Things Done In Order To Win A Radio Contest

Radio stations will commonly hold contests in which the object is to do something really really foolish. Sometimes the foolish thing will be conceived by the station, sometimes you have to come up with it yourself and the object is to do the most foolish thing.

There's really no other way to lead into this, although the Los Angeles Daily News- as reprinted here by the Spartanburg Herald-Journal in 1991- squeezed several column inches and two articles back-to-back out of elaborating on it. But I'm not going to ramble on about it. We'll just leave it at the fact that every act you are about to read was done in the name of pleasing radio station DJ's.

We'll start with what was noted in that pair of articles. And realize that this does not pretend to even be close to a complete list. It's just what was found over the course of a couple hours.

*Filling a pool with chocolate pudding and then getting in while in a bikini.
*Being doused in green honey and then rolling around in a pile of dollar bills.
*Standing on the seat of a speeding motorcycle, crashing into a used car, and going through football goalposts before landing on a pile of mattresses.
*Dunking your head in a pile of manure, rooting around for an apple, and then eating the apple.
*Laying down on a bed of lettuce between two halves of a 6-foot French roll and allowing the DJ's to pour mayo, ketchup, mustard, olives, pickles and onions on you before rolling the whole thing up in plastic wrap.
*Broadcasting the sound of a mother sticking her daughter's head in the toilet and flushing.
*Having your daughter pour the ingredients of a hot fudge sundae on your head, eating five goldfish, and naming the members of New Kids on the Block.
*Conceiving a child before other listeners do.
*Getting a genital piercing.
*Wearing a beard made out of the pubic hair of station staff for a week.
*Eating the staff's toenails.
*Spending 24 hours inside a port-a-potty. (These last four were all part of the same contest as 'qualifiers'.)
*Drinking a cup of your own urine.
*Cutting the roof off your car and then filling the car with Jell-O and whipped cream.
*Sitting on a block of dry ice. 
*Spending three weeks in jail.
*Sending the station nude photos of yourself.
*Updating a radio-station billboard wearing nothing but green and purple paint.
*Putting on a ski mask and telling people to get inside of a truck.
*Having the word 'MINI' tattooed on your genitals.
*Marrying someone you've never met.
*Announcing your intent to divorce your spouse on the air to get the station to pay for it.
*Telling your husband, on the air, falsely, that your child isn't his and then trying to get him to say he still loves you. (This was for tickets to see Kanye West.)
*Lying about being raped.
*Drinking two gallons of water in a contest to see who can drink the most without going to the bathroom. And then dying from it. (The station had thought this one out so poorly, had been given so many warnings from onlookers and listeners, and the other contestants were looking ill enough after their attempts with the DJ's responding only with wisecracks, that this person's family later was awarded $16 million by a jury.)

We are not counting things that the DJ's themselves have done, although let's take the time to mention that sometimes the foolishness is completely on their end to the point of cruelty. For example, the time that a station was offering "100 grand" and then gave a winner the candy bar. Or the time that a station in Perth, Australia reunited long-lost relatives... and then immediately made them answer three questions, and if they didn't get them all right, they sent the long-lost relatives straight back to the airport. And the time DJ's in Sydney prank-called a nurse at the hospital servicing Kate Middleton, got her to divulge information concerning her pregnancy, and laughed and laughed while the nurse, upon realizing what happened, was driven to suicide.

Remember, folks, talk to your kids. Warn them of the dangers of getting involved with radio DJ's. If you see someone suspected of radio DJ'ing, notify the proper authorities immediately.