Tag Archives: Murdock Hunter & Alice

And Here We Are

Think of something you love to do and have done most of your life.

Fishing, knitting, playing tennis, hiking, any of those things. And the next thing you know, in a blip of a lifetime, you’re getting ready to do it for the last time. You know that final time is coming up.

My final radio show is this Friday, on KRKO, “Everett’s Greatest Hits”, my radio home for just about the past five years. And that will be it!

I’m not just saying this to convince myself, because I’m really, really OK with all this. It’s the way I would choose to go out. On a station playing music I actually enjoy and will keep listening to and handing it off to a friend and co-worker that I’ve known for over two decades and that is one great guy.

So many in this sometimes-caustic business don’t get this opportunity.  At KOMO, I was called into the GM’s office after a Friday morning show to learn of one of the worst-kept secrets in the building. At KLSY, we found out that our annual Christmas spectacular at the Village Theater in Issaquah was our last show. Right after our last live break, the general manager came backstage to let us know the show was history, leaving our listeners wondering what the heck happened. I mean, ‘Tis the season!

Being able to bow out at a slow, relaxed summer pace gives me a chance to say goodbye and to hear from listeners, friends and co-workers I’ve gotten to know over the years…plus, have a say in who takes over–it all makes me realize how lucky and blessed I am.

I’ve received some great messages from those special folks over the years after I posted the story on Facebook and I just wanted to share them. (instead of scrapbooking, I’m just sticking ’em up on my blog)

Thanks friends, thanks listeners, thanks everyone. 

If you can tune in this week (maybe you never got around to it–we didn’t make it easy), stream it here, download the KRKO app and stream it on your phone, or if you live in the north end, catch me while you can between 6 and 9am through Friday morning at 1380AM or 95.3FM.

And I might as well share a letter I wrote and shared with KRKO’s sister media company, Everett Post so next week, I’ll start the next phase of my career with one less thing to do.

Hi there,

Almost five years ago, I heard the new music version of KRKO. They called this collection of great songs, “Everett’s Greatest Hits.” And I liked it.

The station had just flipped from an All-Sports format, to playing the music I grew up with or played myself on the radio during the early days of my career. Frankly, of all the stations I’ve worked at, it was as they were playing Tim’s favorites.

I initially contacted the radio station about possibly doing some voice tracks. You know, to get a foot in the door and get back on the radio. Over my career, I enjoyed a fun ride—from the airwaves of Yakima, over to Seattle at KOMO radio and then to KLSY for 19 years. I even did a year of weekends and fill-in at “The Wolf” here in town.

While I felt I had the radio thing down, I decided to focus on expanding my skill set. I went to work for an advertising agency as a writer, which evolved into radio and TV production, directing commercial shoots and developing mad video editing skills.

Then, after ten years of that, I broke away. I launched Tim Hunter Creative Services and went to work for another agency run by a friend, Create Impulse. I developed a hodge-podge collection of all kinds of jobs, such that every day was different. I could wake up and start working on an email blast, then a digital ad, a commercial, write a blog, you name it. My current career salad is made up of a dozen or so various jobs and somehow, it has just all worked.

Five years ago, when I heard KRKO was looking for a morning show, I thought, “What the heck! I’ll throw in my hat.” I had been off the radio for over a dozen years and I was hoping to prove to myself that I could still do a good radio show.

And KRKO let me prove it!

I was pretty much given free rein to do whatever I felt was entertaining, which is any morning show DJ’s dream. I got to interview the likes of Tommy James and Governor Inslee, helped create a mock concert on an April Fool’s Day, as we remembered the great Jetty Island concert—the northwest’s own Woodstock. (Mungo Jerry was the headliner)

I had a lot fun. But all those afore-mentioned jobs I’m juggling have been getting busier and busier as I get older and older. OK, I’m not THAT old, but I’ve just reached a point where 12-hour days and working weekends seems excessive. And so, I’m leaving the radio part of my dream job scenario behind.

