With Malice Toward All : Biting Humor of Q106 Duo Gets Mixed Reviews

Channel 8 weatherman Larry Mendte didn’t really mind when the KKLQ (Q106) morning team of Jack Murphy and Terry McKeever called him a geek. At the time, Mendte was the new guy in town looking to make a name for himself, so he played along. Mendte joined in, making fun of McKeever’s rotundity in that night’s weather reports.

The next day, Murphy and McKeever gleefully escalated the attack.

“They did four hours on me,” Mendte said.

Among other things, the duo told listeners Mendte had said the Q106 audience was composed of homosexuals. That irritated Mendte. He says he never made anything close to such a statement.

When Murphy and McKeever started creating stories about his wife, portraying her as a promiscuous mud wrestler, among other things, Mendte asked for a meeting with the pair--not the first angry phone call Murphy and McKeever have received in their two years in San Diego.

The two radio veterans have used biting, sarcastic humor to propel their morning show to the top of the San Diego morning radio heap. Earlier this year, their show--simulcast on Q106 AM (600) and FM (106.5)--hit the No. 1 spot in the overall ratings (listeners 12 and older), for the 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. slot. Although they place third, to KFMB-AM (760) and KGB-FM (101.5), in the 25- to 54-year-old age group that most interests advertisers, Murphy and McKeever’s 12- to 24-year-old audience is almost twice as large as the nearest competitor’s.

Murphy and McKeever will do anything for a laugh, and, clearly, a lot of people often find them hilarious. Sharing roots in the deep South, they’re two good ol’ boys, wise guys with a shared love for Corvettes and making fun of the “dummies in the news.” They once joked that Mayor Maureen O’Connor’s picture would appear on a new can of Campbell’s soup called “Cream of Weasel.” On the day murderer Ted Bundy was set to be executed in the electric chair, they staged a contest to name a hamburger after him.

Television personalities like Mendte, the subject of Murphy and McKeever’s “Dump the Geek” promotion, are favorite targets. The duo was the talk of the town last summer when it spent several shows discussing a rumored romance between KGTV-TV (Channel 10) anchors Michael Tuck and Kimberly Hunt, asking viewers to call in if they had seen the two together (many did call), and giving away T-shirts inscribed “I Haven’t Slept With Michael Tuck.”

Irreverent, Establishment-baiting, McKeever calls the show the “morning Saturday Night Live.” The subject of many a Murphy on-air joke about doughnut consumption, McKeever is a big man. Although he jokingly insists he’s 28 years old, he looks to be in his 40s. Sarcastic, with a one-liner for every occasion, McKeever is the spark plug, the joker always willing to pull a phone prank or play a quick game of “Spin the Ayatollah.”

Trim, tanned, athletic-looking Murphy, 31, a native of Atlanta, came to Q106 two years ago from New York. He’s the dry counterpoint to McKeever, more than willing to say if a routine is stupid.

While McKeever lays back stirring the soup, Murphy runs the engineering board, punching in the sound effects and recorded bits that keep the show on a roll.

But sometimes, not everyone laughs.

A Murphy and McKeever prank of a few months ago still has several members of the radio community fuming, hurling charges at the pair, ranging from blatant disregard of laws to basic unfairness.

Posing as Q106 Program Director Garry Wall, McKeever returned a call from longtime KSDO-AM (1130) Operations Manager Jack Merker and taped the conversation without telling Merker. Later, he played it over the air. Before airing the tape, McKeever said of Merker, “Chuck (a Q106 producer) said he’s a little swishy.”

Shortly after the incident, Merker inexplicably left the station and has not returned.

“I think what (Murphy and McKeever) did was really unprofessional and there is no room for it in radio,” KSDO General Manager Mike Shields said at the time.

Murphy and McKeever later apologized to Merker on the air.

“I think their intention was just to have fun,” Wall said. “I don’t think they ever intended to be malicious or unkind.”

On June 21, former KSDO account executive Deborah Weiss filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against Q106 and Murphy and McKeever over an incident of a few months earlier. Murphy and McKeever, the suit alleges, told listeners that Weiss, working for rival KSDO, had called the Q106 audience “trash” and gave them the KSDO phone number, urging listeners to call her. According to the suit, Weiss “received numerous vulgar and threatening phone calls, including threats against her life.”

“I’m a great believer in free speech, but not to the harm and detriment of others,” said Byron Cornelius, Weiss’ attorney.

Mendte’s wife wanted to sue Murphy and McKeever, too. Murphy and McKeever misinterpreted his visit as a peace gesture, Mendte says, offering to continue the feud to their mutual benefit, with scripted phone calls and publicity photos for use by Mendte supplied by Q106.

“One guy was going to like me and the other was going to hate me,” Mendte said. “Terry (McKeever) said to me, ‘What are you going to do for us? I said: ‘Sue you, I hope. I’m here to tell you to stop talking about my wife.’ ”

Reluctant to challenge anyone’s right of free speech, Mendte opted not to file a suit. He also stopped talking about Murphy and McKeever on the air.

“When they take it into the gutter I don’t want to follow,” Mendte said.

