Steve Bedwell recalls his craziest radio pranks

Steve Bedwell has recalled the wild days of radio when the crazier the antics the higher the ratings and no stunt was too over the top.

Sacked Showbiz: Steve Bedwell

Steve Bedwell has told of the wild days of FM radio when no stunt was too over the top and no prank too crazy.

Bedwell and Tim Smith hosted The Squirrel Grippers show which ran from 9am-noon on Triple M in 1997 and was a ratings hit.

“We had a monkey in the studio at one stage,” Bedwell told the Herald Sun Sacked: Showbiz podcast.

Tim Smith and Steve Bedwell from their time at Triple M.

“We thought ‘let’s get a monkey in’ and we were told, the monkey trainer said, ‘don’t look him in the eye. That is a threat and he will attack you.’

“How monkey’s attack you is they rip your nuts off so that you can’t make any more of you. “That is their thinking, that is monkey thinking.”

“We had huge workplace listening, giant, (and were) going out to companies and having a barbecue at lunchtime. We went to Fisher & Paykel and had a smash-up derby with their little scooter things. It was a great year.”

Bedwell said management turned a blind eye to their crazy antics because they were “watching the numbers come in.”

“They thought it was great. We were being lined up for breakfast so I think they knew come breakfast we could not quite be as out there as we were in mornings,” he said.

“It used to be like making an American tonight show but doing a show on radio.

“It would be something like Conan (O’Brien) would do. We would head for those sorts of things.

“The freedom of 9am - 12pm, if you are a creative person, is fantastic. (With) the workplace listening you can do what you want and get away with anything because people will just listen.

“They will go for the alternative at that time of the day and there really isn’t one at the moment, there is no real entertainment 9am - 12pm shift anywhere.”

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