Everett, Snohomish County and beyond, you’ve got an amazing resource in your backyard that is a rare breed these days. Passionate local ownership with employees that want to be involved with the community and have fun. And if you listen carefully, you’ll hear it. Actually, it’s pretty obvious.

What’s making it easier for me to give up radio is that I’m handing the morning show off to a long-time buddy, Bryon Mengle. He filled in for me when I took occasional vacations, but we actually go way back: he was our morning show producer during my Murdock, Hunter & Alice Days on KLSY. I was the best man at his wedding 18 years ago. And he is one of the really great, honest, hard-working family guys you will ever meet.

And you’ll get to meet him on the air, Monday, August 7th.

My last day is going to be this Friday morning, August 4th. When 9am rolls around, I’ll be putting that chapter of my life behind me. But taking along with me a ton of great memories.

Go get ‘em, Bryon!

Thank you for being out there for us.

 

Tim Hunter

KRKO

Everett’s Greatest Hits

I’ll continue to this scene of the crime each week with a weekly blog, I’ll continue posting a collection of jokes and funnies on Fridays at wackyweek.com, I’ll continue doing a weekly Ima Norwegian cartoon, and doing all those non-paying-but-so-satisfying things I do, plus all those work things I do to pay the bills.

If you ever want to drop a message, my tim@wackyweek.com address is always going to be good.

So, in reality, I’m not “retiring.” Just giving up one of the things I love, but with so many great memories to look back on.

And here we are.

Thank you.

Tim Hunter

 

 

 

 

Another Batch of Holiday Traditions Conquered

I’m basking in the glow of that period of the holiday season where you start to feel, “You know, this is actually all going to work out!”

Mailing out the last of the Christmas cards on Sunday helped. Got the long-distance packages off in the mail. (had to pay priority mail rates, but I know they’ll make it there in time). 

And the annual Ho Ho Brother project is completely done.

A couple of decades ago, the tech guy at KLSY, Rick Taylor, taught me how to burn my own CD’s. I love learning new technology, and after watching him do it for a couple of years, I started my “Ho Ho Brother” series, in the year 2000. That means that this year’s compilation is my 21st in a long line of holiday collections.

Over the years, I feel I’ve learned the balance of what goes into a good Christmas CD (although, these days, while I burn a few actual CD’s, I’m promoting the streaming link, coming later in this writing.)  My goal is to make the collection a unique Christmas experience. Some old songs, some new songs, a few comedy bits or holiday commercials from long ago–pop it on and the next 70 minutes are fill with a healthy dose of Christmas spirit.

The past 10 years (except for one), I’ve collaborated with a local singer named Alana Baxter and, each year, we’ve created a new Christmas parody song. You’ll find the whole collection here

Among them, you’ll find this year’s timely song, “Christmas Vaccination” (done to the tune of “Christmas Vacation”, my all-time favorite holiday season film). And while the song could have been enough, each year we produce an accompanying video. Here it is:

This is my biggest holiday season challenge each year.  Basically, the steps:

  1. Find a song
  2. Write the lyrics.
  3. Record Alana singing the lyrics.
  4. Find a time in our mutually busy schedules to film the video.
  5. Find time to produce the video.
  6. Try to get all that in between the day after Thanksgiving and a week before Christmas.

And somehow, it happens.

This year, I wanted to tackle the idea of Santa going around and injecting people with the COVID vaccine, whether they want it or not. In my mind, it would be Santa visiting many homes and injecting lots of arms, but the logistics were just too overwhelming. I also wanted to pursue the idea of Santa going out to events to shooting people with the vaccine using a pea-shooter, but I only had time to shoot one scene and I scrapped the idea.

But here’s that deleted scene.

 

Sorry, Pat, for leaving you on the cutting room floor. And while I’m at it, if you’d be willing to be an extra for next year’s video–God knows what it will be–just let me know and I’ll put you on the list.

