The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia

Dancin' On Air
WPHL-TV, Channel 17
1985

Broadcast Pioneers member Rod Carson (a panel guest at this month's luncheon) said:

Well, I can’t remember which one of us had the idea to do this thing, but I think the Chicago Bears Shuffle was in the back of our minds. We started it as a fun staff project and it kind of took on a life of its own. We had some real musicians on staff, especially Randy Chepigan, who did most of the writing, arranging and played several instruments on the track. We used Dave Vanderslice on guitar, and recruited Bill Roswell from KYW to sing and play guitar. My friend Mike Nise let us use his studio in Camden to produce and record.... I’m sure I’ve left out some others who contributed, but it’s been a while. I just remember it was a blast doing the whole thing and I think it brought us closer together as a staff. ...It’s cool to see it again, albeit a little embarrassing. As I’ve said before, “It was back in the day when radio was fun!”

Broadcast Pioneers member Randy Chepigan said:

I must admit to being the paunchy mid-20's keyboard player / "rapper" with the semi-mullet and bad imitation Ray-Bans.

In 1985, after spending a couple of years as a full-time musician, I had recently re-joined my compatriots at Shadow Traffic (with whom I worked in the early '80's.) As much as I shouldn't admit responsibility for the nascence of this embarrassing episode... Digital sampling was in its infancy and I had an idea for a dance song featuring samples of traffic reports -- notably, Rod Carson saying "uh, just a minute" and Walt MacDonald saying "Oh my god".

Walt and Rod liked the demo, and somehow it developed/deteriorated into a "rap song" patterned after an unlikely hit earlier that year, "The Super Bowl Shuffle." Dave Vanderslice wrote most of the lyrics, I finished writing the rest of the music and arrangement, and we recorded it at Mike Nise's studio in Camden, featuring solo "raps" from all of the on-air traffic guys at that time -- Walt, Rod, John Brown, Sam Clover, Jim Battagliese, John Butterworth, Bob Dengler and myself. Rod Carson and I co-produced it; I played the keyboards and drum machines; Dave Vanderslice and special guest Bill Roswell from KYW did the guitar work.

The intent was to generate enough interest to release a single, with proceeds benefiting a charity. But, aside from the Dancin' On Air lip-sync appearance and some minor airplay, approximately once on each station, the interest didn't materialize. So it mostly turned out to be a character-building(?) staff project -- as Rod put it, "back when radio was fun."

Broadcast Pioneers member John Brown said:

As I recall, Randy Chepigan wrote the music and Dave Vanderslice did most of the lyrics with some help from the rest of us. Guitar players did play when we recorded it at Nice's studio. It was a spoof on the Super Bowl Shuffle. We had a blast doing it on Dancin' on Air. Bill Roswell of KYW was the guitar player in the cowboy hat. I remember laughing a lot during the recording. We really had a lot of fun. I'm getting a lot of facebook hits telling me how much they enjoyed watching the video. Go figure. ...I still had some black hair back then, and a little rhythm.

Dancin' On Air is a copyrighted presentation of Omni 2000 and protected under US Copyright! Watch the Video!

The e-mail address of the Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia is pioneers@broadcastpioneers.com