KNT's.alleged history
A Brief History of KNT Radio
For a historical review of stations that once bore the government-issued call letters "KNT," please click here. To review our history ... well, please proceed on this page at your own risk. (!)
Disclaimer
If you've come to this page intending to get the low-down on how KNT's producers and DJs got started in creating this awful mess, we offer this completely unauthorized, unverified and ALLEGED "history" for your review. Bonefied news journalists and historians who are looking for a confirmed source need to keep looking, because we can't find anyone who will admit to any of this stuff having ever taken place. (But we're not officially denying it, either.)
In the beginning ...
KNT was an accident.
What eventually turned into the KNT Entertainment Network actually began as a "letter on tape," sent from one Air Force G.I. to another back in early-1979. Just a guy with a microphone and a tape deck who had nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon than record some goofy stuff for his friend on the other side of the world.
Kelly (the instigator) and Mike (the overzealous co-conspirator) soon began exchanging tapes, which quickly morphed from eclectic content into material that appealed to others who fell victim to it when it blasted forth from Kelly's and Mike's stereo speakers. Kelly's second tape featured what would become KNT's first original radio parody, along with fake call letters that eventually became "KNUT." Mike named his … uh … station, "KANT" (borrowed from an old George Carlin comedy routine), and with these two "stations" the KNT Entertainment Network was born … albiet premature and in dire need of serious medical attention.
Within a few months, the personal messages on the tapes took a backseat to a series of fake commercials and ridiculous "disk jockey" banter. To give you an idea of the level of ignorance in place at the time (and the fact that it didn't stop them from forging ahead), one day Mike wondered how real DJs managed to blend the end of one song over the start of another, while being able to talk at the same time. This led to his amazement upon discovering something called a "mixer:" a device that facilitated much of Mike's overflowing enthusiasm, but unfortunately was useless in improving the actual content of his shows.
In order to add variety, both Kelly and Mike soon began creating characters to fill certain roles during the shows. About a half-dozen became regulars (who still pop in from time to time), with another dozen or so occasionally appearing in bit parts.
Jumping on the bandwagon
Along with the created characters, there were also some actual humans who got caught in the "KNT vortex" as it grew. Mike's old friend Don came aboard in 1981, at first to assist Mike in a handful of shows, then later going on to create his own gig with "KRNT" (1981-1991). KRNT's format combined contemporary country-western with rock oldies, and introduced several comedic elements that went on to become KNT standards. Don was also the first to blend a montage of KNT characters and elements into a song (a parody of the Rick Dees song Disco Duck called Listening to KNT — 1982), and the first to experience a golfer playing through his studio in the middle of a show.
Others were blackmailed into participating volunteered to help out as well. Significant-others, unsuspecting friends who stopped by for a visit, and even co-workers at the hosts' day-jobs who didn't even know that KNT existed, found themselves suddenly thrust in front of a microphone and asked to say things (occasionally in strange voices) that they would never say in real-life. Over 20 victims enthusiastic volunteers participated in addition to the hosts. To date, none of them have sued.
(Sidebar: Doing a KNT show was a room-wrecking event, especially if creating sound effects was involved. Each finished minute averaged about 20 minutes of writing and production — a lot of work, especially considering that this was before digital audio became affordable for people like KNT's producers, who basically had no budget.)
Going live
KNT moved out of the living room and into its first nightclub in 1983, when Mike bluffed his way into a part-time job on a southern California Air Force base. The following year, Mike and Don collaborated to start their mobile DJ businesses: Mike's "KNT Sound Design" and Don's "KNT Juke Box," both of which became successful (if not exhausting) ventures for several years at the onset of the mobile DJ industry.
Don was the first to go live on commercial radio, appearing as a guest-host on Sacramento's (California) then-Number 1 morning drive music radio show, "The Morning Zoo" on KSFM-102 in December 1985. He quickly followed up as a board operator, then on-air host, at KAER in Sacramento, but didn't stay with the station when it changed formats and call letters. Instead, he continued his mobile DJ business and eventually reunited with Mike in 1994 for a year, where on alternate nights they hosted (and occasionally co-hosted) shows in one of Sacramento's most popular over-30 nightclubs at the time.
Prior to that, while Don was pursuing his radio dreams, Mike had auditioned for and been accepted by the Defense Information School to train as a broadcast journalist. He'd hoped to be one of a tiny number of people in the Air Force chosen for Armed Forces Radio, but the odds were hugely against him. His first attempt in 1983 failed before his application was even filed. The next window of opportunity opened in 1986, and that time he succeeded. Mike's first live broadcast was in Italy during the summer that year. He went on in later years to stations in Las Vegas and Sacramento, and eventually wound up as a state-certified instructor teaching radio and television production classes at National Broadcasting School in Sacramento.
Don retired from live DJ work in 1995 after 12 years, and Mike's 22-year run ended in 2005. Between them they did over 4,000 live shows throughout northern and southern California and southern Nevada, developing what would eventually become the foundation for the format that you'll hear on KNT Radio.
KNT's path to rebirth
In 2002, on a warm August night while surfing the Web, Mike discovered this cool new thing called "Internet Radio."
You might think that his first impulse would have been to fire up KNT again, but it wasn't. In fact, one of the first things he learned was that it isn't cheap to start up and run an Internet radio station. Composers, performers, and record labels need to be paid royalties and bandwidth isn't free. So, rather than pursuing a music format, he instead decided to test his skills at talk radio. By the end of the year, The Paradise Cafe' debuted as a feature on an Arizona network and ran until March 2003 -- the length of the test run that Mike had intended in order to learn about the new radio medium.
In 2004, Mike began working on plans for "The High Spirit Radio Network" — a single-channel format featuring profiles of interesting people and places, interspersed with music and comedy as parts of its on-demand lineup. He recruited two co-hosts, Kristi and Vic, and for the next several months they developed their presentation and archived several segments for future broadcast.
But life intervened again in the summer of 2005, when Mike relocated to Portland, Oregon for his youngest daughter's performing arts education. High Spirit Radio's plans were set aside, and as of this writing are being reconsidered from a different angle. (Stay tuned to this KNT station for updates.)
In 2006, Mike found himself reimagining KNT as an Internet comedy station geared for enjoyment by the general public (as opposed to eclectic humor that would leave the public scratching its collective head). It was then that he began transferring the original KNT material from cassette tapes to digital files, then separating the elements that were still "airable" from those that aren't. (Some would suggest that NONE of it is airable — especially Kelly, who produced the most airable material of all in KNT's early years … which is ironic, considering that he's the only original KNT host to never pursue a career in entertainment!)
Back to the future
Combining KNT's original comedy elements with new material currently in production, other comedy sources under contract, and a huge library of music developed over the last three decades has resulted in the massive library that serves as today's foundation for KNTRadio.Com.
The active voices you'll hear starting KNT's lineup this spring include Vic (recruited from High Spirit Radio to do liners and spots), Don (who's returned with new elements and narrates several of KNT's segue liners as well), Mike's daughter Kelli ("You're listening to KNT … why?"), and Mike as host for the majority of KNT's on-demand programming.
As to whether or not any of it is airable — we'll let you be the judge.
