Seems like everywhere you go, women are reading “50 Shades of Grey”. What might be funny is to approach anyone you see reading the book in the next couple of weeks and play really dumb by asking them what that book is all about. Pretend like you don’t know. String together the awkward answers women give you to see how they explain it.
No doubt when each member of the morning show leaves the building, you go places to run errands and do other things before heading home. This character building bit is called “Who Went Where”. Read the list of where one person on the show went and listeners must guess who went to all those places the day before.
With Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes now officially divorced (it was the fastest divorce ever), convince a couple to sign their divorce papers on your show live one morning. You might need a judge, and the lawyers and couple will need to come to the station, but it’ll be a big experience listeners might talk about.
With Mitt Romney’s choice for his vice presidential candidate a few weeks away, every member of your team should endure the vetting process to see who’s the “cleanest” to become a veep. Find a lawyer (or ask a local politician to help if you know one) who will probe very deeply into the backgrounds of every cast member of the program. Make sure all of the highly personal questions are asked. In this multi-day narrative for the show, the lawyer comes on the last day and reveals which cast member has the least skeletons in their closet. This is a very pure and highly entertaining character development bit if structured right.
With the Olympics starting this week, come up with silly competitions and pit someone from every department in the building against each other in “The Office Olympics”. There are five departments in your building: sales, management, promotions, engineering, and support. Develop five quirky competitions where one member of each department competes for the gold each day to see which group of people in the building are Olympians!
With the Olympics not too far off, a quick fun bit you can do throughout the games is called “Guess My Nationality”. Listeners call who speak with an accent. Have them read something silly within reach (i.e. the directions on how to use a household cleaner at their home). Each member of the morning show then gets to guess what country they’re from. Remember that somewhere on line are cheesy versions of every national anthem – have them ready to spice the feature up!
It’s hot. No one wants to be at work. The movie “Magic Mike” has male nudity. If you target women, convince your PD to give you $50 (I know, it’s harder that it seems). Open the phones to play off the it’s hot/no one wants to work theme. Get five women to publicly say where they work and that they want to escape for an afternoon. Then, take all five to a matinee of seeing a naked Channing Tatum in an air conditioned theater as a reward.
Dave McKay from the WQYK, Tampa morning show was talking recently about how his mother’s outgoing voicemail message made her sound like she works at a 900-number. He aired it, then added some porn music, which made it even funnier. Go grab some stereotypical porn music from your production library and put it under the outgoing messages of fellow station employees to “sex them up”. Then have listeners give you their cell numbers, call them back to capture their outgoing message, and do the same to them.
One great relatable from everyone’s summer as a kid is camp. Now there are a slew of them, and all different kinds. Ask fellow station employees who have kids going to overnight camp to ask their children call your voicemail each night on their cell phone to list the things they did at camp that day. Edit together the most interesting/fun things as told to you by the cutest sounding kids. Air them in packages through the summer that will make every listener feel like they’re twelve years old again!
How about calling random businesses around the country, introduce yourself to the person answering the phone, and (pretending you are an employee there), quit. See how the person reacts, maybe they will even feign knowing you even though you say you “work in different departments”. Remember to not air anyone without their permission!