KROQ PLAYS WEDDING MARCH

It was not quite as outrageous as Tiny Tim marrying Miss Vicki before a huge national audience on “The Tonight Show” in 1969, but with KROQ-FM’s (106.7) “Love Line” hosts Jim (The Poor Man) Trenton and Scott Mason calling the ceremonial play-by-play live on the radio, it was certainly no ordinary wedding.

Before an in-studio crowd of 60 family members and KROQ groupies and with about 150,000 of their closest personal friends listening in on the radio, Denise Quon and Charles Ducat promised to “love, honor and respect each other in sickness and in health ‘till death do them part” in a surprisingly traditional, but predictably nutty ceremony Sunday night at the KROQ studios in Burbank.

The bride wore white, the groom wore a tux and The Poor Man wore psychedelic surfer pants as a Municipal Court judge pronounced the ecstatic couple husband and wife.

For a few moments, anyone unwittingly tuning in for the program’s usual flurry of mostly humorous but sometimes all-too-serious advice on love, sex and relationships, probably would have thought that some overly serene evangelist had usurped the KROQ air waves to expound on the nature of love and the sanctity of the marriage vows.

But then firecrackers exploded from one corner of the room, rock music blared from the speakers and Trenton wondered aloud whether the newlyweds had practiced “safe sex” during their three-year relationship before getting married.

“ ‘Love Line’ started out four years ago as just a couple of deejays giving out love advice on the radio. It’s supposed to be fun,” Trenton said. In recent months, however--much to Trenton’s dismay--the young dating public’s rampant and deadly serious concern about AIDS has transformed the show from a flip and often silly teen-age clinic on “how to cheat on your lover without feeling guilty, or how to tell your boyfriend you’re not ready to go all the way without losing him,” to a serious, clinical discussion of how AIDS is spread, who is at risk and how one can remain sexually active without contracting the disease.

“We have gotten away from the overall theme of the show, which was simply affairs of the heart,” Trenton said. “The show has become so dark and heavy. People want to be in love. I thought having a couple get married would bring us back to that. That’s what this is all supposed to be about.”

When, with the help of Bridal Expo, a “Love Line” sponsor that organized and paid for the entire affair, Trenton and company announced their plans to conduct a wedding live on the air, more than 50 couples sent in letters pleading their dire love for each other and their dire financial straits that prohibited them from actually tying the knot on their own.

Early last month, Ducat, 36, and Quon, 27, who said they have always had their clock-radio alarm tuned to KROQ, woke up each day listening to announcements about the on-air wedding. They kidded one another that they would probably be chosen because they originally had met at a KROQ-sponsored Duran Duran video night 3 1/2 years ago at the Hollywood Palladium.

“It was your typical guy-hits-on-girl kind of thing,” Quon said. “It definitely was not love at first sight.”

But eventually the couple fell in love, “found they squeezed the toothpaste from the same end” and moved in together. They had tentatively planned on eloping somewhere in Europe before the end of the year. At the last minute, however, they sent in a letter to “Love Line.” Their only fear was that Ducat, who, at 36, is probably twice the age of the typical “Love Line” listener, would be too old.

As it turned out, he was perfect. “I think most weddings are boring,” said Ducat, who substituted a confident and rowdy “you bet” for the traditional “I do” during the ceremony. “I always wanted to do something different with fireworks or fancy pyrotechnics. Something like a Queen or Pink Floyd concert. Something to give the family a show.”

Both the bride and groom’s families, formally attired, attended the circus-like ceremony and reception, and they and the KROQ listening audience were treated to “a show.”

Trenton and Mason, who both claimed that the live wedding broadcast was a radio first, interviewed nearly everyone at the wedding--including Mom, Dad, Bride, Groom, Best Man and members of the press. They broadcast stellar play-by-play, a la Al Michaels and Howard Cosell, of the march down the aisle, the first kiss, the bouquet toss, the garter toss (which was caught by a KROQ worker wearing short pants) and the cutting of the cake.

Then the bride and groom, headphones plastered on their wedding-perfect hairdos, were whisked into the studio to accept congratulations from “Love Line” listeners and to dispense a little advice to the show’s many love-sick callers.

Ducat offered up a quick lecture on the virtue of honesty in relationships, someone said that The Poor Man’s champagne-flushed face was as red as the jalapeno pepper, and the bride mentioned that she was as “hot” as the jalapeno. But when the next caller turned the fun and games into yet another heavy discourse on AIDS hysteria by “Love Line’s” medical adviser, the newlyweds dashed out of the studio and back into the party.

“With all these diseases out there, the trend now is back to marriage,” Quon said.

“Monogamy,” Ducat agreed. “Find someone you love and stay that way. It’s worked for us for 3 1/2 years.”

And hopefully many more, Trenton and his friends cheered. A self-described “single, hopeless romantic but very wild guy,” Trenton said that the on-air wedding was better than he had ever dreamed. Not only did it put some fun back into his late-night program, but it exemplified at least one positive, if not always possible, alternative to floundering in today’s AIDS-infested sexual swamp.

Trenton’s only worry was whether they’d be able to do it all again next year. His radio cohorts insisted that, if they do, he ought to be the guy standing under the wedding arch. With his current girlfriend of three months smiling beside him, Trenton responded by deftly telling his “Live Line” audience that Charles and Denise would be spending their honeymoon, all expenses paid, in Hawaii.