SHOCK RADIO : Is It Satire or Just Bad Taste?

When J. C. Corcoran arrived in St. Louis as the new morning deejay on rock station KSHE-FM, management asked him to appear at several fund-raising activities for local charities.

He immediately refused. “I said to them, ‘You guys are missing the point. We have to make people think I’m some kind of wild man, you know, like I’m satanic or something.’

“When I’m off the air, I’m a very straight, boring homebody,” Corcoran explained. “But when I’m on the air, my mission is to be very crazy.”

Just how crazy?

When the 33-year-old deejay first hit the St. Louis airwaves in 1984, he launched an attack on Jack Carney, a veteran deejay at KMOX-FM, a traditional talk-radio station that had long been top-rated.

Corcoran recalled, “I said that old (bleep) is so ancient that he’s gonna die any day now.” Eight days later, Carney suffered a fatal heart attack. “Of course, I felt bad,” Corcoran said, “but the local columnists blamed me, as if I’d had something to do with it. All of a sudden everyone was attacking me, saying, ‘You killed Carney.’ ”

Corcoran was also singled out in a complaint to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee by the Florida Coalition for Clean Cable TV. The citizen pressure group criticized one of the his routines in which the organization charged that he “laughed throughout a recital of 388 pet names women have for the male reproductive organ.”

“Sure, we’re a little dirty sometimes, and silly too,” Corcoran responded. “But if we weren’t consistently funny, it would never work. I’ve been called a scoundrel and a degenerate, but all I’m trying to do is be funny.”

A few years ago, Corcoran might have been run out of town. Instead, he became a major drawing card for album-rock KSHE-FM, which in about a year tripled its ratings.

In radio, ratings attract advertisers and advertisers make stations money. And in dozens of cities across America today, morning radio is riding high on what has been called a “wave of stupidity.” Eager to be taunted and titillated, millions of listeners are tuning in deejays who specialize in stretching the boundaries of bad taste.

Welcome to Shock Radio.

In Tampa, Fla., when convicts are put to death in the state’s electric chair, WRBQ-FM morning men Cleveland Wheeler and Terrence McKeever play the Eddie Grant hit “Electric Avenue.”

In Washington, WWDC-FM deejay Doug (The Greaseman) Tracht, in a widely reported incident, took the air on Martin Luther King’s birthday last year and joked that if killing one black leader was cause for a day off, then killing “four more” would create a holiday “all week long.” (After a large public outcry, including picketing of the station, he publicly apologized several times.)

In San Diego, KSDO-FM deejay Randy Miller responded to news stories about a wave of illegal aliens crossing the border from Mexico by performing a new version of “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” He titled it “The Mexican National Anthem,” including lyrics that focused on various demeaning Latino stereotypes.

In San Antonio, the KISS-FM “Rude Awakening” morning team of John Lyle and Steve Hahn reported a local incident where a family of ranchers were convicted of kidnaping hitchhikers, torturing them with cattle prods and forcing them to manufacture key chains. The deejays proceeded to give away key chains adorned with the slogan, “Rude Awakening Slave Ranch.”

In Providence, R.I., WHJY-FM deejay Carolyn Fox--one of the country’s few women in this sort of work (see article on Page 4)--hosts a dating game feature called “The Fox Hunt,” where she plays match-mate for swinging singles. Recent versions have included a “Gay Fox Hunt,” a “Blonde Nymphet Hunt,” an “Elvis Impersonator Hunt” and a “Menage a Trois Hunt,” where “we tried to put together a married couple with a young guy or girl.”

In New York, WXRK-FM deejay Howard Stern has achieved the status as prime offender of the genre. His gags, jibes and put-downs are so relentlessly offensive and tasteless that Calendar couldn’t find any safe, PG-rated examples to publish for this survey. Trust us.

Fans of these comic wild men (and an even rarer species--the outrageous female deejay) call this graphic humor “inspired satire,” geared toward radio’s most sought-after audience, the big-spending 18- to 34-year-olds who grew up reading the National Lampoon and watching “Saturday Night Live” and “Animal House.”

