Hey Kids, You’re On Your Own

With Mother’s Day Sunday, tap into the vein of kids and moms by calling the kids of cast members to tell them they’re on their own buying a gift this year.  Moms usually get the standard fare:  flowers, dinners, jewelry, cards.  Tell the kids they must come up with a novel gift suggestion each day until Sunday.  Call them back every day this week to see what creative things they’ve come up with.  You might have to coach the kids off-line, but it’ll make for fun, very relatable breaks, especially if you target women.

Kentucky Derby or Prescription Drug

The Kentucky Derby is this Saturday.  A fun game to play if you have something to give out is “Kentucky Derby or Prescription Drug”.  Gather the names of the horses in the race and some official names of prescription drugs advertised on TV.  The listener must guess which is which to win.

Mother’s Day – Just Leave Me Alone

What do most mothers get on Mother’s Day?  A card, flowers, breakfast put together by the kids, jewelry.  Blah, blah blah.  What do most mother want on Mother’s Day?  To have the day all to themselves, a nice quiet house with no screaming people, blaring TVs, and arguments.  Find moms who want exactly that and conference call their husbands/families in on the show so she can publicly tell them to not spend a dime, but to vacate the premises so she can have a Mother’s Day without all the activity.

The Perfect Prom

If you live in a market with a sports team, see if one of the cheerleaders will help with a prom promotion.  No doubt there’s a guy who can’t find a date for his prom.  Guys put their bid in for The Perfect Prom, which is a date with one of the cheerleaders.  Narrow the list down to three guys who each vie for the G-rated company of a cheerleader from the team.

Backwards Then Forwards

There are two options if you have something to give out.  Take caller ten (boring) or play a game listeners in their cars can play along with (fun).  Always choose option number two.  Here’s a new one:  Backwards Then Forwards.  Play the hook of a song in your format backwards.  The first listener to identify the artist and song title wins.  Then play the song forwards.

Easter Tongue Twisters by Kids

Easter is Sunday, April 20 this year.  A fun thing to do is grab some Easter-related tongue twisters and challenge kids to do them (one site to find them is here).  You’ll want visit a school or get kids you know in the neighborhood to do these so you have the audio all that week (instead of doing this over the phone where you don’t know what you’ll get).

Spring Break Ideas

With spring break here for most college students, here are a couple ideas that might work for you:  conference call parents in with their college kid so they can tell them they’re also going on spring break at the same time and staying at the same hotel.  See how they react! Also, ask students heading out on spring break to leave you a voicemail each night detailing everything they did that day while out having fun.  Play the best parts of the emails you get to the audience on that day’s show.

Tweet to Eat

If you want to bolster your Twitter followers, encourage listeners to follow you, then tell them that at 11:30 that morning, you’ll Tweet a restaurant location where you will be noon.  First twenty (or however many people you can accommodate) listeners to show up get a free lunch with you guys.  They can only get the location if they’re following you on Twitter!

Breaking Lent

With Lent being last week, round up a few people observing it, finding listeners who gave up things like coffee, Diet Coke, cursing, McDonalds, and cigarettes (and the like).  Check on them throughout Lent to see how they’re doing.  Then, the day Lent ends, bring them in for their first imbibing with the item they gave up to get their reaction live on the show.

Did You Press Charges

A fun, new story-based and vicarious feature for the show is called “Did You Press Charges?”  Listeners call with something that once happened to them.  They tell you the story, then as a team, you try to guess if the listener pressed charges.  If the show gets it wrong, the listener wins a prize.  Thanks to The Pablo Show, WPGC, Washington, DC for this idea.