McKeever recalls the exchange with Mendte much differently.

“He came in begging us to lay off,” McKeever said. “I stayed in the meeting for maybe a minute and a half and then got up and walked out. I didn’t have time to talk to to the guy.”

They didn’t want to talk about the Weiss suit or, citing the potential for litigation, the Merker incident.

McKeever said that in Tampa, Fla., where he last worked, “a lawsuit was filed every other week and dropped every week.”

He helped pioneer the “zoo” radio concept at Q105 in Tampa, the zany way to wake up in the morning--a free-for-all style featuring sound effects, voices, skits and disc jockeys playing a variety of roles.

Edens Broadcasting, owner of the Tampa station, purchased Q106 AM and FM in December, 1986. Program Director Wall had worked with McKeever at a station in Memphis, Tenn., and he knew Murphy by reputation.

“I knew they’d be a perfect pair,” Wall said.

In March, 1987, when Q106 and Murphy and McKeever debuted, the station was ranked 19th in the market with a dismal 1.8 rating among listeners 12 and older. A year later, the station had jumped to an 8.8 rating, tops in San Diego.

Wall credits the overall station effort for the ratings jump, but he said Murphy and McKeever are “the lead-off hitters and we expect them to get on base.”

Murphy and McKeever’s climb to the top of the competitive San Diego morning radio market took longer than Q106’s rise, but it was not for lack of publicity. Just a few weeks after they arrived, they were in their first fracas, with the owner of a chain of pet stores. Murphy and McKeever told listeners that a representative of the pet store had said Q106 listeners “couldn’t afford pets,” prompting an angry letter from the store’s attorney.

They soon displayed a willingness to do just about anything for publicity, especially if it involved a charity. For Valentine’s Day this year, both were completely dipped in chocolate for a charity event. People paid to throw sprinkles on them. For another charity, McKeever participated in a belly flop diving contest.

On the air, their only goal is “do anything but be inane and juvenile,” McKeever said.

“We do a little bit of everything for everybody,” he said. “There’s no hokeyness. We don’t use big words; we keep it basic. Whether you’re 9 or 90, we want you to understand what we’re saying.”

Most of the humor is topical, based on current events. A recent “punch” sheet, the list of topics and notes for that day’s show, included newspaper clips and reminders about contests and skits, such as a running gag about a mythical camp for boys run by Steve Garvey, “Camp I-Wanna-Nookie.”

Garvey--technically a competitor now as host of a morning show for XTRA-AM (690)--is a frequent target (after his paternity problems became public knowledge, the station gave away T-shirts that read, “I Got to First Base With Steve Garvey”), as is O’Connor.

“Some people you have to train,” McKeever said. “Remember the experiment when they ring a bell for the dog (to make him salivate)? We try to ring some bells. (O’Connor spokesman) Paul Downey is a good case. He hates us, as indeed he should.”

Downey regularly contacts the station to complain about items he says are false or misleading, such as the time Murphy and McKeever told listeners O’Connor would be giving out free food to the homeless, or when they said O’Connor would be burning an American flag as part of the Soviet Arts Festival. In both cases, Downey said, the mayor’s office received numerous phone calls.

“They can say whatever they want,” Downey said. “But I’m not going to stand for them disrupting this office.”

The Federal Communications Commission has received two complaints about Murphy and McKeever in the last two years, not an exorbitant number according to an FCC spokesman. The most recent complaint, still pending, was a letter from an individual upset about “indecent” words used during a program. The other was about Murphy and McKeever’s graphic description of an automobile accident.

“Anybody out there who thinks that (sending letters to the FCC) does any good is up for the part of Joker in ‘Batman,’ ” McKeever snapped.

Wall says he often discusses the appropriateness of segments with Murphy and McKeever, particularly the “blue” humor he disapproves of, but prefers to give them freedom.

“I’m not trying to control them,” he said. He only wants them to be entertaining, “to please listeners and keep them happy.”

“I never know what they’re going to do,” Wall said. “I’m usually as up on things as listeners.”

Response within the local radio industry to Murphy and McKeever’s style is mixed, at best.

“It’s at a point where they’re not poking at people as good fun; it’s personal,” KYXY-FM (96.5) General Manager Jim Price said. Their attitude is “ ‘We destroy you to get one more notch up the ladder,’ ” he said.

“Sometimes they go too far,” KIFM (98.1) General Manager Bruce Walton said. “But given choice between good radio that pushes the limits and bad radio, I’d pick the good radio. Murphy and McKeever is good radio that pushes the limits.”

Their reputation, though, sometimes hurts their ability to work in the community. Recently, Q106 wanted to put together a calendar featuring photos of local television personalities as a fund-raiser for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. But Channel 8 News Director Jim Holtzman refused to cooperate.

“We as a station, and me personally, support all worthwhile charities, but I didn’t want our news department linked with a Q106 promotion,” Holtzman said.

In response, Murphy and McKeever lambasted Holtzman on the air for not supporting the charity.

“It’s a soap opera every day,” Wall said. “I don’t know what is going to happen next. It’s a continuing saga.”