Brandmeier: King Of The Loons Note: This article has been enhanced with a number of RealAudio links pertaining to Johnny's days at KZZP. Click the underlined words or phrases to listen as you read along. These audio links come direct from Johnny's cool website at The Showgram.com and we thank them for letting us steal them shamelessly.

by Eric Paul Johnson
Loon News Executive Editor

It was life before the nuclear missiles were launched. Everything was as normal as it ever was on the morning of February 9, 1981. People were getting ready for work. Having breakfast. Drinking coffee. Reading the newspaper. Kids were getting up for school. Nobody had any idea on that rainy Monday, at precisely 5:34 in the morning, that "The Valley Of The Sun" became "The Valley Of The Loons."

Jonathon Brandmeier came to KZZP 104 (no point seven back then) FM without any fanfare and very little warning whatsoever. But as soon as he hit the air on February 9, 1981 everybody knew who he was. And 20 years later his influence can still be heard on Phoenix radio.

His first few words on KZZP weren't on February 9. They were actually February 6, 1981. The Friday night before he went on the air Monday morning the management wanted him to get used to the control board so he'd be ready. For two hours, starting at around 7:00 he did Michael Bryan's show.

"He (Bryan) didn't know me, I didn't know him," Brandmeier said, "He said, just go on and get yourself used to the board. The management said don't do a lot of talking, just get on the air and play the records so you know how to do it when you get here."

Brandmeier went on the air saying Bryan had been arrested and was in jail.

"The calls were coming in," Brandmeier continued, "These people were going crazy saying why is he in jail? I was taking donations on the air for his bail."

While this was going on Bryan was standing there laughing.

Then, on February 9, 1981 at 5:34 AM, Brandmeier started his morning show. He became known for a frenetic, unrestrained unpredictability in his radio performance, but the first moment of that first broadcast was nothing like the show that was coming. (In about 20 minutes when the coffee kicked in.)

Fleetwood Mac's "Sara" faded out, and Brandmeier said, "Oohhh, 26 before six, 104 KZZP. (half a second of accidental feedback) Ouch. This is Jonathon Brandmeier. Just let me just, uh, let this soak in for a minute here. Johnny...in Phoenix. Raining on the first day into work, oh, well, that's the way it is.

"Let's have a pronunciation lesson now. Brian is the guy who left here, I was calling him "Bob," and my name is Jonathon..Brandmeier." In a Mr. Rogers voice he said, "Can you say that? "Brandmeier?" B-r-a-n-d-m-e-i-e-r? Very good."

He started playing the very same Fleetwood Mac song he just finished. "Wait a minute! Didn't I just play that record!! HOLD ON A SECOND!!! " He stopped the boring song , "Ok...Uhhh, every once in a while I'll make mistakes just to see if you're paying attention." He started the song he meant to play, Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen," and continued. "There we go.

"It's 5:34 in the morning, and if you're up this early, you're sick as I am."

When Brandmeier heard that tape a year later he said, "I remember I was doing a Mr. Rogers thing there until I heard (Steve) Goddard do it. Then I thought 'If anyone's going to do it that badly, I better shut up."

Goddard was one of KZZP's more popular DJs, and the music director of the station. He was on in the afternoons and was one of Brandmeier's earlier targets to have fun with. Not pick on, playfully poke at as you would with a good friend. Like saying, on the air, that Goddard was impotent, and at one time, dead.

In a rare afternoon appearance, Brandmeier sat in for Goddard. "I went on the air and said, 'I feel so bad about this, but, I was called from my home, and I felt it was my duty to come in here and sit in for a guy who was a good friend of mine," at this point Brandmeier broke up as if he was going to cry, "And now Steve Goddard is dead."

" There were people calling up," Brandmeier continued, "A girl said she's pulled over to the side of the road crying. He's (Goddard) at home just with a little sore lip, and now he's dead."

It always got on Goddard's wife's nerves with the things Brandmeier would say, but if they really bothered Goddard himself he never publicly let on. When Brandmeier needed a guitar player for his band Goddard was there until the last concert.

Brandmeier not only played the songs, he also recorded them. Nowadays all morning DJs make their own parodies for their shows. Back in 1981 it was still a rare thing. And when you hear DJs sing you know why they are introducing the hits, and not recording them. Most of them have no musical talent whatsoever.