Their critics dismiss it as filthy and offensive, loaded with racial and sexual innuendo. In fact, the humor is so full of potentially offensive material that Calendar can only print a small percentage of the most widely quoted jokes. However, on the radio, anything goes, whether the laughs come from jokes about sexual misadventures, the Catholic Church, ethnic minorities or mass murder.

As Providence deejay Carolyn Fox likes to tell her listeners: “I have to act like a moron. That’s what I get paid for!”

It’s no wonder that today’s Shock Jocks pull down such big salaries, especially considering the job-security perils of all this on-air mayhem.

“Listen, I’ve been on 10 stations in 11 years, which should give you a pretty good idea of what happens to someone who’s real controversial,” Corcoran cheerily explained last fall. “I’ve only been fired three times out of 10, though there were a couple of other times when it would be hard to say whether they fired me or I quit first.”

You can make that 11 now.

Corcoran was suspended last July after complaining on the air about a malfunctioning phone system. Upset when repairs weren’t made immediately, Corcoran gave out the station owner’s phone number so that listeners could complain directly to the boss.

Corcoran settled his differences with his superiors and returned to the air in October. But last Nov. 25, Corcoran was fired in a contract dispute with the station. It’s a testimony to just how much impact Shock Jocks have in many cities that Corcoran’s firing made front-page news in the local papers.

“I keep getting fired on holidays,” Corcoran explained after his latest axing. “Once on Valentine’s Day, in Chicago, twice on Thanksgiving and once on April Fool’s Day, which I thought was a joke but wasn’t.”

Corcoran said his falling-out with KSHE was over contractual matters, including the station’s right to suspend him and also prevent him from working at another area station. But he acknowledged that at least some of the contract difficulties were prompted by the station’s concern for his on-air behavior.

“One part of the contract, which I refused to agree to sign, said the station could stop paying me if I was convicted of a major felony,” he said. “That’s what happens when you do my kind of show. There are a lot of people in power who can’t distinguish between your show-biz persona and what you’re like as a human being.”

KSHE management disputed Corcoran’s account of his tenure there, insisting that his departure was due to contractual disputes, not problems with his on-air activities.

“To work with someone like J. C., you have to be ready for the experience of a lifetime,” said KSHE General Manager John Beck. “But we were very supportive of him. We believe in radio that’s controversial--that’s what makes it exciting. I can remember an incident where J. C. played around with a news item about a priest who had been charged with molesting young boys, which raised a big ruckus in a town like ours, which has a big Catholic population.

“But I thought his material was hilarious, even if it was tasteless. We got letters from everybody--advertisers, even monsignors--but we stuck with him. We had all sorts of advertisers--a major grocery store chain and a car dealer--pull their ads after his bits. Yet we never reprimanded him, even when our own station owner was upset about certain jokes.”

Beck said that Corcoran was suspended for his on-air remarks about the station’s phone system only after the deejay “repeatedly” refused to discuss the problem with station execs.

However, Corcoran remains bitter about his treatment by station management.

“What really bugs me is that they promote you as a real bad boy and let you become controversial, upset the apple cart, be a little dirty and get those ratings. But as soon as you tick off a major advertiser. . . .”

Corcoran began humming the opening bars to the theme from “Mission: Impossible.”

“It’s just like the opening of that show. You know, ‘By the way, Mr. Corcoran, should you get caught, we’re going to disavow any knowledge of your actions.’ In other words, you’re on your own, pal!”

Actually, there’s nothing particularly new about Shock Radio humor. The gags aren’t much different from the kind of raucous material Robin Williams, Richard Pryor or Howie Mandel have performed in comedy clubs and concert halls throughout the country. But many listener’s aren’t accustomed to hearing these outrageous routines on rock radio, which reaches a large audience of young listeners.

This new X-rated humor has prompted a volley of indignation from angry community leaders, who’ve termed these rock deejays everything from “audio pornographers” to “rabble-rousers without a cause.” The Federal Communications Commission says the number of listener complaints during the last year has “skyrocketed,” putting the figure at “approximately 20,000 complaints.”