I had big plans to have a real Santa star in the video. He’s one of the University Village Santa’s and he was willing to do some scenes for me. However, we had scheduled him on the same day Alana & I were going to record the song (gotta do it when you can) and by the time we got there, parked and tried to track him down, we had just missed him. So, that inspired me to dig out the Santa suit that I inherited a couple of years from GSR Rentals in Monroe. Thanks again, guys!

Again, this is entirely a passion project. No budget, no one’s getting rich, my crew is me. It’s short of a miracle that somehow those songs turn out as well as they have. And each is a time capsule of that particular adventure we went through.

Yes, a challenging couple of traditions. But once again, conquered. 2022, I’m ready for the next challenge.

In the meantime, please enjoy this year’s HO HO BROTHER 21!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Tim Hunter

 

You better watch out….

Alex and Me

To begin, I never met Alex Trebek.

Back in my KLSY days, I was lucky enough to head down to the Washington State Convention Center one day and meet up with Vanna White and Pat Sajak, when “Wheel of Fortune” did a stop in Seattle. We did interviews, took photos and both couldn’t have been nicer.

I imagined Alex Trebek to be just like that, and everyone has said nothing but that for the past week since he left us. But I would expect that–he’s Canadian. Some of the absolute most sincerely nice people I have met in my life were Canadian. I don’t know what’s in the water (or the beer) up there, but we should pipe some of it down here.

So I would have to say that one of the regrets I have from my 43 years of being in broadcasting is not having my paths cross the host of “Jeopardy.” However, it’s not like we’re complete strangers.

For the past couple of years, part of my waking up routine is to make the coffee, head downstairs and ask Alexa to play a newscast. Then, the second it’s over, I say those familiar words, “Alexa, let’s play Jeopardy.”

The theme song plays, the announcer says, “Here’s Alex” and Mr. Trebek introduces the game. Alexa asks the questions, but then Alex comes back to say thanks for playing and, “See you tomorrow.”

It’s a great way to get the blood flowing in the brain. While I’m competitive, I’m OK with whatever score I end up with for the day. Sometimes I’m amazed at the answers I come up with. Other times, I realize I probably should have read more than two books in my life. (“My Father’s Dragon” and “The Martian Chronicles.” More if you include Dr. Seuss)

I tend to average 5-6 right out of 12 questions most mornings. I have one perfect game to my credit, but far more where I got 3 or less and Alexa wraps up our session by saying, “Today’s questions must have been hard.”

But it’s all about keeping the mind alert. When I hear the answer I missed, I just press that into my memory bank for the next time. Or, for when I get that call to come to the big leagues.

Yep, tomorrow morning, the alarm will once again go off at 4:45am. I’ll make the coffee, come downstairs and tell Alexa to play KIRO Newsradio, so I can catch the end of “America’s First News” and the CBS Morning Roundup.

Then it’ll be Alex and me getting back together. His answers, my questions. It’s nice to know he’ll still be there.

Tim Hunter

Memories of a Blessed Career

For all the things I’ve been able to do in this lifetime, one of the greatest collections of stories comes from my radio days.

The next time we actually get together, even if it’s socially distant, ask me about some of the classics: “Psycho Listener That Stalked Me”, “Feed the Horse”, “Lonely Military Wife”, and of course, the immortal, “Stop That Song! Now!”

This cartoon reminded me of a running gag that lived in the production room of KLSY.

 

So in the early stretch of my 19 years at Sandusky Broadcasting (the owners of KLSY, KIXI and assorted other radio stations), they had a salesperson named “Doc.” I don’t remember much about him, but this was back in the days when sales people were expected to write their own copy for commercials.

I still remember Production Director (the guy who makes commercials) John Nixon showing me a spot he wrote. I don’t even remember who the commercial was for, but I’d never be able to forget one of the lines–“Man in blue sweater walks by.”  Uh, you know this is for radio? You know, that media without pictures? How does a blue sweater sound?  It’s like a white sweater, but darker?

