Last night Kalin and I saw the new Quentin Tarantino film “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood”, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. It’s an incredible recreation of 1969 Los Angeles, and I don’t know if I want to reveal any of the plot because you should see it with unspoiled eyes. Being a Quentin Tarantino film, there are stunningly violent set pieces. But the story is fascinating, the performances are wonderful, and…
Well, this is the thing that tickled me about the movie. In the many, many scenes of people driving, the radio is always tuned to 93 KHJ. There are lots of jingles, commercials, and of course an amazing soundtrack of late ’60s music. In a movie set in any other place and time I would consider it unrealistic to have one radio station play such a role. But in Southern California, in the 1960s and most of the 1970s, 93 KHJ was THE radio station. It had the best disc jockeys, the best music, amazing contests (stay till the credits of “Once Upon A Time” for a nifty easter egg).
I first read about 93 KHJ in college…there was a special issue of “Radio Ink” magazine celebrating radio’s 75th anniversary in the college radio station office and inside was an article about the creation of “Boss Radio”. I ordered a two-cassette “history of KHJ” from California Aircheck and listened to it till the tape wore out. The end of the second cassette featured an announcement by the Program Director that they were changing KHJ’s format to country. It pisses me off every time I hear it!
It’s apparent at this point that 93 KHJ is one of my many geeky obsessions, and if one listens to my show on KCOW they will hear a double-salute to Boss Radio:
The music is the legendary “Drake stager”, used to announce what DJ was on the air on 93 KHJ. And the voice? One of the classic boss jocks (and Nebraska native!) Charlie Tuna. We had Charlie as our official imaging voice on KCOW for a few years…he passed away in 2016 so we’ve had to retire him as an all-day liner voice..but I still use this piece of audio every morning. They’ll pry it from my cold dead hands! (Well, it’s a digital file but…seriously…I wouldn’t do the show without it.)
“Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” is an excellent film. The KHJ shoutouts are just the cherry on the sundae. I’ve already ordered the soundtrack CD, which–surprise!–contains KHJ jingles and commercials in-between the songs. Look forward to hearing it.