Yet the FCC, in keeping with the Reagan Administration’s deregulation philosophy, has kept a low profile in radio obscenity issues. As Chicago deejay Steve Dahl put it: “Who knows what those people do anyway? As far as I can tell, it’s just two guys in a trailer in Washington.”

The FCC’s regulation philosophy, according to Mass Media Bureau Chief Jim McKinney, has been “to respect the freedom of speech as much as possible.” While McKinney said the commission is investigating several stations for obscenity violations, the last FCC indecency action was in 1978, when the commission sent a warning letter to Pacifica Broadcasting station WBAI-FM in New York after it broadcast George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” comedy routine.

Despite the uproar, these morning madmen have created a ratings bonanza--and a healthy boost in revenues--for stations eager to get an edge on the competition.

A ratings boost not only guarantees increased revenues for stations, but it can also translate into big bucks in today’s rock market. Last year alone, 11 different stations have been sold for more than $19 million each.

In 1986, for example, rock station KROQ-FM, was purchased by Infinity Broadcasting for $45 million, while Tampa’s Top 40 outlet, WQYK-FM, was sold to Infinity for $27 million. Last month, Chicago’s WBMX-FM, a highly rated urban contemporary station, was sold to Northlake Communications for $28 million. When Metromedia sold nine stations (and a Texas radio network) to an investor group earlier last year, the price tag was $285 million.

“There’s a saying in radio that goes, ‘You win in the morning, you win all day,’ ” explained Jeff Pollack, a leading radio consultant whose Los Angeles-based firm handles about 60 rock stations around the country. “So you’ve got to have a strong lead-in with your morning jock to get good ratings. And the deejays that seem to do the best are the ones who create a love-hate relationship with their audience.

“The worst thing in the world is for people to say (about a morning deejay) ‘Oh, sure, he’s OK.’ To me, that’s terrible. I think every broadcaster secretly hopes that the same people who are complaining about these jocks--the ones who say, ‘I can’t believe that deejay said that’--are the ones who’ll listen to see what they’ll say tomorrow.”

At Indianapolis’ WFBQ-FM, the morning team--Bob Kevoian and Tom Griswold--known as “The Bob and Tom Show,” are such a hot commodity that the station plays recorded highlights of their show all day long.

“They get extraordinary numbers in the morning, which give us considerable momentum during the rest of the day,” explained Program Director Marty Bender. “They’re very important to the whole station. Younger listeners want to know the latest jokes, and among their peer group, it’s really important to know what Bob and Tom said this morning.”

Despite the nationwide success of Shock Radio, Los Angeles remains one of the few major markets that has remained largely immune to the raucous formula. In the past, L.A. radio has featured outrageous antics by the likes of Jimmy Rabbitt (who was on KROQ-AM in the early-’70s) and Frazer Smith (who was at the height of his popularity with KLOS-FM in the early ‘80s). But today’s local radio scene is relatively tame. The most provocative funny-man on the airwaves is KPWR-FM (Power 106) morning man Jay Thomas, whose show features a wide variety of obnoxious remarks, barbed ethnic humor and frequent double entendres.

Why hasn’t Shock Radio flourished here? “I think because L.A. is such a show business town that people are very jaded about those kind of antics,” said KROQ-FM Program Director Rick Carroll. “Maybe we’re just too mellow. We researched the local market recently when we were thinking of hiring a very wild guy and we didn’t find any strong interest. If you’re going to hire someone abrasive, you need a guarantee that you’re going to attract a huge, enthusiastic audience to offset the people who are offended.”

Pollack acknowledges that the FCC’s low profile in obscenity issues has “definitely been a factor” in the rise of Shock Radio. “I think everyone’s happy that the FCC has pretty much gotten out of the business of regulating radio,” he said. “They appear to believe that it’s not the government’s business to tell you what to say--that this isn’t the Soviet Union. And I think because of that stations are much less afraid of having people petition them or cause a ruckus over what a deejay said that morning.”

