Fishbowl of the Airwaves : First-name basis: The Santa Clarita Valley, where poor reception stops most radio signals, is entertained mornings by KBET’s Barry and the Beast.

Meet “Barry and the Beast,” radio KBET of Canyon Country’s weekday morning broadcast team and the Santa Clarita Valley’s answer to Mark and Brian of KLOS in Los Angeles.

You give them four hours, five days a week, they’ll give you an early morning mesh of music, news and views, and improvisational comedy while maintaining the small-town, folksy flavor that the tiny 1,000-watt station has strived to project since its inception last June.

Wielding wireless microphones, Barry, 32, and the Beast, 34, often take their show to the streets--which isn’t very far since the duo broadcasts from behind a window just a station break from the curb near Sierra Highway and Soledad Canyon Road.

Unsuspecting pedestrians waiting for a bus often find themselves talking to a community of more than 147,000.

“When we were hired, our program director said, ‘You can do whatever you want. I would just love it if you would play three records an hour,’ ” Barry said. “We play 2 1/2.” They refuse to divulge their real names. “It’s Barry and the Beast,” Barry said. “Take it or leave it.”

Mostly they just play from 6 to 10 a.m. Sometimes silly, sometimes serious, yet always animated, Barry and the Beast take jabs at everything from the White House to the Kremlin, from small-town politics to national sports.

“We inform, we entertain,” said the Beast, a former stand-up comic from New York who assumes various character roles, including Chef Maurice, a French chef who, interestingly, speaks with an Indian accent, and Bernie (33 1/3) Luxemberg,(the team’s agent who garners one-third of their earnings. “The show is a morning magazine geared for a major suburb of Los Angeles that’s growing by leaps and bounds like a fungus on a peach tree--only in a positive way.”

KBET (1220 AM), “The Beat of Santa Clarita,” broadcasting 24 hours a day from a minimart-sized yellow building it shares with Halsey’s Auto Service, seemingly has endeared itself to Santa Clarita Valley residents, longtime sufferers of poor reception from Los Angeles stations because of surrounding mountains. And Barry and the Beast have established their program as a must for many a motorist’s morning commute--and themselves as local celebrities.

Passing motorists sound their horns. Passers-by are welcomed into the station with open arms--and often an open microphone.

“We invite people to come along for a good time,” said Barry, who, along with the Beast, moved to KBET after a 10-month stint at KWNK in Simi Valley. “It gets our audience involved and that’s what it’s all about. We won’t embarrass you. We won’t hurt you.”

Last week, the pair’s program provided the perfect opportunity for an unorthodox Valentine’s Day marriage proposal--from Julie Rouch to Herb Whitfield, both 26-year-old Saugus residents.

“She said, ‘I need some help,’ ” Barry said. “He was kind of meek, I guess.”

Rouch popped the question--smack dab between the morning sports report and the 9 o’clock news--and Whitfield accepted.

In January, Coach Greg Hayes and the Canyon High basketball team dropped by the KBET parking lot to give the DJ duo some on-the-air pointers on shooting the three-point shot.

In December, Valencia residents Andrea Aliano, 11, and Heather Rose, 10, delivered the morning sports report, complete with a comprehensive overview of the confusing NFL playoff picture.

Christmastime guests included Webelos Troop No. 48, which delivered Christmas ornaments made from dried pasta, and “Three 2 One,” a teen-age vocal quartet, who dropped by for some on-the-air caroling.

“It’s the only radio station where you get a hug when you come in,” said quartet member Tracy Boobar, 20, of Canyon Country.

Program Director Mike Levine wouldn’t have it any other way.

“What we’re trying to do is draw the community in,” Levine said. “This is their radio station. They can walk into this building any normal day during the standard business hours.”

If they won’t come to KBET, KBET will come to them. All of the station’s 11 full-time and part-time disc jockeys are regularly featured during live remote broadcasts from locations throughout the community, including shopping centers, store openings, restaurants--even weekly high school sporting events where play is halted (a la NFL telecasts) to accommodate local advertisers.

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In late December, Barry and the Beast hosted the station’s “Good Riddance to the ‘80s” parade, which extended through the KBET parking lot.

In October, listeners tuned in for an “all-out commando raid” in which KBET personalities, attired in combat fatigues and accompanied by studio sound effects of a battlefield, “captured and took hostage” a local billboard advertising rival station KKBT of Hollywood.

“We asked people to come by and give us cans of Spam, pictures of Betty Grable and filter-less cigarettes,” the Beast said.

Amid such tomfoolery lies the perception of a small-time, backwoods radio station with a broadcast signal extending no farther than the parking lot. Not so.

Although KBET’s range barely spills into the northern part of the San Fernando Valley, it conforms to the boundaries of the Santa Clarita Valley and extends as far north as Gorman and the Antelope Valley.

According to station engineer Andrew Castiglione, a 16-year veteran of KNBC television in Burbank, KBET, a tape-less computerized operation, is equipped with the most state-of-the-art technology available.

All music (the format is adult contemporary with Top 40 overtones) is on compact disc and stored in a computer to which disc jockeys have fingertip access. Commercials and news items are recorded digitally and stored on hard discs.

Programming features top-of-the-hour syndicated national newscasts. And, although local news concerning traffic, schools and the City Council is predominant, “we don’t report on whose cat got killed,” News Director Dave Ulmer said.

Still, the small-town image pervades. KBET, in fact, is tucked away in so small a market that radio rating services, such as Arbitron and Birch, do not include the station in rating surveys.

“We’re a community servant,” Levine said. “Putting the announcers in a fishbowl, letting them be visible, letting the community see them as they go by is all a part of that.”

That means personal observations weaved into the morning weather report, if only a “ Brr! it’s cold outside.” Traffic updates often feature analyses of hourly trends, perhaps a “better get a move on this morning.” Or maybe a personal report of a nearby fender-bender.

“We look out the window and describe beautiful sunrises,” Barry said. “When you listen to people doing the weather reports on some music stations, they’re reading from their wire service report that came in 10 hours ago,” Barry said. “I’ve listened to other stations that will say, ‘Sunny today and . . .’ and it stinks outside.”

Such details do not escape Barry and the Beast. But that, they insist, is what separates them from their competition.

“Radio is a medium of the public airwaves,” Barry said. “If you’re not serving the community, you’re not doing your job. Now, we could just shut up and say, ‘This is KBET, here’s Madonna.’ But that’s not why we came into this business.”