This was the truly the beginning of the end; the first day of the last CHR morning show at WPGC before the embarrassingly insane change in format to Adult Contemporary later in the year.

Elliott & Woodside's defection for big dollars & big disappointment at Q107 early in January 1982 put a series of events into motion at WPGC. Midday man, Dave Foxx moved to mornings and was paired up with Redskins' Joe Theismann who had been doing pre and post game reports on Mondays & Fridays. Loo Katz took over the morning news duties.

Concurrent with this, late night guy, Max Wolf moved to middays, Lisa Kay shifted from overnights to late nights, weekender Scott Tony Jenkins covered overnights and Lee Chambers rejoined the station for weekends.

Displaced by the change in mornings at Q107, Dude Walker joined WPGC in the Spring initially for afternoons but was quickly teamed up by Program Director, Steve Kingston with Dave Foxx when Joe Theismann left for training camp. Hence the birth of 'Dude & Dave', a morning show that represented the last real hope for WPGC as a Top 40 station.

First Media management however made the decision to to change the format that Fall in a vain effort to commandeer the AC crown soon to be relinquished by WASH. 'Dude & Dave' which had shown so much promise in it's brief existence was disbanded with Dave returning to middays and Dude paired up with J. Robert Howe, morning news guy at WPGC's sister station KYAK in Provo, Utah.

Provo is not Washington, D.C. however, and that fact was painfully apparent to anyone who heard him on the air. Not even a talent as strong as Dude could save an obviously dying morning show and equally decaying radio station. Early in 1983, Dude left WPGC and ironically was replaced in mornings by none other than Dave Foxx. Even further irony ensued as Dude would soon resurface doing mornings at WASH . Meanwhile, in the absence of a direct format competitor, Q107 shot straight to #1, justifying to ABC management the then unheard of salaries commanded by Elliott & Woodside.

Having said all that, one of the highlights of this aircheck from the beginning of the Memorial Day Weekend are the comedy bits involving Miss Lilly, Dude's character voice of a little old lady with a keen sense of wit. Listen for the interplay between her and Dave on topics such as Loo Katz' love life, kids at the movies and the Thought of the Day.

Speaking of movies, the hot new Summer blockbuster was a little film called, 'E.T., the Extraterrestrial'. Naturally, WPGC had the premier screening and passed out tickets to it before anyone knew what 'phone home' meant.

Other contesting at the time included the annual 'Bay Bridge Bonanza' in which listeners could guess the predetermined time the Gold WPGC Money Car would cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge over the holiday weekend to win the amount of tolls collected during the hour of their choosing.

But the primary image promotion of the day was the WPGC 'Cash & Gold Sweepstakes'. A direct mail piece listed numbers that were worth $1,000. If their number was read on the air, they won the big bucks.

The station's primary positioning statements were 'Washingtons' Radio Station' and 'Famous For Playing Washington's Best Music (or 'Favorite Oldies'). Jingles were from a TM package ordered in 1981. (((Reverb))) on the audio was still present though had been toned down significantly already.

Special thanks to Dude Walker for providing this tape.

 

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