Brandmeier wasn't just a wacky DJ, he was also a talented musician. He could actually play the drums, guitar, and sing well. He spent many years in the '70s playing around Wisconsin in Brandy, a band he formed with his brothers. He could write excellent parodies, and his own original songs, too.

The first song that introduced Brandmeier's musical talent was "Dead Donkeys." Probably a left-over from his last morning gig, but who cares. It fit perfectly in Arizona since it was about an Air Force base near the Grand Canyon that took care of its problem of burros wandering into the runway by shooting them.

A parody of Loudon Wainwright III's "Dead Skunk" about killing harmless animals might seem morbid and in really bad taste, but Brandmeier made it funny by taking the side of the poor animals, and focusing on the military's problem-solving skills of just shooting something dead.

Brandmeier's band, Johnny & His Leisure Suits, got its name from the popular fashion of Phoenix's retirement community Sun City. He and Goddard recorded Leisure Suits songs with a local band named Destiny. The Rolling Stones parody "Mick Jagger (What Makes Your Lips So Big?)" came about a month later, and an original composition called "Just Havin' Fun."

"Just Havin' Fun" was Brandmeier's theme song. It explained himself, his show, and included a short list of the regular call-in characters.

From hour one, people who called were not only put on the air, but encouraged to call. Something that got him in trouble at previous radio stations.

"I was putting phone callers on the air," Brandmeier said, "and they (the radio station) didn't want them on the air. They didn't want to hear the audience. It was 'play the hits and shut up'. That's the way radio's become. "

In addition to Brandmeier's humor, and his songs, it was this audience participation that would help him become the state's number one personality, and he tripled KZZP's ratings within weeks.

The calls coming in weren't like today's talk radio callers filled with paranoid right-wing nutball conspiracy kooks claiming the government is setting us up for apocalyptic devastation. Yes, these people were insane, but in a good way, which added to the funny unpredictability of the show. Besides not knowing what Brandmeier was going to do, you didn't know what bits the audience had planned for the show.

After a couple of weeks of this it all lead to a name the audience would proudly adopt.

"There's a bunch of amazing, amazing people out there," Brandmeier said, "One day I just said, "You guys are Loons. You're Loons." I don't know why. And all of a sudden I said, "This isn't the Valley of the Sun, it's the Valley of the Loons." And it just stuck."

Some Loons called so much they became a regular part of the show.

One of the first people to make a regular appearance was no Loon at all.

Brandmeier's first targets were snowbirds, and deservedly so. This helped make Arizona natives love Brandmeier instantly, because people who live here hate the damn snowbirds.

For those who don't live in this state snowbirds are people who come from the Midwest, and East Coast to live in Phoenix from October to March. They are mostly retired people who drive 35 miles per hour below the speed limit.

Brandmeier would talk about what a pain these snowbirds were and the rules for hunting them during snowbird season. He didn't advocate gunplay; one of the rules was that when you bag a snowbird you take a picture with them, tag them, then set them free.

Today, of course, people would really do that. Back then, though, people had enough sense not to just blindly follow the words of a crazy disc jockey.

Except for one person who felt threatened by Brandmeier's "Go Home, Snowbirds" stance. He became known as Mr. Snowbird. A very angry senior citizen male who threatened to kill Brandmeier if he kept up this anti-Snowbird attitude. "I'll blow you away when I come back in town,"he'd say.

Whether it was a real snowbird who hated Brandmeier, or just a very well-done bit by a listener, was, and still is unknown. But there is one question that has to be asked: Why would a male senior citizen be listening to an adult-contemporary/Top 40 Rock radio station when there's a fully functional "Music Of Your Life" station?

Roscoe came along within the first couple of weeks of Brandmeier's show. He was a pimp who sounded like he stepped right out of a bad '70s Blackslpotation movie. Roscoe's true cultural heritage was revealed by himself at the last live breakfast show on December 17, 1982. Even though Roscoe sounded, and acted black on the show, in real life he was far from black. Way on the other side of black. The negative of black. If you developed him on photographic paper you'd discover that he was actually white. That didn't stop him from doing his bit, though. Roscoe called up until the final show.