Seriously, for years, whenever we’d be working on stuff together in the production room, it was not unusual for the “blue sweater” line to come up.

Yeah, for all I do, as I continue to learn and explore new skills, to this day, radio and all those great stories are in my blood. That’s probably why I’ll be hiding out on KRKO, “Everett’s Greatest Hits” for as long as I can wedge it into my routine. You’ll have to give it a listen sometime.

And who knows? Maybe if you listen real carefully, you just might hear a blue sweater pass by.

Tim Hunter

HO HO BROTHER 19–Quid Pro Ho

Well, I did it again. For the 19th consecutive year.

Let’s go back to where it all started, in 1999. I was playing radio as part of the Murdock, Hunter and Alice morning show on 92.5-KLSY in Seattle. Technology was beginning to pick up some serious speed. We had these cellular phone things that allowed you to make phone calls from practically anywhere if you were willing to carry the big battery it came with. It was the beginning of the digital world as we watched records and ‘carts’ replaced with amazingly clear compact discs or ‘CD’s.’

I have had several technology gurus over the years, going back to the early 1980s when I paid $1200 for a computer that ran DOS and had a monochrome monitor.  My neighbor Paul generously helped me learn all about them.

Over time, another neighbor in another neighborhood who worked at Microsoft came to my rescue more than once. Neil was a godsend as I took risks, screwed things up, but thanks to his tutelage, I learned what I did wrong and my computer know-how grew by leaps & bounds.

But it was as the century closed that Rick Taylor, the Sandusky radio chain I.T. guy, handed me a CD of Christmas music he had put together. “You what?  You found songs and then made your own CD? Tell me more.” And he did.

With enough knowledge to be dangerous, I created my first Christmas CD of holiday fun and favorites: HO HO BROTHER 1. It was a mishmash of Christmas songs, sentimental and goofy, while weaving in some of the Christmas bits I had produced over my radio career.  It was well received, and so the following Christmas I did another. And another. And another.

This became one of my Christmas traditions and I challenged myself to find songs you probably had never heard before, or different versions of the old classics, as well as creating original comedy, all blended together in a non-stop 68-minute Christmas-palooza. My self imposed rule was to never use the same version of the same song twice. In time, I even incorporated an original Christmas parody song that I wrote and local singer Alana Baxter recorded. We would even produce a music video to go along with it.

My goal was always to create a holiday experience that you could pop into a CD player and a little over an hour later, find yourself fully immersed in what this time of year was all about.

These days, I’ve got it down to a system. In fact, from the minute I put the finishing touches on the current year’s collection, I start stashing songs for next year’s compilation.

Here’s this year’s lineup:

HO HO BROTHER 2019—Quid Pro Ho

1) Dr. Phil’s Opening Big (Fred Bugg)

2) “Sugar & Booze” Ana Gasteyer

3) “I’ll be home for Christmas” Lea Michele with Jonathon Groff

4) “Christmas Tree” Meg & Dia

5) “Frosty the Snowman” Shannon & Keast

6) “Santa Stole My Lady” Fitz & the Tantrums

7) 1-877 SLAS-4-ELVS (Me)

8) “Christmas Cookies” Oak Ridge Boys

9) “Finally it’s Christmas!”   Hanson

10) “Colgate Tooth Powder Commercial”

11) “That’s What I Want For Christmas”   Shirley Temple

12) “I Love Christmas” Tommy James

14) “Little Drummer Boy”   Pink Martini

15) “A Willie Nice Christmas” Kacey Musgraves with Willie Nelson

16) “Merry Merry Christmas” John Legend

17) “Beer, Joy of Man’s Desiring” Christmas With Beer

18) “Santa Claus is Coming To Town”   Tommy Dorsey & Orchestra, Cliff Weston & Edythe Wright

