freak show

Mikey and Big Bob with a guest at the Furry Convention

Michael Dougherty and Bob Mason have been hosting the 96.1 Kiss Morning Freak Show since 2004, and have accumulated a massive following of people of all ages, mostly young adults.  Better known as Mikey and Big Bob, the two have made some memories over the past several years of being radio show hosts and were able to share some of their stories.

  1. You two have been good friends since the age of ten. How do you think this has helped you two become good morning show hosts?

(Bob) The crappy thing about most morning shows is they usually take two or three people who don't know each other and put them together and expect them to be friends which doesn't always work. We honestly would be talking about most of the same stuff and trying to make each other laugh everyday even if we didn't have this job, the fact they pay us for it is a bonus.

(Mikey) We don't have the same arguments, grudges, jealousy that other morning shows might have because, when it comes down to it, we know that we were best friends before we had a radio show together so we don't let that change anything. We're family; even our Moms are best friends so it goes deeper than just our radio show for us.

  1. What was the process in becoming radio DJs? Is it something difficult to get into?

(Bob) I went to one semester of college and I dropped out. School just wasn't for me to be honest. So I went to broadcasting school and after about two months at broadcasting school, I had the chance to get an internship at a local radio station in the promotions department. I pretty much stayed at the station and worked for free 24 hours a day trying to learn everything and eventually got hired to work in the promotions department and then went on to be part of the night show.

(Mikey) I have the exact same story as Bob. We dropped out of college around the same time, went to broadcasting school together and got our first internships and jobs at the same station together. Radio is just like any other industry though, you have to work harder than anyone else if you want to succeed. It's like being an actor or actress, there's no one path that everyone takes to get on TV or in a movie, everyone has their own path. We just knew that once we got our foot in the door, the key was to just outwork everyone and eventually no one could deny us.

  1. Growing up near Detroit, would you ever expect to be DJing in Pittsburgh? What do you love most about Pittsburgh?

(Bob) Pittsburgh is home for me. We have a pretty awesome city. My parents still both live in Michigan but going back there feels like we are going to visit more than heading home.

(Mikey) Growing up, I never thought my life would have ended up like it has, but Pittsburgh is truly home now. We've lived here for basically our entire adult life now. It's like no other city in the world and you don't realize that until you've lived in Pittsburgh for a long time and then travel to other cities, they're just not Pittsburgh. This is our home.

  1. How old were you when you started? Were you nervous for your first shows?

(Bob) I was 19 and I am pretty sure I almost crapped my pants the first time I talked on the radio.

(Mikey) I was 18 and I can even remember driving around with Bob the first time we heard his voice on a promo for the station we worked at. I think he may have said the name of the station and that's it but we went NUTS like it was the best thing ever. The first time I ever sat behind a control board, my hands were shaking so bad I could barely press the buttons. I was just so afraid to make a mistake, I thought I would get fired if I pressed just ONE wrong button.

  1. You've been hosting the show since 2004, which is a very long time for a radio show. What do you contribute this long line of success to?

(Bob) Pretty much we sit in a room and try to make each other laugh every morning and somehow it has worked. We don't have the normal "2 guys and a girl" morning show. We don't have a producer or interns and we don't do a lot of the "fake" things that you hear on other morning shows. Which I think really helped us stand out.

(Mikey) We don't have egos. We just don't. Every single day we're so thankful to be doing what we do every morning. We don't take it for granted. You have to treat every day, every show like it's your first day on the air and your first show. That's what we do. The minute you start thinking you're better than the people listening to your show, you're done. We're still thankful every day that people like to listen to us every morning, that's what keeps the show alive and keeps us humble.

  1. What is the craziest thing that has ever happened on-air?

(Bob) I got arrested on air before by the state police. It's a longer story but the short version is I was on the side of the parkway wearing a mini skirt with a sign that says "Honk If You Can See My Nuts" when they took me to jail. The police were not amused. However we had an attorney that was listening that morning and he got me out of jail by the end of the show.

