User:Nathan Obral/sandbox/Pete Myers (radio personality)

One personality worked at WJW for only five months, but had a meteoric career nonetheless: Pete "Mad Daddy" Myers. Myers joined the station on January 20, 1958, from Akron's WHKK, where he had been at since October 22, 1956. A native of California, Myers had been involved with broadcasting wartime propaganda to enemy troops during the Korean War, and started his career as a disc jockey for Armed Forces Radio in Tokyo using the same studios that Iva Toguri D'Aquino broadcast from during World War II. One propaganda broadcast claiming that sea dragons were nearing Tokyo Bay reportedly fooled Gen. Douglas MacArthur and precipitated his discharge from the military. He also participated in community theatre while in Akron; one review for a production of Time Limit gave special notice to Myers' acting ability, saying "Myers... takes command of the scenes every time his is on stage, because there is so much feeling in his voice." It wasn't his only involvement on the stage; Myers had trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and attempted work as a character actor in New York City prior to entering radio.

Myers' acting abilities helped foster the adoption of his "Mad Daddy" persona, which partially came out of desperation to create a "career-making splash". Speaking in rhyme and with hipster-like lyricism, Myers popularized phrases "wavy gravy", "mello jello" and "zoomeratin'", with the bulk of his witticisms all improvised. With a generous playlist of R&B recordings not unlike what Freed popularized several years earlier, Myers utilized multiple turntables, sound effects and heavy reverb to further add to the mystique of "Mad Daddy". Contemporary analysis now suggests Myers likely developed "Mad Daddy" over the course of time, especially near the end of his tenure at WHKK, which exhibited the majority of the persona outside of the moniker. Myers also read newscasts, weather reports and general continuity using his normal mild-mannered voice in-between performing as "Mad Daddy" throughout the course of his late-evening airshift. In addition to radio, Myers also began work as a horror host on WJW-TV hosting a local version of Shock Theater, donning a black cloak and wearing greasepaint to accentuate his vampire status; his on-air appearances even involved hanging upside-down to imitate a bat after learning that the television cameras themselves could not be suspended upside down.

Myers remained at WJW until May 13, 1958, when he abruptly resigned to join Metromedia's WHK for double the salary he had at WJW. Myers allegedly failed to give WJW a 90-day notice for his departure, prompting them to enforce a non-compete clause in his contract preventing him from appearing on WHK until August 11. His last WJW show soon took on urban legend status with claims Myers made an off-color rhyme alluding to menstruation, thereby forcing management to remove him outright. Myers concocted a publicity stunt to keep his name in the public eye on June 14, 1958, parachuting from a Piper Cub 2200 ft over Lake Erie, and composing a poem on his way down. Initially boasting that he planned to land in the lake after a portion of it had been turned into Jell-O, he was fished out of the waters by the U.S. Coast Guard, and handed out copies of the 45 record "Zorro" to hundreds of fans who greeted him. While Myers left the Cleveland market altogether in June 1959 for an ill-fated career move to New York City that saw his on-air antics almost entirely suppressed, one WHK colleague, Ernie Anderson, later drew heavily from Myers' "Mad Daddy" persona in 1963 to create his "Ghoulardi" horror host character for WJW-TV. This WHK connection prompted at least one letter to the Akron Beacon Journal to ask if Anderson himself had, in fact, been "Mad Daddy". Punk rock band The Cramps would also pay tribute to Myers, who took his own life on October 4, 1968, with their single "The Mad Daddy".