The Complaining Loon became a completely different character. The Complaining Loon would call, and, well, complain. Around December 1981 he created a different character. One who had all the inside dirt on Hollywood. By February 1982 The Complaining Loon disappeared, and became Mr. Hollywood.

Mr. Hollywood was an obnoxious, playboy type who acted as if he was better than everyone else in Arizona simply because he was from Beverly Hills, and not only was he a friend to the stars, but he also claimed to have slept with a lot of them. He constantly insulted the Loons by calling them "Cactus Heads." Mr. Hollywood was the man Loons loved to hate. Some exceedingly so.

When Mr. Hollywood did a stand-up comedy act to open for a Leisure Suits concert on November 24, 1982 he was not only loudly booed off, but someone also threw a plastic baggy of dog poop at him.

There was Julie. Brandmeier's 13 year-old ex-girlfriend who couldn't get over him. (She was actually much older than 13.)

Waldo Garrison, a former football player who now did ads for chewing tobacco. Waldo didn't stop at chewing tobacco... During a Party Animal Hotline he called in to say, "I'm goin' down to San Diego and I'm gonna stick anything I can find between my cheek and gum."

At the last breakfast show he took an entire sweet roll and put it between his cheek and gum. "Laid back smokeless pleasure."

And speaking of putting things between your cheek and gum, there was Paul McDermon's excellent impersonation of Liberace. The endless supply of homoerotic innuendo made it a constantly funny bit. Liberace admitted that he had a hand in thrusting Mr. Hollywood's career along.

The best character was the Ayatollah Granola. When Bani Sadr disappeared in the summer of 1981 Brandmeier said he had him tied up in his closet. On July 2 the Ayatollah came from Iran to negotiate for Sadr's release . A few weeks later Brandmeier released him by putting Sadr in a dress, tying him to milk cartons and floating him down the Salt River. A few weeks later Sadr turned up in France.

But the Ayatollah didn't go away after that. He stayed in America to get big bucks, and "woman with big American breasts." And Brandmeier was always ready to help him with all sorts of advice on how to make it in America.

In December 1981 Brandmeier sent him to New York to audition for Bryant Gumbel's spot at NBC's NFL Today. He told the Ayatollah that the best way to get the attention of the talent agents was to lie in the middle of the sidewalk, or on a subway platform, in full Iranian robes, with a hundred dollar bill on his forehead. "That means," Brandmeier told him, "You're a big spender, and your real relaxed, and you'll be relaxed on TV."

Brandmeier's tax advice was just as useful in April 1982. Some of his tax tips were if the Ayatollah lost an arm or leg in the last year the I.R.S. would help him find it. To claim the auto license tax, Granola should sew a bumper onto his camel's rear. And if he gave Brandmeier $1,000 he could claim it as a donation to charity and the I.R.S. would give him $1,000 back.

And in February 1983, during a violent trucker strike, Brandmeier advised Granola that if he really wanted to make the big bucks he came to America for he should get himself a diesel rig, write in big letters on the side,"I am an independent Iranian trucker, and I will never strike." Plus paint a giant middle finger on the back of the truck. He told Granola it was the trucker's peace symbol and it means he's on their side. Then charge people three times what it normally costs to ship their cargo.

When Granola called from different truck stops he told Brandmeier that many truckers gave him the peace sign back.

Whoever this guy was he was a comedic genius, and a brilliant actor. You know that the Ayatollah Granola is just a bit, but he did it so well, that it just doesn't seem like an act. New York could be heard when he called. Subways, trouble-making punks, Hare Krishna's, and even a prostitute asking him, "Which way to the V.D. clinic?" There was the long distance fuzz on the phone. Was it just a record ("The Sounds of New York")in the background, with some of his friends singing, yelling, and asking for V.D. clinics? Or did he really go to New York to make the calls?

Not every Loon disappeared after Brandmeier left. Some went on to bigger things.

William Carmichael was working at a Milano's music store when Brandmeier came to town. It wasn't long before this talented musician started calling the show. EVERY DAY. Each time he called he would sing Brandmeier a parody he wrote. He went by a different name on the air, though.

Willy de Loon was like a parody PEZ dispenser. Just cock his head back and he would spit out one fresh parody after another.

"Neat thing about Willy," Brandmeier said, "was (he was) always on the phone. All the time. And I couldn't hang up on him enough, and so he got to be a regular part of the show. And the song that he wrote has become a national anthem."