Pollack insists that he advises his stations against allowing deejays to make personal attacks on individuals or ethnic groups. But he acknowledges that many of today’s Shock Radio deejays are “pretty much uncontrollable.”

“If you’re dealing with TNT, sometimes it’s going to explode,” he said. “You just have to let these jocks know when they’ve gone over the boundary line. We’ve had several of our deejays make public apologies after making tasteless remarks.

“But anytime I can find a unique new talent, whether he uses blue humor or is just totally wacko, I’m going to suggest our client stations put him on the air. Any program director overseeing the jock is going to have a lot of headaches, but he’s also going to have a shot at some great ratings.”

Sometimes it isn’t the deejays who are in danger of exploding, but the listeners. Earlier this month, for Valentine’s Day, Providence deejay Carolyn Fox hosted a “Stupid Cupid Wedding Contest.” The winner was married on the air by a justice of the peace. Disappointed by the initial entries, Fox asked her fans “to pull out all the stops.”

Listeners wrote in obscene postcards, jammed the phone lines and picketed the station. According to Fox, one couple--eager to win--tried to take her hostage. “They came down to the station--which always worries me--and the guy pulled out a loaded BB gun. When he started waving it around in the air, I just started running. Finally, our secretary rang an alarm and the cops came to take him away. But it was pretty scary.”

Despite these bizarre antics, most Shock Rock deejays’ popularity remains intact. Washington’s Greaseman, who was forced to apologize after making a racist joke about blacks on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, has been named the city’s top deejay in a Washingtonian magazine reader’s poll for four consecutive years.

However, in the year since his infamous remark, the Greaseman’s ratings dipped considerably, though his most recent numbers in the fall Arbitron survey found him rebounding from sixth to third place among morning deejays in the Washington market.

Is the controversial deejay concerned about his ratings fluctuations? Is the station embarrassed by local complaints about the Greaseman? (After his remarks, Angela Owens, editorial director of Washington’s WRC-TV, dubbed him “the insensitive boob of the year.”)

The Greaseman isn’t talking. Neither is WWDC Program Director Dave Brown. When Calendar asked to speak with Brown, his assistant said, “I’m sorry, but he doesn’t talk to the press.”

When we asked to speak with other management officials, Brown’s assistant--who refused to give her name--replied: “No one here talks to the press.” Why not? “We just don’t.” But what if the station blew up or burned down? She laughed. “I’m sorry, we just don’t talk to anyone.”

Radio programmers agree that what passes for humor in one city may be considered offensive in another community. “The controversy level definitely depends on the individual market,” explained Marty Bender, program director at WFBQ-FM, Indianapolis, which broadcasts the “Bob and Tom Show” each morning. “What Howard Stern does in New York is controversial. If he did it here, it would be considered obscene.”

While many of “Bob and Tom’s” gags might seem tame next to Stern’s routines, they still are too graphic to be printed in a daily newspaper. The duo jokes about female body parts and perform an ongoing evangelist parody focusing on “the Rev. Ernest Honestly of the Church of Blissful Sedation--the discount church where you save when you’re saved.”

The team also found humor in the plight of Leon Klinghoffer (the American hostage killed and thrown overboard by the Achille Lauro hijackers), making on-air jokes about the precise circumstances of his death.

Bender acknowledged that he sets “basic programming parameters” for his “Bob and Tom Show.”

“I hold up my hands, about six inches apart, and say, ‘Here are my parameters--do the weather, give a little news and play a record every once in a while.’ Then I hold my hands and extend them about three feet apart and say, ‘These are your parameters--be as funny as hell.’ ”

Asked if there was anything his morning team could say that would cross the boundary of good taste, at least in Indiana, Bender laughed. “I’ll let you know when they say it.”

Even though KSHE general manager John Beck admitted he would “never” hire J. C. Corcoran again, he defended the deejay’s outrageous antics. “J. C. said the same kind of things you’d hear around the dinner table all the time if you had a big family full of crazy relatives. The only difference was that J. C. put them on the air. I had no problem with 99% of the things J. C. said over the air--in fact, I thought they were funny, even if we had to take a lot of heat for it.”