19) “Christmas Comes But Once A Year”   Joe Bonamassa

20) “Jingle Bells” The Ray Conniff Singers

21) “Some Day At Christmas” Alana Baxter

22) “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas”   Bing Crosby

23) “Mele Kalikimaka”   Chris Isaak

24) “O Come All Ye Faithful”   Susan Boyle with Elvis Presley

25) “I Believe In Father Christmas”   Greg Lake with Ian Anderson

26) “Walken In A Winter Wonderland”   (Scott Burns)

 

I’m really proud of this year’s edition. I stumbled across a Tommy James Christmas song he did that’s a lot of fun that I had never even heard of before.  There’s a Shirley Temple tune that brings back some childhood memories.  There are modern entries, some classics and two of my radio brothers bringing their best for the Dr. Phil open (Fred Bugg) and and Christopher Walken close (Scott Burns).  I am truly blessed.  Yeah, and that’s me not being able to resist doing 1-877-SLAS-4-ELVS.

With all the being said, enjoy this year’s collection right here.  Just click on it to listen, or right click it to save on your computer. Put it on your phone and you have a Christmas party to go!

And now with another shift in the technology, CD’s are going away, but I still make a few for those who still have players. Here’s what this year’s label looks like:

The little girl is from a photo taken in 1950s Seattle, as she gazed at all the dolls in Frederick & Nelson’s window.

I still don’t have a new song written for Alana yet this year, but we’ll pull it off again somehow. It always works out.  Last year, we did the “Someday at Christmas” you find on this year’s HO HO and filmed the video at Bothell’s Country Village, which is no more. It’s where I was a town crier and welcomed Santa most of the last 17 years. It’s amazing how quickly things we do become things we used to do.

That’s why I cherish this time of year and probably go overboard in holiday commitments and activities. But you know, one day, those will be the things I’ll remember that I used to do.

Make it count. Yeah, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet, but it’s going to be a short holiday season, so let’s get this show on the road.

Merry Christmas.

Tim Hunter

PS Oh, and yeah, here’s last year’s Alana Baxter video. Enjoy!

 

Wacky Week Podcast EPISODE #173

 

Some fun moments from the Murdock, Hunter & Alice era of my days at KLSY.  You’ll hear Bill Swartz and Dan Murphy in our Gardening with Frisco feature, an interview with LeAnn Rimes, some Harry Potter madness and the time that Mr. Murdock fell into Tom Cruise.

 

 

Wacky Week Podcast EPISODE #159

Something old and something new. From the KLSY Murdock, Hunter & Alice days, a BATTLE OF THE SEXES featuring a visiting wizard and witch from “The Wizard of Oz” and a chat with Cory Nelson, who is riding his bike from here to the east coast this summer. Seriously. Just because.

 

Wacky Week Podcast EPISODE 151

Welcome to the perfect 25th anniversary.

It was a celebration that was supposed to take place in the future, but I felt the odds were against it. It was the Murdock, Hunter & Alice 25th Anniversary Show!  Here we were, 13 years into this radio experiment, around 18 months away from imploding and going our separate ways. Maybe I sensed something, but I thought it would be funny for us to put on our 25th Anniversary show now, rather than wait. I mean, why take chances.

This week’s Wacky Week Podcast is probably my best and most entertaining one I’ve cranked out yet. Truthfully, I was looking for something easy to keep me on schedule. Earlier this week, my computer blew up. It took precious days–days that I normally would be putting together a podcast–and I’ve spent the last day re-installing all my programs.

I stumbled across this CD and man, this is quintessential Murdock, Hunter & Alice. You’ll hear voices no longer with us like Alice and news guy Jim Kampmann. Paul Tosch and his brief stint with us before heading over to KOMO as their “Eye in the Sky.”  There’s Alice, the beer-drinkin’, chain smoking psychic, Mike Evans, Susan the Astrologer, and my good friend Ken Carson, who was the emcee for the morning.

This is a beefy one, so listen to it as you have time. Great stuff and a wonderful collection of just how much could be had on the radio.

Thanks for listening, then and now.

Tim Hunter