When It Comes To Radio Contests, Who Ya Gonna Call? By Tom Danehy I USED TO be what is known in the biz as a "radio contest hog." This is a person who not only knows all the answers to the trivia questions and mystery oldies, but also knows all the stations on the dial, their call letters and phone numbers and even the times that each station runs its contests. Plus, the contest hog has speed redial. I fell into this hog thing by accident. Growing up in L.A. and listening to the Boss Jocks--and doesn't that sound just a little bit stupid 30 years later?!--I knew I had no chance of ever winning a contest. When they said they'd take the ninth caller, eight million people would pick up their phones all at once. Entire phone relay stations would burst into flames. After the first few hundred times of hearing nothing but busy signals while Lori out in Alhambra got the two free passes to Marineland, I realized I'd never win an L.A. radio station contest. So I moved to Douglas, Arizona. Actually, I got a basketball scholarship to go to college there, but it had the great residual effect of vastly increasing my odds of winning on the radio. Of course, in Douglas, the prize was often a free small popcorn at the Alco Theater. But only on Tuesdays. Still, it was winning. There was a guy down there named Ray whose on-air schtick was an impersonation of the Wolfman. Hey, go easy; it was a small town. When I got there in 1974, I had to break it to them gently that The Beatles had broken up. Five years earlier. Ray had an inside deal with the owner of the local Pizza Hut, so he had free pizzas to give away with his trivia questions. Let me just say that the best-tasting pizza in the world is a free pizza. When I came up to Tucson, I won occasionally, but it was no big deal. I was a busy freelance writer then, spending most of my days playing basketball and writing when the spirit and/or the bank moved me. After our daughter Darlene was born and it was decided that I would stay home with her, I went from being a busy freelance writer to a busy sometimes writer who weighed a lot more that he used to. It was around that time that I became a full-fledged radio contest hog. I knew all the stations and all their contests. I never wasted my time with those "ninth caller" things because I knew I'd never win. (Besides, I've been in radio stations before when those things are conducted and...let's just say some deejays have trouble counting to nine.) Also, there's an old saying that it's better to be lucky than good. I've been on the wrong side of that too many times. Once, I won a bunch of prizes and became one of five people eligible for a trip for two to Paris. One guy begged off for undisclosed reasons, and two others weren't home when they called back. That left me and one other person. It's easy to keep me down on the farm, 'cause I still haven't seen Pa-ree. When it came to tough trivia or mystery oldies, I was the king. Radio people hated my guts, almost as much as my wife hated my gut. Which was expanding at the time, thanks in part to that year's supply of Ding Dongs I won for knowing that Mickey Thomas of Starship sang the lead on Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around And Fell In Love." I won lots of great stuff back then. A huge gift certificate to a jewelry store, a microwave oven, lots of free music and food. But I knew I'd gone too far when I had to rent closet space to hold all the Sedgfield jeans I won during the Trivial Pursuit contest at KRQ. As the kids grew, I kinda drifted away from the radio contests. Besides, not many stations do tough trivia any more. They want to spread the wealth, which is fine and fair. Still there are a few contests that I listen to and occasionally win. On Tuesdays, Bobby and Eggs on KMXZ (94.9-FM) have the Impossible Question, stuff like: The average man does this 12 times a day while the woman does it only four. This isn't so much a trivia question as it is a public service which allows perverts out there to vent. The seven-second delay lets the radio guys switch off any caller who breathes heavily before speaking. One of my favorites is still Alan Michael's Mystery Oldie during the lunchtime Cool Cafe spot on KWFM (92.9-FM). Great food prizes. Alan plays like one note of a one-hit wonder from 1967. Most of the times, I don't even have to dial fast. Over on The Hog (104.1-FM), they have the Missing Link, in which three songs are played and the listener has to guess what thing links the songs together. 'Course on Thursdays, it's Three-For Thursday, so that kinda defeats the purpose, but other times, it can be challenging. I'm fairly certain they'd have very tough trivia on KXCI, but I don't want to have to listen to two hours of Armenian Death Chants just to win a cup of falafel. I was in a hardware store the other day and I heard a contest on the cowboy station, KIIM (99.5-FM). They wanted the first caller to tell them a word in the national anthem! The first dude who called in said his name was José and they declared him a winner! (I'm sure this is no reflection on the intelligence of people who listen to country music.) One of my new favorites is the trivia on Hot 98 (98.3-FM). The morning guy asks relatively hard questions, like name two presidents who entered office unmarried, or how did Levis 501 jeans get their name. Plus, they give away cool prizes. I've taken steps to avoid falling into the old trap again. I know I'll never be able to erase my name from the files at the FCC, but I've learned I don't have to win everything. Just my share. And then, only once a month. Per station.

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