One November morning in 1981 Willy called in with another one of his parodies. This one of The Little River Band's "Night Owls" called "The Snowbird Song." Brandmeier loved the song so much that he got together with Willy and finished writing it.

They went into a studio and recorded it with Willy singing lead.

It was released as a single a month later and sold 15,000 copies in Phoenix. The $4,500 the record made went to charity. Willy became a member of The Leisure Suits and recorded many more songs with the band including "Leave It To Beaver," and "Hanky's Tune" (about Brandmeier's mother.)

After Brandmeier left, Willy played saxophone with a few very popular local bands until late 1988.

Another old Loon had his own radio morning show. Tim Hattrick listened to Brandmeier every day, and he became a DJ in Flagstaff in 1983. He worked at many different stations in Phoenix over the years, and did a morning show with one of Brandmeier's fun-poking targets, Phoenix radio legend Bill Heywood, in 1987.

By the end of 1988 Hattrick had lost another morning show partner, and he did the show by himself. That Christmas week Hattrick was giving away Loon Gift Packs. They included WLUP Brandmeier T-shirts, and the new Leisure Suits concert video. Hattrick ended the week by having a big Loon guest on the show.

On December 23, 1988 Willy de Loon joined Hattrick simply as a one-time guest. It quickly became a regular thing, and Tim & Willy became popular morning DJs.

Things really picked up in 1992 when they stopped working at Top 40 stations, and moved on to Phoenix Country stations. They became the number one morning show in the state, and won Country music awards as the best Country DJs in the country.

Tim & Willy currently work out of KNIX (102.5 FM) in Phoenix, but the show is syndicated in six different cities, and is expanding. And they're still the number one radio personalities in Arizona. The most famous, and yet unknown Loon goes by many different names. Jingleboy, Johnny Chimes, and Richard Cheese. His birth name, though, is Mark Jonathan Davis.

Mark called in a lot as Rosanne Rosanneadanna and Floyd The Barber. He also got together with his friends Rick Piester and Steve Gram to form the band Heav-O, although "band" is a very generous description of the group. They didn't play any instruments; they just sang over the record they were parodying.

Besides calling in, people were also encouraged to send in tapes. Most of them were funny songs, and parodies people out in the audience recorded at home. Sound, and talent quality didn't matter. If you sent in a "Wacky Weeny" tape, Brandmeier would play it.

Heav-O's first song (which made its debut on October 22, 1982) was a parody of REO Speedwagon's "Don't Let Him Go" called "Makemup Asyago." It was about how all of REO's songs are not only boring, but also sound the same.

After Brandmeier left in 1983, Mark carried on with the Loon spirit. He got jobs at radio stations, and co-wrote a few more parodies for KZZP DJ's that followed Brandmeier, including the local hit "Rock Me Jerry Lewis" in 1986, and the parody of "I Want Your Sex" called "I Want Your Socks" which he co-created with his musical collaborator Rob "Iceman" Izenberg in 1987.

Eventually he got a radio job in L.A. where things really took off. Like Willy, Mark was a parody PEZ dispenser. NBC recognized this talent and in the mid å90s hired him to write, record, and sing songs for the commercials of their sitcoms. This led people at NBC to nickname him "Jingle Boy," although in press releases he was identified as "Johnny Chimes."

His non-NBC related parodies were played on Dr. Demento under his real name. The most popular of them was his parody of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana" called "Star Wars Cantina."

He was also hired by Disney to help name, and provide voices for some of the rides at Disneyland's new park, Disney's California Adventure.

He's also been on MTV to perform songs from his new CD ,Lounge Against The Machine as Richard Cheese. Richard, a lounge lizard, hipster doofus, takes popular songs, like Radiohead's "Creep" and turns them into swingin' tunes you might hear performed by a hack at a Las Vegas lounge.

Davis says his Cheese character was inspired by Brandmeier. "The minute I saw Johnny and the Leisure Suits performing in concert, I wanted to be a rock star. Performing as Richard Cheese has allowed me to live out the fantasy that Johnny planted in my brain. It's a full loon circle."

