Now that we’ve made it past the annual mediocrity that is New Year’s Eve, we can talk about other universally disappointing things like morning radio personalities: can’t live with ‘em, can’t live with ‘em. I think it’s safe to say that across the board, in every city, morning radio hits the lowest common denominator. Atlanta is no different.
There’s a new morning act over at Star 94. Yes, Steve and Vikki (your favorite radio personalities when you were in middle school) retired; don’t you remember? I don’t understand how this morning show branding business goes but it appears Star 94 just bought a previously-existing morning show from Indiana and plopped them in Atlanta. The Morning Mess, they’re called! That sounds wacky! Meet “the cast,” Shannon (one of those short girls who loves to talk about how short she is), Marco (loves Matchbox 20 and shopping for pomade), and SuperPhat Mikey (“the goofy underdog of the bunch – like the younger brother everyone roots for”). The “Phat” in his name is presumably play on the fact that he looks like a member of the Huckabee clan.
AJC radio blogger Rodney Ho samples Morning Mess’s first day on the air in his usual deadpan coverage. I can’t tell if he’s being passive-aggressive and reviewing the show as flatly as possible to show how unfunny A.M. radio antics are or if that’s just his style. Actual paragraph:
From a technical standpoint the first hour, from 6 to 7 a.m., there was a five-second silent pause after a song but otherwise, they sounded fine. There was only one caller that first hour. The woman complained she had to go to work at Petsmart when most folks were still nursing hangovers. Marco noted that bird owners start looking like their birds.
Even the commenters seem disillusioned with the Morning Mess in their weird way. However, this comment made me giggle out loud, for a number of reasons:
By Rodney Headed Ho
January 2, 2008 2:12 PM | Link to this
Why do people even care about morning radio shows the pseudo personalities attached to these shows? None of them are funny. If you want to laugh, go back and read some of the sad things you all have written here as serious.
Today, since WABE shuts down NPR’s Morning Edition at 8:59:59 on the button, I thought I would see what all the mess is about since I haven’t ventured into the dark world of morning radio personalities in a long, long time. I got the tail end of one of the prank phone calls, which I don’t need to tell you was far beneath stupid. The theme song for this segment is Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” except instead it goes, “We will, we will prank you.” It was unbearable. I immediately switched to Album 88, where I was rewarded with My Bloody Valentine. Thanks, college djs. Your voice may betray you are still going through puberty but your taste always hovers far above lameass.
Tags: morning mess, radio, rodney headed ho
The problem isn’t morning radio. The problem is a culture that has enough of a population driving/sitting in their cars early enough to listen to morning radio. Talk about captive!
I’m the only one at work who lives less than 30 miles from the office so therefore I’m left out of all the Bert Show recaps.
Why is it when I visit “The Morning Mess” Web site — “We’re wacky! We’re fun! We’re tellin’ it like it is, Atlanta!” — I feel like I’ve set foot in some bizarre early incarnation of the Internet, albeit with really advanced programming skills?
Like what the hell is with the sex offender registry link? “Hey, Atlanta! Did you know you can look up sex offenders online?!?!”
Yes, we did, morning show!
I tried to listen to the Morning Mess and make it work but unless you are 13 years old it doesn’t work. The Prank calls on the 20′s gets old real quick. Then when they went on the street to borrow a phone and made the Atlanta people look like they weren’t helpful–great just what we need.