to those tapes and do more than listen to them. Study them. Listen to everything because everything's there for a reason -- well, sometimes it isn't, but most of the things that are on those RAP cassettes exhibit ideas that have been thought out and have come to life. Sometimes they use an EQ. Sometimes they use a sound effect. Sometimes they use a certain read. Why do they do that? And at the end of the thirty or sixty seconds, what do you feel? What do you come away with? All those things you should think about because that's what you are going to do, and that's what you're going to have a chance to do. Basically, I'm saying, emulate the great producers. Listen to the J. R. Nelson tape. He is a great producer. Listen to the Denny Steele stuff. He's a great producer. If you want to be a movie director, study the great movie directors. Take a look at how Spielberg does this or that. Then go in the studio and start playing around. That's how you learn.
What we do is like woodworking, and a really great producer is like a really good cabinetmaker. A great cabinetmaker might run his hand over the top of a finished product and go, "No, it's not right." He knows. He knows just by the feel of it. Whereas everybody else will be standing back saying, "Boy, that's a nice cabinet." The same goes for the producer. You listen to it. You hear it. There's something wrong with the EQ.
And I think the best producers look at the copy and start hearing it in their minds. They can actually hear the finished product before it gets on the tape.