Bob Rivers' big announcement Monday concerned his decision to retire from Morning Show wake-up duty at KJR-FM. His last show will be Friday, August 8, 25-years to the day that Bob Rivers' first debuted on radio in the Seattle market.
Rivers told his mornings show today ""I'm the luckiest radio host in the world. Not only have I been surrounded by iconic talent and given free-reign to create a unique morning show, we’ve amassed an audience so loyal and loving that they have raised millions and saved children's lives all over the world. We enjoyed great ratings over the years, but they only tell part of the story -- the bond we’ve had as a cast and with our audience and trusted advertisers trumps all the #1's we achieved. I'm about to be a grandfather, I don't want to miss a minute of that."
Rivers got his start as disc jockey in Connecticut and spent almost 6 years at WAAF in Worcester, Massachusetts (in the Boston market), as part of their successful Bob and Zip morning show with fellow on air personality Peter "Zip" Zipfel.
During his tenure with WAAF, Rivers started producing parody and novelty songs, both for the station and for the KATZ/Newcity "American Comedy Network", a radio syndication service that provided comedy material to local U.S. and Canadian radio stations.
In 1987, Rivers released Twisted Christmas, which contained the Christmas music radio hit Twelve Pains of Christmas, a parody of the holiday standard The Twelve Days of Christmas. Twisted Christmas was certified a gold record.
In the spring of 1988, at Baltimore radio station "98 Rock" WIYY-FM, as a lead morning show personality between 1987 and 1989, Bob Rivers gained national attention for an 11-day, on-the-air marathon during a Baltimore Orioles losing streak. He vowed to remain on the air until the Orioles won a game. He kept his vow and became a local celebrity among Orioles fans for his pledge. During the marathon, he only took naps during songs and started to develop health complications from the lack of sleep.
In just under two years after joining WIYY, Rivers increased the station's morning show's ratings by about 65 percent.
A few weeks before Rivers was fired from WIYY, he met James (later "Spike") O'Neill, who was working at a used car dealership. O'Neill's father owned the dealership and advertised on the show, so Spike objected to Rivers's song "Hyundai, Hyundai (Can't Trust That Car)," a parody of Monday, Monday by The Mamas & the Papas. Rivers met Spike to test-drive a Hyundai, and Spike either "talked his way" into an unpaid internship on the show or, in his own words, "[Rivers] had taken them [WIYY] from worst to first and they offered him an insulting pay increase to renew. He went public with their insult and at that point they took him off the air for the rest of his term. He met me and invited me in as an intern. When he left, he thought enough of me to ask me to join him."
Arriving at Active Rock radio station KISW-FM in Seattle in 1989, Rivers debuted a morning show with fellow radio host Sean Donahue, also from Baltimore. Rivers brought Spike O'Neill with him; Spike served as sportscaster, writer, and impressionist. They spent "six weeks of 14-hour days doing production and brainstorming and writing" before their first show on air.
Rivers released a second album of humorous holiday-themed music in 1993 entitled I Am Santa Claus (the title track was a parody of Black Sabbath's song Iron Man). Since then, three other Christmas-themed albums have been released, including: More Twisted Christmas (1997); Chipmunks Roasting On an Open Fire (2000); and White Trash Christmas (2002).
Bob Rivers and his Twisted Radio show also produced many non-holiday parodies covering such topics as pop culture, politicians, and the various sports teams and players in the Seattle area. These "Twisted Tunes" can be heard for free on his website. CD compilation albums are also available.
In 1999, Rivers wrote a "twisted tune" song called "Kosovo", a parody of the Beach Boys hit song "Kokomo", about the Kosovo War. While earning many fans, the song also gained international attention and some controversy when it was used in 2005 by some Norwegian peacekeepers in Kosovo to make a music video.
In late 1999, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer noted that, after 10 years at the station, Rivers had the longest tenure of any radio personality in the local market.
Rivers and his cast sat out a year's non-compete period when their contract with KISW ran out.
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| Rivers at KZOK |
In October 2001, the cast and show moved to KZOK, where it played through September 30, 2010. O'Neill was added to the show for a slate of talents that include vocal impersonations and improvisation. The producer was Mike Jones; Arik Korman, a 2001 Visionary Award winner, joined the show as director in 2002; news and comedic commentary were provided by Maura Gallucci and, for a few years, Kaci Aitchison (who also is a singer with Spike and the Impalers).
KZOK gained world renown when they partnered with World Vision International for what was to be a one-day "radiothon" to sponsor 400 children in poor nations. (Rivers credits director Arik Korman for "getting me started" with World Vision. By the count of listeners who called or wrote to the station, they soon found sponsors for more than 3,000 children in Senegal, Ethiopia, the Dominican Republic, and other Third World countries.
Toward the end of this decade, the station added television cameras to the studio; streaming videos of interviews and musical performances can be seen on station websites.
Rivers's show left KZOK when he could not reach a contract deal with CBS, the owner of the station.
On January 2, 2011, it was publicly announced that the show would return to the air on April 1, 2011 on KJR-FM.