Not every station exec was so understanding. When Corcoran was a deejay at WGRQ-FM in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1983, he infuriated the local Catholic diocese for “telling horror stories” about Catholic school and how “they rip kids ears off when you’re bad.” Corcoran, who said he was raised as a Catholic, noted that several local firms began pulling their ads after complaints from church officials.

“But what really got me into trouble was a bit I did the day (McDonald’s founder) Ray Kroc died, which was a parody of their commercials, with new slogans like ‘You Deserve a Wake Today. . . .’

“The McDonald’s people called my boss, made all sorts of threats and one thing led to another. . . . Finally, I was standing at the urinal and the general manager of the station came up behind me and fired me.”

Brian Krysz, program director at WGRQ when Corcoran was fired, confirmed the deejay’s account: “It would be hard to single out a single event which got J.C. in trouble, but McDonald’s and the Catholic diocese were a big part of it,” Krysz said. “After a while, it became a case of management paranoia--there were probably 50 or 60 things that caused the problem. I think the general manager just finally snapped one day. We got so many phone calls and letters of complaints that I’d come to the station in the morning and the general manager would give me hell and make me scream at J.C.”

Like many rival Shock Jocks, Corcoran insists that good ratings make the best job security. “Your freedom to say what you want usually increases in direct proportion to how good your ratings are,” he explained. “But even when you’ve totally gone nuts at one station, if you’re good, there’s always someone willing to hire you.

“If you tell a program director in another city that you took your last station from a 4.7 rating share to a 14 in a little over a year, they don’t ask about how crazy you are. They say, ‘How much do you want?’ ”

Despite its popularity, Shock Radio has a growing legion of detractors. The Tampa branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has blasted WRBQ’s “Morning Zoo” program as “racist” for airing a regular feature called “Tales of Tanequah,” which chronicles the adventures of a local black woman who speaks in an exaggerated dialect. In Washington, protests by black citizen groups against the Greaseman prompted 12 different firms to withdraw advertising from the station.

The Shock Jock who has earned the most notoriety during the last year is Howard Stern, the top-rated morning man at New York’s WXRK-FM, whose show is also simulcast each morning on Philadelphia’ WYSP-FM.

Stern is currently the subject of an FCC investigation prompted by “numerous” complaints the government agency received claiming that Stern’s morning show contains obscene or indecent material. The FCC “evaluation” of Stern’s program included a 10-page transcript of excerpts from recent Stern routines, which included graphic remarks and jests about such topics as masturbation, various unusual sexual acts, pubic hair, sexual organs and AIDS.

Stern refused to comment on the FCC probe or be interviewed for this article. His agent explained: “He doesn’t want to be lumped in with a lot of other deejays.” However, in a recent morning show, he took note of a controversy involving jokes broadcast on “The Tonight Show,” saying, “Censorship has gone so damn far in this country. Forget about it. Think about how ridiculous that is.”

Mel Karmazin, president of Infinity Broadcasting, the firm that owns both WXRK and WYSP, responded to the FCC investigation by saying: “If the FCC were to define exactly what a broadcaster can or can’t do, we’ll do it. We believe we’re in conformity now. . . . We’re not looking to be difficult.”

Stern’s comedy may be too raunchy for the rest of the country. Last year, he began a weekly program called “The National Howard Stern Show,” which was syndicated by DIR Broadcasting. However, the show (which aired here Saturday from 6 to 10 a.m. on KROQ-FM) was canceled earlier this month, due to what DIR termed “lack of advertiser support.” KROQ Program Director Rick Carroll said the program performed unimpressively, adding “we really didn’t get any strong numbers from the show.”

In Indianapolis, a citizens’ group called Decency in Broadcasting has waged a prolonged battle with WFBQ-FM, whose “Bob and Tom” have astounded many listeners with their outrageous comedy.

Program Director Marty Bender describes the team as “funny, intelligent guys who have received a great deal of attention.”

He added: “They work so well together that they don’t have to be particularly shocking. I haven’t heard anything that’s a problem for kids. The double entendre humor is probably as popular here as the local weather report.”

