HAMILTON, Ohio — Forty-eight years after a fictional Cincinnati station taught TV viewers that turkeys cannot fly, a real WKRP is bringing the stunt to life for a good cause. WKRP-FM (97.7), which took the famous call letters this year, will hold its first Turkey Drop at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 25 in downtown Hamilton, where Hamilton firefighters will drop 3,000 numbered rubber turkeys from a ladder truck onto targets below. All net proceeds benefit the Open Door Food Pantry.
For $10, supporters claim a number that rides on one of the turkeys in the drop. The turkeys will fall on targets between Municipal Brew Works and The Casual Pint in Hamilton, and owners of the turkeys landing closest to a target’s center win cash prizes. Multiple winners will be paid up to $500 each, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported. Winners need not be present and may donate winnings back to the pantry.
Listeners have asked for this since day one. “Everyone, from the minute we signed on WKRP, has been demanding the return of the turkey drop. Now, they will have their wish,” station General Manager Jeff Ziesmann told Radio Ink. Owner Randy Michaels joked to Radio Ink, “We’ve been experimenting and it turns out, with enough thrust, turkeys will fly pretty far.” A fire-truck ladder replaces the helicopter, so the drop can proceed in any weather; it will be live-streamed.
It honors “Turkeys Away,” the 1978 CBS sitcom episode where manager Arthur Carlson drops live turkeys from a helicopter as newsman Les Nessman reports the chaos. Its closing line — “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly” — became one of TV’s most quoted, and TV Guide ranked the episode among the 100 greatest ever, as Ultimate Classic Rock noted November 5. This time, mercifully, no live birds are involved.
The station behind the stunt is new to the dial. According to Radio Ink, Michaels and Ziesmann flipped their Cincinnati-Dayton-Northern Kentucky station The Oasis to WKRP on May 4, taking call letters previously held by a low-power FM station in Raleigh, North Carolina. The format borrows a proven local formula — the Enquirer likened it to the Freestore Foodbank’s Rubber Duck Regatta, the Labor Day weekend rubber-duck fundraiser.
Underneath the comedy is a serious cause. The pantry provides emergency food for Butler County residents, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, and the drop arrives as holiday demand peaks. Net proceeds from commemorative T-shirt sales will go to the pantry as well, Radio Ink reported. And because winners need not attend, fans anywhere can buy in.
Turkeys can be purchased until 11:59 p.m. ET Tuesday, November 24, or until all 3,000 sell out, the Enquirer reported; there are no cash sales. Sales run through the station’s website, wherethemusicwent.com, Radio Ink reported, open to U.S. residents 18 and older. Then, at 7:30 p.m. on November 25, the ladder rises over downtown Hamilton — and for one night, at least in rubber form, turkeys really will fly.
Photo: McKenzie & Snyder, CC BY-SA