Other highlights in his career were guest spots on NBC's NewsRadio, voice-overs in different cartoons, a hatred of The Phantom Menace, a love of Legos, and his left nipple bitten by Sheryl Crow.

Proof that not all Loons who recorded tapes in their bedroom singing parodies over records when they were 13, own a lot of Legos, love Star Wars, but hate The Phantom Menace wind up alone in their apartment writing big stories about Jonathon Brandmeier for their obscure underground newspaper.

Brandmeier had a vast supply of regular bits that involved people just calling him up and being creative. The Loons rarely disappointed.

Trading Post mocked a popular feature at small town radio stations called "Tradio." Tradio was basically a free want ad. People would call to say they were selling a car, giving cats away, or had lawn furniture for sale. Loons calling in to Trading Post were a little more creative. The things they had to buy, sell, or trade were things like a Black & Decker electric nose picker, a nuclear powered toothbrush, and a pair of Hostess cupcakes used for amorous purposes.

There were Loon Lines, Party Animal Hotlines (where people would call up and say what they were doing for the weekend.)

The most popular of these lines was "The Shove It Line."

Taking inspiration from Johnny Paychecks' song "Take This Job And Shove It" the "Shove it Line" (a Friday feature) consisted of people calling up, saying where the worked, and telling them to shove it. For example, "The Loon News, take this job and SHOOOOOVE ITTTT!!!!!"

Some people were even fired when an employer heard their employee telling them to shove it.

Brandmeier hasn't done the bit since the, late'80s, and I can't help but notice the correlation between the discontinuation of the "Shove It Line" and the rise in workplace violence...

Besides live Leisure Suits concerts, Brandmeier also did morning shows in front of a live audience.

"I like to keep it real close," Brandmeier said of doing these shows, "I like to keep the people in as close to me as we can. So I can run around the audience with that mic."

The first "Breakfast With Brandmeier" was held on September 25, 1981 at the Playboy Club. Brandmeier and KZZP were shocked by the number of Loons who turned out for it at 5:30 A.M.

"The Playboy Club was the very first breakfast show we'd ever done," Brandmeier said, "and we never expected the turn-out we had. It only held 150 people. There was a line all the way downtown. "

At this breakfast show Brandmeier auctioned off DeeDee, the illegitimate daughter he had with Lady Diana in 1980, before she married Prince Charles.

There were four of these breakfast shows during Brandmeier's stay. The most famous of these happened on April 2, 1982.

Back in November Brandmeier discovered the whereabouts of a well-adjusted child star from one of his favorite TV shows.

On November 24, 1981 he called KEZY in Anaheim, California where Jerry Mathers (as The Beaver in Leave It To Beaver) was working as a DJ.

He didn't get a hold of him that day, but Brandmeier is persistent to the point of obsession sometimes. Eventually he did talk to Mathers and they hit it right off.

Mathers flew out to Phoenix on March 30, 1982, and they did the show from The Ramada Townhouse, where one of the most famous events in Loon history happened.

It was just another call to Brandmeier's mother Hanky until he asked, "Do you remember when we used to watch Leave It To Beaver?"

Mathers got on the phone and Hanky almost fainted...uh, I mean, passed out, when she found out she was talking the Beaver.

Brandmeier's second Rolling Stones parody was of "Start Me Up," which asked "Did The Stones Show Up?" For the first time since 1969 The Stones would show up in Phoenix. Being such a big fan of the band Brandmeier badly wanted to open up with The Leisure Suits for The Rolling Stones.

While he was big in Phoenix, local bands don't usually open up for Rock legends playing to over 70,000 fans. Added to that was that another radio station was the "official Stones station," and KUPD certainly didn't want KZZP's morning man (who had a 14 share of the ratings, while KUPD's morning man had a 1.4 share) appearing at its show.

So Brandmeier had a lot of work to do if he wanted to get on stage with The Rolling Stones.

Petitions were circulated in November 1981, and in less than a week nearly 10,000 people signed it to let Johnny & His Leisure Suits open up for The Rolling Stones. This got the attention of the promoter.

The President of Feyline Productions, Barry Fey, was in town the week of the concert, and Brandmeier found out where he was staying. He called, waking him up, begging Fey to come on his show and witness the power of the Loons.

Fey came in on December 11, 1981 and answered calls from Loons asking him to let John be one of the opening acts.

