RADIO : Is It Real, or Is It Radio? : It takes a lot of parodies, sketches and jokes to fuel one morning’s drive-time, and many stations hire specialists for the job

It’s a typical weekday morning and you’re driving to work, distractedly switching from one radio station to the next.

First stop: KQLZ-FM, hard-driving “Pirate Radio” (100.3). A commercial seems to be playing. You’re about to turn to another station but something sounds a bit strange. . . .

A man with an ordinary voice is saying: “So, it’s 3 in the morning, the phone rings. It’s some guy from MCI tellin’ me how AT&T; charges too much for long-distance, and how he can save me all kinds of money. So I tell him put it in writing. Silence. I go back to bed and then the phone rings again! Hello. This time it’s a guy from AT&T.; He says that when an MCI operator is talkin’ to me real friendly and all, she’s flippin’ me the bird at the same time! She is? So by now it’s 3:30, and just as I’m dozing off, the phone rings. Now I’m getting steamed. What! It’s the guy from MCI again. He says, ‘Sure AT&T; gives instant credit, but they’re getting the money from widows and orphans!’ They are? So just as I’m about to slam the phone down on him, somebody knocks on my door. It’s a guy from Sprint! He says AT&T; is secretly shipping A-bombs to Iraq, MCI is burning down rain forests when they’re not too busy killing dolphins . . . and that all the Sprint operators work in the nude. Why can’t they leave me alone? “

Then a real commercial comes on and you move on.

Next stop: KPWR-FM (“Power 106”). The dance-music station also seems to be running a commercial. But upon closer inspection. . . .

“Pillsbury--for years a trusted name in baked goods,” intones a soothing female voice. “Now Pillsbury is your trusted name in home health care. Introducing the Pillsbury Pop ‘N’ Fresh Pregnancy Test. The fastest pregnancy test available. If the dough rises, so will you. . . . Because nothin’ tests lovin’ like a bun in the oven.”

You tune in KIIS-FM (102.7) and recognize the rapping riffs of Vanilla Ice’s hit tune “Ice Ice Baby.” But the song turns out to be “Rice Rice Baby,” chronicling one man’s comical adventures in Chinese dining.

Many listeners no doubt assume that morning radio personalities--who are commonly paid seven-figure salaries for their on-air charm and comedic abilities--produced these parodies themselves. But, like Johnny Carson or David Letterman, who have a host of writers preparing their monologues, high-profile disc jockeys also have a stable of writers and producers behind the scenes turning out funny material.

And while some of them are on the station’s staff, others are working thousands of miles away and not only don’t know the deejays, they may not even know the deejay’s name. They are part of a little-known cottage industry of about 20 syndicated comedy services that each week churn out several dozen slickly produced sketches and song parodies for hundreds of subscribing radio stations across the country.

“We’re a best-kept secret,” said Andy Goodman, president of American Comedy Network, based in Bridgeport, Conn. “In the radio business we’re pretty well-known. But if you go outside the radio business, no, people haven’t heard of us.”

Many of the parodies heard on such contemporary hit stations as KIIS, KPWR and KQLZ, as well as on oldies station KRTH-FM (101.1), urban station KKBT-FM (92.3), classic rock station KLSX-FM (97.1) and country station KZLA-FM (93.9), are created by the top services: American Comedy Network, Premiere Radio Networks and Olympia Comedy Network.

The reason is simple: The morning deejay has got to fill three or four hours every day with new material.

“Unlike a stand-up comedian, who can do the same thing each time he’s on stage, (a radio deejay) has to be fresh and incorporate current events,” said Tim Kelly, president and co-founder of the Hollywood-based Premiere Radio Networks. “He’s got to make it funny, got to make it current, got to make it move.”

“You’re talking about basically 20 bits a morning in a personality-driven show like (morning jock) Jay Thomas’ that we may have to generate,” explained Jeff Wyatt, program director at KPWR.

“That’s a heck of a lot more than Johnny Carson has to generate on TV. . . . The services help to fill in some of those gaps. . . . If we had to rely on our own staff, I think we’d risk either missing some opportunities or having a totally burned-out morning staff, or we’d be putting out some pretty mediocre stuff.”

In big cities like Los Angeles, where radio is a multimillion-dollar business and competition for listeners among 80 outlets can get ugly, stations must find creative ways to distinguish themselves.

