For Your Ears Only (1966)

 

For Your Ears Only

By Biff Bennett

Calgary Herald

May 24, 1966

    You might like to hear the details, although it happened a year ago, of what is generally regarded as the most successful radio April Fool's prank in Canadian radio. It happened on April 1, 1965. It was all the brainchild of Dennis Corrie (the Irish product who handles the 1-4 show each afternoon). So successful was it that the publication Canadian Broadcaster was moved to make special mention.

     To set the stage for the story, Dennis had just arrived here at CKW in Winnipeg, and he arrived with about six hours of tape of interviews with the Beatles that he had collected over the years. In a burst of inspiration (even now he can't recall what prompted it), he decided that the tapes were the basis for an immense practical joke. What he would do was edit the tapes, prepare his own questions which would be geared to the vocal answers of the Beatles, and presto! Announced to the April 1 audience that the Beatles were in Calgary.

     It took two weeks to edit the tapes, splice in the proper questions, dub in background noise, and duplicate them. To show you how meticulous the program was, they recorded music at the McFall Field terminal. Only a few people on the staff were let in on the secret, and to get the radio audience into the proper frame of mind, it was cited to make no advance mention of April Fool's Day. Normally, about that time of year, interesting little bits of April Fool's nonsense make news, but we used none of that, just to keep the listeners off guard.

     It wasn't until 7:25 in the morning of April 1, 1965, that we broke the story. Clarence Mack, then handling the morning show, tossed out the information that it was rumored that the Beatles had made a surprise visit to Calgary. That kicked off a response that even we hadn't anticipated. During the day, we ran six interviews with the Beatles, the same interviews that had been so laboriously put together in our studios weeks before, and they were put together well. You'd have sworn that our men in the street were actually interviewing the Beatles at McCall Field. 

    Mobs of students raced to the airport to see the Beatles, so much so extra police had to be detailed at the airport. They finally had to take the phone off the hook, and our own switchboard here at CFAC almost had a nervous breakdown trying to handle all the calls. We felt we'd really done a realistic job when another radio station in the city (I can't remember the name at the moment) sent one of its cruisers out to the airport to interview the Beatles. I might as well be honest and say that gave us a fair amount of satisfaction.

     Anyway, it was good fun, especially when something like that can be done on a day everyone is prepared for. And we didn't press our luck on April Fool's Day past. We played it straight all the way. The next year, who knows?