After the phone calls Brandmeier and Fey went into KZZP's parking lot where they were greeted by a crowd of Loons. Men in dresses, people with underwear on their heads, sheep, a Loon who sang "The Snowbird Song" in Spanish while snorting Jell-O, another wearing only underwear. All were chanting "Let Johnny Play!"

Fey was impressed with Brandmeier's ability to pull in a crowd, and said if it was up to him ,he'd have let The Leisure Suits on. But Fey didn't have the last word on the line-up for the concert.

In the end Brandmeier did appear at The Rolling Stones concert. But as a member of the audience. After the show he said he was glad he didn't get to open up. He would've had a major attack of stage fright to perform in front of more than 75,000 people. (The largest audience for a Leisure Suits show was about 10,000 at the 1982 State Fair.)

Even though he couldn't get Brandmeier with The Rolling Stones, Fey had such a good time with him that he promised to let The Leisure Suits open up for the next big concert to come to town.

He fulfilled that promise when The Beach Boys played on February 27, 1982.

Being the most popular personality in the state, mixed with bits like this, it's easy to see why Brandmeier was in the newspaper a lot. But one time he went from the Entertainment section to the front page.

During the Summer of 1982 Shake Mohammed al-Fassi, a rich oil sheik, ran up a $1.5 million hotel tab, and didn't pay it.

Brandmeier wanted to talk to him, but as you can expect, a Phoenix disc jockey had trouble getting to a billion dollar sheik. When he finally did get through to someone who worked for al-Fassi Brandmeier made the mistake of asking for "the Sheik."

"You do not say the sheik!!!" al-Fassi's assistant yelled at Brandmeier, "You say his excellency Dr. Shake Mohammed al-Fassi!!!"

Despite that very rude beginning Brandmeier kept calling. After a few weeks he got through to friendlier people, and developed a good relationship with the Shake, even though he once called him an "Arabian Bonehead."

After getting the Loons on NBC's Real People for about 15 seconds in late July Brandmeier got a message from the Shake's spokesman Ali LaGune. Brandmeier wanted to do a morning show from the Everglades Hotel near the Shakes Miami palace.

During the call it went from being a show at the hotel, to doing it from inside the Shake's palace.

On August 2, 1982 Brandmeier, along with KZZP's newsman Paul Talbot, and two listeners, broadcast live from the Shake's Uzi and M-16 heavily-fortified Florida estate.

During the last 20 minutes of the show, al-Fassi came down for an interview, where Brandmeier officially invited him and his entourage to visit Phoenix. al-Fassi accepted, and a few weeks later he called to say he'd be in town next week with Mohammed Ali, with checks for Phoenix and its surrounding cities for $40,000 each. But first, there were a few things he wanted for his visit. A police escort to and from the airport, and to meet with all the mayors.

Brandmeier worked feverishly in that short time to get the mayors and escort. He even tried to get Mayor McCheese, and the real Mayor of Munchkinland from The Wizard of Oz. Talbot suggested the mayor of Mayor, Arizona.

When the Shake arrived on August 18 he was greeted with no police escort, and the only mayor who showed up to meet him at the airport was Dennis Prince, the 81 year-old, 3 foot, 11 inch tall Mayor of Munchkinland. "I didn't get to see the Sheik," said Prince, mayor and true Loon, "But I shook Johnny's (Brandmeier) hands."

Because the police were out doing other things, like like enforcing the law instead of smooching the butt of a spoiled rich guy, and the mayors didn't show up, al-Fassi and his troop trashed the rooms they were staying in at the Pointe Resort.

"The house was an absolute mess after he left, "Bob Brooks, Pointe vice president said in a 1982 Arizona Republic story, "It appears that the sheik and his people had a food fight and towel fight in the house.

"They scattered food and plates throughout the house. Don't ask me what the sheik did with the towels."

al-Fassi took his checks, and left town. Brandmeier immediately got the blame for the mess, even though he made many calls on the air to the mayors, and police asking them to be there. He was the subject of a Republic editorial that said, "Arrangements for his visit were made by a radio disc jockey, who apparently knows more about rock and roll than protocol."

Is it John's fault none of the mayors believed him?