“The reason they come to us is because it’s a desperate battle,” said Kelly, a former KIIS deejay. “Morning shows need to be funny and it’s tough coming up with comedy day-in and day-out starting at 6 in the morning.”

Well-produced parodies are a common staple on “Pirate Radio” (KQLZ), which competes with the better-established KIIS and KPWR for youthful listeners. While KIIS and KPWR have consistently ranked in the top 5 of Los Angeles-area stations over the past 5 years, according to Arbitron ratings surveys, KQLZ runs about seventh.

On a recent week, KQLZ listeners were treated to a rap version of Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham,” a movie promo for “Iraqi Five” (a spoof of “Rocky V”), a rendition of “Hillbilly Vanilli” (sung to the tune of the “Beverly Hillbillies” theme song), and a takeoff of the old “Andy Griffith Show” in which cast members’ voices were impersonated to tell the story of Aunt Bea becoming “Killer Bea.”

“I try to maximize every entertainment element available--as long as it’s funny,” said Scott Shannon, KQLZ program director and morning show deejay. He employs six writers and producers--Russell Elliot, Mark Shipper, John Mamoser, Katie Manor, Todd Kelli and “Gnarly Charlie”--and subscribes to three comedy services.

Comedy services arose over the past decade with the growing popularity of the “morning zoo” format. Shannon was one of the pioneers of the fast-paced style, in which humorous bits are interspersed with music, news and chatter.

“I had this concept in my head and it was a combination of the ‘Tonight Show,’ ‘Saturday Night Live’ and a talk-radio show mixed in with music,” Shannon said. “Radio had gotten too serious at about this time. Contemporary radio was pretty much devoid of personality. They’d also banished from the radio novelty songs and parodies, and I’ve always collected those, along with a collection of comedy routines.”

Shannon started playing his comedy albums on the Tampa, Fla., station on which he was morning deejay. “I noticed some of the songs caught on with the younger listeners,” he said. “I found I’d hit a nerve.”

Soon he and his “morning zoo” format were off to New York. Just as soon, he said, “the zoo concept just got lifted around the country.”

Suddenly he was receiving tapes from wanna-be comedians. One of them was from David Kolin, a dental student whom Shannon describes as “one of the first to service this exploding industry of comedy radio shows.”

Said Kolin: “Where my business came about was that morning shows out there require a huge support staff to be really cutting edge. I was able to build a studio that’s sophisticated enough to do anything, which I think is beyond the capabilities of a typical station house.”

Today, as president of DB Communications in New York, Kolin enjoys a reputation for turning out some of the most slickly produced commercial and song parodies. A favorite subject is takeoffs on “The Andy Griffith Show,” such as a recent one promoting “Rocky Fife,” with a Don Knotts sound-alike doing Sylvester Stallone. He spoofed the Milli Vanilli tune “Blame It on the Rain” as “Blame It on Hussein” and produced a phony ad for the Elvis Talking Pillow: “Ladies, are you lonesome tonight? Tired of sleeping alone? Now you can sleep with the King. Hear him whisper romantic things like (in Elvis’ deep tones), ‘Do you think Dominos will deliver this late?’ and ‘Do you like your eggs regular or extra crispy?’ ”

Yet for all their production skills, radio comedy writers and performers go largely uncredited.

“Listeners really think that these people are there in the stations,” Kelly said. “It’s theater of the mind. That’s what it’s all about. The idea is to make the (the disc jockeys) stars in their own environment. That’s what we’re in business for.”

But a little recognition wouldn’t hurt, others say.

“It can be frustrating, because you feel like you’re operating at a very high level but nobody knows you,” said American Comedy Network’s Goodman. “It’s frustrating when you see a skit on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and everyone’s talking about it and it is pretty similar to what you do.”

In much the same way that “Saturday Night Live” functions, the bigger services employ a staff of writers and producers who meet regularly to develop ideas for sketches, then write and perform them.

Premiere staffers get together every couple of weeks over lunch at a neighborhood pizza parlor and toss around ideas for parodies, Kelly said. A core group of about eight people quickly write the material and put it together in the company’s production studios. The comedy sketches are then “auditioned” for Kelly and creative vice president Louise Palanker, who decide what will go out to subscribers.

