Jay Kuppers
As I mentioned in my Post about Roscoe P. Goodtyme, WQPD-AM in Lakeland Florida was the most influential station to my broadcast career. And no one was more of a partner and mentor to me than Jay Kuppers. While I learned a lot about comedy from Roscoe, I discovered the business of entertainment through Jay.
I am really struggling to remember even some details from that long ago, and I can’t remember the sequence of when I worked with Jay. Based on moving to the Tampa radio market a few months after Roscoe’s death and returning to WQPD after Jay had already left the station it must have been before.
Jay allowed me to develop on-air characters and he would interview that “character” as part of the comedy bits we delivered. One of them was called Stumpy, an alligator hunting country wisdom type of guy. Another was a play on the then ongoing Central American events, a sort of generic dictator general always trying to get away. Not politically correct today – but an easy target in the late 1970’s. Here is a link to the video.
We even recorded a video version of two of these bits to use in front of an “audience” at live remotes broadcasts. We used it a couple of times with me and Jay interviewing the characters on a “video hook-up”. Very corny, but the point is we had fun and tried to bring something different to the market.
I remember lots of in studio guests including the Playboy Bunny from the then new Playboy Club in St. Petersburg, Florida. This must have been around May 1980 since (I looked it up) that’s when the club opened.
Jay ended up owning a Tire store in Lakeland for several years and passed away too young at age 60 from heart complications in 2002.
Other Links: RadioYears.com |Jay Kuppers