WKRP Turkey Drop had Origin in Twin Falls Idaho?

WKRP in Cincinnati is one of the reasons I’m a broadcaster.  The show was a staple in my house when I was a teenager.  Some years later I was working at my third radio station and my Program Director told me one of his former coworkers was a writer on the show.  It’s why so many of the situations were very realistic from a radio perspective.  One of my coworkers wrote last week about the death of Frank Bonner.  He played salesman Herb Tarlek.

There was an episode where Herb was dressed as the station’s mascot.  A giant carp.  He walks into a bathroom and attempts to crawl under a pay toilet stall.  Flippers flopping on the floor it was one of the longest sustained laughs of my life.  Click here and you’ll see it about 1:50 into the video.

There was a storyline about Johnny Fever getting drunk on-air as a public service against DUI.  A few years before that episode, my former coworker Jack Mindy had done the same.  Mindy’s story is included in a book about radio in the 1970s.

Finally, perhaps the greatest episode is the turkey drop.  I’ve read many people claim to have ties to the origin story, however.  The best claim may come from Twin Falls.

In the mid-70s there was a grocery with a smaller footprint than the current Fred Meyer.  Someone decided to toss turkeys from the roof as a promotion.  This morning I received an email from a member of the audience detailing how quickly it went wrong

They hit people, cars etc. causing a lot of minor damage (broken windshields etc.).  They then ran through the parking lot and got into the back yards of the houses on Grant Ave (where I live now).  It was complete chaos and a real mess!

Now, I would’ve paid to see that.  You can watch the WKRP turkey drop below.