At one such meeting held shortly before Christmas, Kelly balked at a spoof that featured Vice President Dan Quayle giving a cozy talk on the origins of holiday traditions. The idea was to hear a Quayle impersonator explaining that the practice of hanging ornaments on a Christmas tree harkens back to a time when dogs were hung on a tree and kittens were roasted, instead of chestnuts.

“What about the issue of animal cruelty?” Kelly asked those gathered for the meeting.

Responded writer Mark Davis (who created the “Rice Rice Baby” parody): “It’s showing animal cruelty is stupid--not unlike the vice president.”

Kelly was not convinced. He later decided against it. “To me it wasn’t that funny,” he explained.

“If there’s something we think is right on the edge and it’s real funny, we’ll flag it (for subscribers) and say, ‘We wouldn’t play this and we’re in Los Angeles, but use your own discretion,’ ” Kelly said.

Taboo subjects for Premiere writers, Kelly said, are death, child abuse, religion and drug-oriented humor.

A bit that elicited some negative feedback from listeners recently was a parody of New Kids on the Block called “New Yids on the Block.”

“Three of our writers are Jewish and they thought it was hysterical,” Kelly said. “It’s really a fine line, because humor is invariably at the expense of someone.”

Some ditties that met with everyone’s approval at that same meeting included “Julie Andrews Does Hits by Paula Abdul, Madonna, Janet Jackson and M. C. Hammer,” and a parody of a game show called “Let’s Go to Court,” hosted by “the judge without a smudge,” who awards the lucky winner a grand prize of “7,000 days and nights in a Puerto Vallarta prison.” Also put into the works were new antics for regular characters such as Jim Shortz, personal trainer to the stars, played by comedian Jeff Altman, and fast-talking Hollywood agent Bernie Shelley, played by comedian Ronnie Schell.

After Kelly and Palanker choose 45-60 features to send out to subscribing stations--15-20 bits are sent to each of Premiere’s three groups: Top 40 stations, country stations and stations with audiences aged 25-54--they are shipped via express mail and arrive at the stations within two days.

Most comedy services employ a similar “shotgun” approach, sending out from 10 to 20 original and timely features each week and allowing the station to use any or all of the material sent.

The biggest variation among them is their rates. Premiere operates on a barter basis. Rather than paying the service for jokes, the subscribing stations give Premiere air time to sell to advertisers. Other services sell their joke packages for a flat fee, generally adjusting the prices according to the size of the station’s market. For example, American Comedy Network, which got into the business 7 years ago and now has some 280 subscribers, charges a small station in North Dakota $1,800 a year for the same package that costs a Los Angeles station $15,500 per year.

Denver-based W.A.C.O. Morning Sidekick, whose material is heard on 41 stations in cities such as Fresno, Dallas, Cincinnati and Honolulu, charges from $125 per month in a mid-sized market to $750 a month in a top-10 market, according to founder and president Keith Hughes. The service has a production studio and employs three writers.

Mike Gettings, who along with his wife, Rita Bentley, runs the Bentley Group, a small comedy service in Richmond, Va., heard in about 20 markets, said that he charges smaller stations $30 a bit and larger ones about $100 a bit.

Clearly, not all of the services, which advertise mostly by word-of-mouth or in the classified section of trade publications such as Radio and Records, are making a killing.

“There are a lot of guys and girls who do this,” said Jack Silver, producer of Rick Dees’ morning show on KIIS. “But for every one song parody that you might hear on KIIS, I probably listen to 10. Very few are good.”

“As long as the current vogue for ‘morning zoo’-type shows continues, where you have a very comedy-intensive presentation, the opportunity is there for comedy services,” said Ken Barnes, managing editor of Radio and Records. “Whether it’s a chance for a lot of people to get rich is another matter. I very much doubt it.”

Though they may not get rich from radio comedy, many hope to get rich from parlaying their success to television.

Premiere is negotiating with Showtime for a half-hour comedy special to air this year), while New York-based Kolin has produced segments on “A Current Affair” and written for HBO’s “Not Necessarily the News.” Currently, he is a staff writer on ABC’s “Into the Night with Rick Dees,” to whom he used to supply radio bits.

“I don’t want to give up radio, but I want to go further in television,” Kolin said.

American Comedy Radio’s Goodman just moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles this month to try his hand at television writing. He plans to continue writing material for the comedy service to make ends meet, until he lands a television job.

“What we do here is nice, but you’re still a farm team,” he said. “I want to compete in the big leagues.”