DANNY BONADUCE BECOMES "FLY JOCK" IN COMMUTE BETWEEN DETROIT & CHICAGO

[Michael R. Lewis]

...from the [Radio/TV Dial Pages] http://nether.net/~mikel/people/bonaduce.html
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Following a protracted legal battle that ended in Dick Purtan leaving
Detroit's 95.5 WKQI, the station quickly found a replacement at a
sister station in Chicago - Danny Bonaduce from the Loop, WLUP-FM.

Bonaduce is the bad boy, youngest child of the old TV sitcom, "The
Partridge Family". His life of a troubled child TV star lead to drugs
and all manners of anti-social behavior that has been fodder for
tabloid papers and TV for at least a decade. His antics have included
beating up a transvestite and tattooing his buttocks with the Loop's
logo (while on overnights at then-WLUP-AM 1000) and faxing it to
hundreds of listeners.

His most recent failed venture was a nationally syndicated TV talk
show.

Tom O'Brien, program director of WKQI, said that Bonaduce will move to
Detroit to do the 6AM-10AM morning show called, "The Q Crew".
Concurrently, he will continue to do his afternoon shift at WLUP-FM in
Chicago. This will involve commuting between the two cites via planes.

The "Fly Jock" idea is one that was abandoned after many years, by the
Chicago/Dallas DJ, Tom Joyner. He was most famous for his daily ritual
of doing the same sort of thing at stations in both of those cities.

Bonaduce's first show at WKQI came off without a hitch. Both WXYZ-TV7
and WJBK-TV2 did live interviews during the show. Michael Collins of
WJBK-TV2's Eyewitness Morning was a one-time morning host at Detroit's
then-ABC O&O - WRIF 101.1FM. At 8:20 Collins quizzed Bonaduce about
the commute and the variety of people that were crowding the studio.
They pointed out Rebecca Marshall, the news anchor who came from Salt
Lake City's KBEE-FM. Resident-sidekick and comedian Bob Heffron was
there. They were quick to point out that Heffron was a local who lived
in the far-western suburb South Lyon and that he attended Eastern
Michigan University. Also present was Carey Carlson, traffic reporter,
most recently from WCSX 94.7FM. Management people present were
PD-O'Brien, John Fullam-GM and Fred Buchalter-Music Director who
serves double-duty as board op on the new morning show.

A stand-out of the in-studio crowd was John Smyntek, a local newspaper
writer that does gossip and media writing. Smyntek had been strictly
an editor at the Detroit Free Press, until Strikes by several Unions
caused the town's newspaper(s) to grind to a halt. The JOA'd papers
have refused to negotiate with the Unions and have continued to
publish abridged and less distributed versions of the paper(s)
utilizing scab laborers locally and from other Knight-Ridder and
Gannett outlets nationally. The management of the paper(s) have cried
poor and have downsized their staff(s).

The conspicuousness of Smyntek, was his itinerary for the day. He
followed Bonaduce around all day to Chicago and back. And this junket
sponsored by a newspaper complaining of bad financial health. To add
insult to injury, a prominent sponsor of Danny's first show was...
The Detroit Free Press.

Tom O'Brien said that Smyntek's coverage and the prominent
sponsorship by the paper were "independent of each other."

Several of the writers of the paper(s) have found other or additional
emloyment and sometimes displacing broadcast professionals at other
radio and TV outlets in the city, like Susan Stark at WDIV TV4, Mitch
Albom at WJR 760AM and Jon Pepper at WXYT 1270 AM.

When asked how the whole "fly-jock" concept came to fruition, O'Brien
explained that back around mid-December, Purtan was on vacation and
Kevin O'Neill was filling-in. Bob Heffron was acting as sidekick and
Bonaduce came in as a guest. Bonaduce asked to do a fill-in show by
himself, which he did. At the time he suggested the idea of the
"fly-jock" to WKQI management. Purtan's gone, in rolls Bonaduce.

O'Brien told, that even though Bonaduce will make "Detroit his home,"
there is the probability that the Detroit show will be done from
Chicago on occasion. "We have the ability to do ISDN, so he may do the
show from Chicago" due to bad flight connections or promotional events
keeping him in town. "Evergreen has a syndication division," said
O'Brien, but there are no plans to syndicate Bonaduce. "Evergreen does
syndicate the Johnny-B show to Phoenix, though," he continued.

Bonaduce's antics on his first day included taking a call from old
friend, Drew Lane of the popular "Drew & Mike" morning show on
crosstown WRIF 101.1FM. After chiding Bonaduce for awhile about being
a failed child TV star, Drew played a tape of a trademark ambush phone
call to former child star Gary Coleman. Coleman was working as a car
salesman and became infuriated by the call in the middle of his work
time.

Another gag was giving away a "Best of...the Morning Show" CD. The
joke being that the show was less than an hour old and already had a
"Best of..." CD. The CD was actually one of Dick Purtan's annual
collections of WKQI bits that were sold with proceeds going to
charity. Danny refers to his giveaways as "what's-his-face's old
stuff". Purtan is now at WOMC 104.3. Dick Purtan's first show there is
April 15th.

Calls came in telling Bonaduce that he had "big shoes to fill". This
prompted Danny's response: "Who was this guy? A clown? These are
mighty big shoes!" He continued, "That's gross. Wearing someone else's
shoes. Like... 'you have some pretty big underwear to fill...'".

Repeated questions of how he will handle the busy schedule brought a
stock reply, "I have no life. I'm making up for 15 years of lost
time."

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| Michael R. Lewis <lewi...@metronet.lib.mi.us> |
| |
| Radio/TV Dial Pages http://nether.net/~mikel/radio/ |
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