(Mikey) When we first started, we didn't like the desk in our office so one morning, Bob started to chainsaw it while we were onair. It wasn't like we were just playing chainsaw noises and 'acting' like it was happening, it was all real. The whole hallway smelled like gas from the chainsaw. Our boss came running in yelling at Bob while we were still on air. We came pretty close to getting fired that day.

  1. What time do you get up to go to work and what are your hours?

(Bob) My alarm goes off at 3:15am. I get to the station by 4 something and try to leave for the day by 1 or 2pm. The day doesn't stop there though; we are always updating the website and looking for things for the next show.

(Mikey) Our job, our show is just so far from a 9 to 5. Some people think we get in right before the show starts and leave right after it ends and it's a party the rest of the day. Not so much. Like Bob said before, it's just us….we have no producers, no interns, no sports guy, no entertainment reporter girl, no other sidekicks….it's just us so we're doing so much extra work for our show during all hours of the day that the listeners might not ever see or realize. Our show never ends and that's a good thing.

  1. Being such celebrities around Pittsburgh, you meet a lot of famous and important people. Who would you say was the most interesting person you met?

(Mikey) No lie, we met Jay Z one time at a show backstage and interviewed him and played him a version of his song 'Girls, Girls, Girls' that we had done our own version of about girls in the area. Looking back on it, it was probably horrible but he said it he liked it. So, we're watching the show from the area right in front of the stage and Jay Z HANDS the mic to Bob at the end of 'Girls, Girls, Girls' to finish the last lines of the song. It was an unreal moment. But, honestly…..Sally Wiggin is a goddess. She is one of the nicest people in the city of Pittsburgh and has become such a great friend of ours since we started our show. Sally Wiggin has been to my house for dinner before. That's a real thing that happened.

  1. Best place to eat in Pittsburgh?

(Bob) Burgatory

(Mikey) My favorite place to eat lately has been whenever I can catch any of the food trucks like the pierogi truck, the taco truck or the Nakama truck out somewhere. The food trucks are taking over the city!

  1. Who was your favorite caller on the show? What did they say?

(Bob) Eileen from Blawnox. She calls us every morning stays on hold pretty much the entire show. You never really know what she is going to say.

(Mikey) My favorite caller EVER to our show was President Clinton. We learned the night BEFORE he was going to call our show and just encourage people to go out and vote. We don't follow politics or anything and didn't even really know what election was going on at the time so we were asking him about random things like if he was excited the McRib sandwich was back at McDonalds. It was also right around the time when Lil Wayne was getting out of jail so we asked him what he thought about Weezy being free and he actually gave an amazing answer about how his daughter, Chelsea, got him listening to rap music in the 90's and how anyone that goes to jail and does their time deserves a second chance. It was impressive. The next thing we know, EVERYONE was covering President Clinton's 'message to Lil Wayne'. It made NBC, ABC, CBS News, MTV, every pop culture blog you can think of…we were even getting coverage from places as far as Australia and China from it.

  1. What was the craziest thing you've ever done?

(Mikey) We used to have something called 'The Betting Dollar' between us and a few friends that we would bet each other to do things for. It was really just a dollar with 'The Betting Dollar' written on it with a Sharpie. One time I pooped in a diaper for it. Another time I licked the entire escalator railing at the Pittsburgh Zoo for it.

(Bob) Check question 6.

  1. Has anything ever gone horribly wrong on-air?

(Mikey) Nothing too horrible, no. We've had some major equipment failures in the studio before but we just usually laugh at it and are just honest with our listeners about it. One time the entire studio wasn't working except the microphones. We couldn't play songs. We couldn't play commercials. So, we just talked for 45 minutes straight until the engineers could get us back up and running again. A lot of other morning shows probably would have had a meltdown, we just laughed at it and told everyone our studio blows and just blew up.

(Bob) Check question 6.

  1. . Favorite song in the past 10 years?

(Mikey) Fergie "Big Girls Don't Cry"

(Bob) Justin Bieber "Baby"….Isn't that everyone's?

(Mikey) I'm changing my answer to Justin Bieber "Baby"