Critics disagree: “We find them reprehensible,” said John R. Price, 45, an Indianapolis attorney and self-proclaimed “Reagan-nut” who founded the citizens group in 1981.

“The deejays’ humor is full of offensive sexual material which makes constant reference to masturbation, the passage of gas, homosexuality, lesbianism and remarks that focus on the comparative sizes of bodily parts.

“What really bothered us was their show was piped in on many local school buses carrying grade-school kids,” Price explained. “All I’ve got to say is that if I found some guy on the street talking to one of my kids, using the kind of language Bob and Tom use, I’d knock their teeth out.”

When WFBQ execs refused to clean up the act, Decency in Broadcasting launched an economic boycott. The organization, which Price said numbered as many as 1,000 members, sent letters to local and national advertisers, with transcripts of Bob and Tom routines. The letter warned sponsors that if they continued to advertise on the morning show, they would be subject to an economic boycott.

According to Price, “all but one” of 26 local advertisers pulled their spots, as did as eight national sponsors. “We ran the boycott for three solid months and it definitely hurt them,” Price said. “They had to hock spots at a discount and the station’s ratings, especially among its teen audience, dropped as much as 25%.”

Bender disputed this account, saying that the show, as well as the entire station, continued to be the highest-rated rock station in the Indianapolis market, with a overall 13.4 rating in the most recent Arbitron survey. Bender acknowledged that the station is no longer carried on local school buses. But he downplayed the impact on the Decency in Broadcasting’s past boycotts.

“I know we had problems with (Price’s) group in the past, but we haven’t heard from them since I’ve been here,” he said. “And we haven’t had any advertising problems since I’ve been here either.”

Even Price acknowledges that the boycott had mixed results. The station’s owner--Taft Broadcasting--was asked to dump the morning team but refused. “They’re still very offensive,” Price said. “But I think they’ve pulled back some. Instead of being triple-X rated, now they’re just X-rated.”

Deejays have been the focus of controversy for decades. But if anyone deserves credit for pioneering the bawdy, satirical humor popular today, it’s probably Chicago’s Steve Dahl, the Godfather of Shock Radio. At 32, he’s been wreaking havoc on Second City airwaves for nearly a decade--the past eight with sidekick Gary Meier. As early as 1979, he was making headlines with a “Disco Demolition Derby” that he staged during a White Sox double-header. The stunt ended in a riot after rock fans climbed out of the stands and tore up the baseball diamond.

After a tumultuous stint at WLS, Dahl and Meier are now the afternoon team at WLUP-FM (The Loop), a rock station that had hired--and later fired--the team six years before. The duo, who split a reported $750,000 a year, have such clout in Chicago that when they took a vacation recently, The Loop replaced them with such prominent guest-hosts as Cook County Democratic Party Chairman Ed Vrdolyak and movie supercritics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

The team is wildly unpredictable, blasting local politicians, making fun of radio rivals and regaling listeners with the most minute details of their personal lives. Dahl, who has a weight problem, gives his audience regular updates on his latest diets. When his wife gave birth to a child, Dahl taped the event and played it on his show the next day.

It’s hard to do justice to much of Dahl and Meier’s humor, since most of the humor is unsuitable for a family paper. But Dahl’s account of his tumultuous five-year stay at WLS, a rival Chicago station, offers a fascinating glimpse of the constant uproar that punctuates the career of a Shock Radio titan.

“I’d rather be working as a box boy than lift a finger for WLS,” said Dahl, a chubby, animated man whose typical outfit consists of a loud green Hawaiian shirt, beige slacks, powder-blue socks and sneakers. “It was a reign of terror. Here at WLUP, they have the same owner that fired us five years ago, but he’s seen what happened to the station since--they lost loads of money--so I think he now appreciates what we can do for the station. Everything’s worked out great, if you don’t consider the five years we spent in hell at WLS.”

According to Dahl, WLS showed little appreciation for its star duo’s talents. “We tripled the value of that station, from $6 million to more than $20 million. After we left, the ratings went from a 7.8 share to a 3.3,” he boasted.