Brandmeier was one of the biggest things to hit Phoenix radio. Too big for Phoenix in the early '80s. Thinking a city the size of Phoenix could keep someone as popular Brandmeier is kind of like containing The Beatles in Rhode Island.

The deal was made in August, and word got out in the October 30, 1982 Arizona Republic. Jonathon Brandmeier was leaving KZZP at the end of his contract on March 31, 1983 to start at WLUP in Chicago.

Loons were distraught. Mornings were boring and something to be dreaded before Brandmeier came to town. Knowing you'd be waking up to Johnny in the Morning made hauling yourself out of bed much less painful.

Now, in April, it was back to boring, tedious, routine.

Preparing for the departure of its number one rating boost, KZZP started making some changes in September 1982. They started to ease from an adult contemporary format to an all-top 40 one. It was becoming one of those synthetic stations whose spine flaps in the breeze of whatever the latest trend is.

Where before Brandmeier had total creative freedom for his show, now things were going to change. Some of these rules (he ignored) were: no talking after the news, don't put as many callers on the air, play more music, and play less Leisure Suits songs.

The management made it intolerable for him to work at KZZP. Many times on the air he said how great it would be if the station let him go. "Jonathon Brandmeier, fulfilling contractual obligations on KZZP," he once said during an I.D.

The "Farewell To The Loons" concert on February 8, 1983 was the farewell from Johnny & The Leisure Suits. The last concert from the band. Brandmeier was still contracted to do his morning show at KZZP until March 31.

The last concert was held where the first Leisure Suits show was. That first show at Fiesta Mall in October 1981 brought in about 4,000 Loons. This final show packed the mall.

When Brandmeier got to the line in his closing theme song, "And until I get a better offer..." he paused and said, "Oh, I don't like this. Do I have to? This is not only the last show by the Leisure Suits, what you heard this morning was my last radio show in the Valley."

Shock filled the audience. Women cried. Men yelled in disbelief. (Honest to goodness! I've got the video tape.)

"No matter what happens," he continued, "Don't ever lose the Loon in you. These are my last few words: Later."

The band played his theme song while he ran around the stage, touching Loons' hands. At one point security had to jump in and grab him back from being pulled into the audience. He waved goodbye and ran off the stage.

A week later he started at WLUP, but not for long. Because of that whole breach-of-contract thing, KZZP filed an injunction against Brandmeier which kept him off the air until his contract with KZZP expired.

On April 1, 1983 Brandmeier went back on the air and stayed at WLUP for 15 years.

Brandmeier said of his two years at KZZP, "I did not realize what would happen in Phoenix. It was just an unbelievable, beneficial thing. To come into a town like this that I'd never even stepped foot in, I had never even been in Phoenix, Arizona until the day I went on the air, and have this happen was an amazing thing. "

When John said,"Don't ever lose the Loon in you," I quietly said to myself, "I never will."

Until 1981 my only idol was Charles Schulz. It was because of him that I wanted to become a cartoonist. But he was just a cartoonist. Brandmeier was a good DJ, and a talented musician. He showed me that you don't have to pick just one thing and do that. After he came to town I started doing more than just tooning, and a little writing. I started working on my own songs, recording fictional radio shows and starting The Loon News with Mike.

I would've discovered this other stuff even without Brandmeier. Mike Sortino's diverse creative genius was a big influence on my creative genius. Paul McCartney showed me that you can play more than just one instrument. But Brandmeier was the spark in a gas-filled room of creativity who came at the right time.

Had he came earlier, I would've been too young to care. If he came later I would've been asleep when his show was on. He added so much to those syrupy wonder years from age 12-14 that Daniel Stern narrates. (although, James Earl Jones does my narrating. Sounds much more ominous when he says, "That's when I had my first wet dream.")

It's more than just nostalgia. I can get nostalgic listening to Men At Work and watching Fast Times At Ridgemont High. But it feels hollow.

Brandmeier was good. Like Star Wars.

Even after the thousandth listening 20 years later he's still funny and entertaining.

As of April 7, 2001 I have over 120 hours of his KZZP show on CD, with more coming in, and I still identify myself as a Loon. I made a promise in 1983 to never lose the Loon in me.

Copyright © 2002 The LoonMedia Company. AudioVisual content Copyright © 2002 Brandmeier Productions, Inc. Used by courtesy of Magnetic Media.com

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