With Mitt Romney now firmly in command of the nomination, do “The Rich Guys”. There are tons of iconic rich guys on TV over the years (Thurston Howell, Mr. Drysdale, Jed Clampett, Bruce Wayne, Montgomery Burns, Gomez Adams, Richie Rich, Mitt Romney!). Have audio of each. Your contestant must guess three of five right to win.
The National Spelling Bee is this week. Get two male listeners on and have a Shoe Spelling Bee. You give them a brand name of shows (designer) and the first guy to correctly spell three brand names wins.
This one is incredibly silly. It’s called “The Name Game”. Get two people on the phone (it works best with a guy and a gal) and only introduce them to the audience as “caller one and caller two”. Going back and forth, each gets five shots at guessing the other’s first name. First to do it wins your jackpot or prize. But if neither do it, the prize goes in the bundle and you come back again the next day at the same time with two fresh people. This will go on forever and you’ll never get a winner and that will be the allure.
Mother’s Day is one week away. An angle that’s never explored is to put together a list of local celebrities (sports, TV, entertainment, politicians) and get their moms on. You might even land that hard-to-get interview with the local celebrity if you do!
With the book “Fifty Shades of Gray” all the rage with women, play “Naughty or Not”. Listeners choose a random page in the book. You then go to that page and if they’ve chosen a page with naughtiness, they win. Find an entertaining person (your chief engineer?) in the building to read the naughty passages, with all the dirty words or phrases substituted for with the name of a vegetable!
With Cinco de Mayo just around the corner (it’s on a Saturday this year), do some Mariachi Wake Up Calls. Find a local mariachi band and solicit (via on-air or social media) for moms who are frustrated that their kids can’t seem to get up on time for school. Show up at a home at 6am (or the time the kid needs to be awake) and wake them with a full mariachi band in their bedroom. This works best when recorded, edited, and presented as live. You can do a few the week of the holiday!
Someone was telling me they watched a guy exit a Starbucks and, before getting in the car, he put his coffee on the roof, got in, forgetting about the coffee, and drove off, with the coffee spilling everywhere. They felt bad they didn’t say anything. The bit is “Does That Make Me a Bad Person?” Listeners call with similar stories and then ask that question, with you validating that it does not!
With “Dancing with the Stars” back on TV and its image that they put the absolute biggest no names on their show as contestants, play “Feet or Fraud”. Offer up the names of people who’ve actually appeared on the show (feet) or ones who didn’t (fraud).
If you were ever in trouble, who would you call? For many, it wouldn’t be their spouse because they’d freak. This new feature is called “Your One Phone Call”. A listener comes on to tell you who they’d call if they were ever in trouble. You then create a scenario, call that friend on the other line, and sit back to see if the listener’s “one phone call” will help bail then out! It’s great conflict around a relationships-based bit. Remember to not air people without their permission!
Diet Coke, chocolate, cursing. These are some of the things people gave up for Lent. Invite people who gave up things to come in and break Lent on its last day on your show. Imagine a Diet Coke lover going forty days without their favorite soda, and then having it for the first time in over one month on your show! Open the can, let the listeners hear the fizz as it pours over the ice cubes, and then your listener takes their first drink of Diet Coke live on the show. You could always do this, too, with people in the building. As long as it’s entertaining, it won’t matter if you use listeners or co-workers. Find others who gave up things like this and have a Break Lent Day on your program.