Much of the team’s popularity derived from the way they aired dirty linen in public. If Dahl had a complaint, he’d blurt it out over the air, a tactic that led station management to suspend the team on several occasions, often taking them off the air in mid-show. When former Program Director Steve Casey wrote the team a blistering memo, complaining about their constant abuse of station personnel, Dahl immediately read it on the show.

“If someone’s hassling us, it’s on our minds, so it’s going to come out on the air,” Dahl said. “They had a receptionist who’d get mad and write notes to our boss ‘cause we’d make fun of her--and her salary--on the air!”

The duo also staged a widely celebrated war of nerves with Larry Lujack, a Chicago radio institution who was WLS’ morning jock during Dahl and Meier’s tenure there. Dahl and Lujack feuded, off--and on--the air, climaxing with a memorable Thanksgiving afternoon broadcast when--as Dahl tells it--Lujack barged into the studio while Meier, Dahl and Dahl’s family were doing a holiday broadcast.

“We got him out of there and I told him--on the air--that if he came back into the studio, I’d break his legs,” Dahl recalled. “So he started doing a lot of fat jokes on his show and singing nursery rhymes like ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Fat Pig.’ One day he came back on our show, took my mike and threatened to bash my head in and break Gary’s leg.”

“Finally, we said we’d had enough and we just walked out,” Dahl said. “Larry didn’t know what to do, so he had to finish our show!”

Not long afterwards, WLS took the pair off the air--permanently. When their contract expired, Dahl and Meier signed with WLUP, where they currently reside. (Calendar made several unsuccessful attempts to contact WLS management.)

“Our audience is between 14 and 40, we know what they like and we give it to them,” said Dahl, who grew up in Los Angeles, where his unlikely hero was Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully. “If someone doesn’t like it, I don’t really care. It’s not like we’re outside on their parents’ lawn with a loudspeaker.”

Dahl’s detractors in Chicago charge that many of his problems stem from being unable to cope with authority.

“I do hate authority, but that’s part of what makes our show work,” he said. “It’s not that we hate the boss more than the guy working at IBM. It’s just that we have a job where we can say it. And I think people get a vicarious thrill from that. That’s what makes radio so magical--we get to live out people’s fantasies.”

If Shock Jocks agree on anything, it’s that on morning radio, ratings are far more important than good taste. “When I first got here, I was under a pretty tight rein,” explained John DeBella, the morning man at Philadelphia’s WMMR-FM. “But after I doubled the station’s ratings, the reins came off. Since then, the ratings have gone up even more and the reins have never been back.”

DeBella insists he doesn’t purposefully try to shock his audience, saying he prefers to “affect people, to generate a response.” However, he admits he’s done sketches that “have gone sour on us.” He’s been criticized for holding mock “dwarf-chucking” contests and airing a parody of the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” titled “Helen Keller.”

DeBella says he doesn’t “purposefully do things” to shock. “If shock happens, it comes naturally,” he explained. “The problem with always trying to shock people is that you end up always having to top yourself every morning. That’s what causes a lot of the stupid stuff. Look at Howard Stern. He’s done well because his audience tunes in to hate him. And people who own radio stations don’t care if you hate the deejay--just that you tune in.”

Not every Shock Jock advocates flinging four-letter words every morning. “The great thing about radio is it’s a theater of the mind,” said Sonny Fox, a 39-year-old top-rated Miami rock deejay. “So I like to let the listeners think I’m being sleazy when I’m really not. I go to the phones a lot and ask callers who their favorite sex object is.

“I had a little 17-year-old girl call up and say her favorite was Sly Stallone. So I asked her, ‘If you had him right next to you right now, what would you say?’ Her answer was: ‘Let’s go to bed.’

“I could have aired that without a problem. But as soon as she said the first word, I hit the beep button and, of course, I’m sure the listeners thought she said, ‘Let’s . . .!’ ”

Fox laughed. “Now, see, I didn’t do anything dirty. I just let my audience use their imagination.”