We decided to really kick it up a notch on The Big Show for April Fool’s Day. Instead of just doing one story that was bogus, we did a whole bogus show! We spent a lot of time researching the news, sports and entertainment of the day and did all of our regular stuff, just from 10 years ago.
So what was going on in April of 2004? A Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg was going to take his online idea to a wide audience. The Facebook, as it was called then, was a big hit with college kids and Zuckerberg thought he could make it catch on with the general public. Canadian Idol had just announced its auditions for season two. And same sex marriage was just made legal in Quebec. My favourite story though was about SanDisk’s new one-gig card that was selling for $500. A whole gig!
Heehee. We got calls from people who were quite amused!! We even set up some people the day before to call in and weigh in on the “news” of the day and we played it totally straight. It was big fun. We played back the calls from people who caught us between 8:30 and 9. My favourite call was from a guy who said he had never listened to our station before. He gently and respectfully let me know that I had “made a lot of mistakes in the news”. I had the Mayor wrong, the tax increase wrong and even the Premier’s name wrong!
And then, there was my randt.
How to commit to a bit 100% (or 98.1%) – throughout the show. Congratulations – that’s HARD to do and it sounds like you pulled it all off!
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Thank you!! We did a lot of research beforehand. I recorded my first two newscasts for fear I’d crack up saying President George W Bush and such.