ROGER ALDI (KHJ News Reporter): "I was in my early twenties working the bottom of the KHJ job ladder in the 20-man news department. One day in early '65 a tall gentleman walked in and declared, 'we are now a rock and roll radio station. News means nothing to me except the FCC makes me include it, so we're gonna make it the best news presentation we can.' I asked someone who that was and they said, 'He's a new program consultant, Bill Drake.'"
MITCH FISHER (KHJ Promotion Director, 1967-68): "In April 1965, I got a call from Ron Jacobs, who had just been sprung from the Honolulu hoosegow after serving 30 days for some trumped up setup involving his being rousted at the airport on his return from Hong Kong for possession of .003 milligrams of marijuana. After a year back in Hong Kong and a month in the slammer, Jacobs, his first wife and a Kowloon alley cat left his hometown within 24 hours of his release and returned to the West coast. They parked in a cheap motel near the L. A. International airport. Jacobs was feeling deflated after his recent experiences. I had read in the trades that Jacobs' Fresno competitor and nemesis, Bill Drake, was getting ready to program KHJ."
BILL DRAKE (Partner, Drake-Chenault Consultancy): "Let's face it, Ron Jacobs is a hell of a radio man. I love Ron. As far as a program director he was the best I'd ever come up against and he's still the best I've ever seen."
MITCH FISHER (KHJ Promotion Director, 1967-68): "I browbeat Jacobs to call Drake. I insisted that the two of them would make a great team. Jacobs was stubborn and afraid of rejection. His self-esteem was in the gutter. He finally gave in and called Drake, convinced that his call would be refused. The opposite happened. A quick meeting was set up with Drake and his partner, Gene Chenault. Robert W. Morgan picked up Jacobs and drove through a rare Los Angeles rainstorm and dropped him at restaurant on La Cienaga Boulevard. And the rest is Rock and Roll Radio History."
ROBERT W. MORGAN (Original KHJ Boss Jock): "I sat outside in my Volkswagen for three hours with the car parked in an emergency area because I didn't have enough gas to drive around the block. Jacobs walked in the restaurant as my friend and came out as my boss."
BETTY BRENEMAN (KHJ Music Director): "I had worked at KHJ as music librarian since 1959. Many formats had come and gone. In April 1965 the previous PD, Don Otis, called me into his office in front, right off the lobby. This later became Ron Jacobs' office. Don kept it much neater, by the way. There was never anything on his desk besides the obligatory phone, intercom and desk calendar. Oh yes, there was always a pen to the right of the middle of the desk slanted at the precise angle ready to be picked up. There were none of the stacks of papers, calendars, charts, colored marking pens, records, photos, L.A. Rams stuff, etc., etc. that were to become part of the landscape of that office when Ron took over as PD. And believe me, things changed and happened much faster."
ART ASTOR (KHJ Sales Manager): "The whole thing came together for me when I heard the Johnny Mann jingles. I'm getting aroused, getting goose bumps--I mean, my God; this is going to be a killer! I knew it was going to be great by listening to some of the things that Ron Jacobs, Bill Mouzis and Robert W. Morgan were putting together. It was like poetry in motion. I'll never forget being in there when they were making a promo. Jacobs was slamming the damn steel cabinet because he wanted it just right and Mouzis is doing his thing, cutting and editing and stuff, and Morgan's great voice. When they finished the promo they cut a spec spot for a Beverly Hills retailer. I thought, man, this sounds like J. Walter Thompson did it in New York. When I took it to the guy he was going to buy two weeks and I said, "You either buy 26 or I'm not going to give you this spot." The guy went ape and went 26 weeks right away."
BILL MOUZIS (KHJ Production Engineer): "We thought about things pretty damn meticulous in those days. Morgan and I came up with the word 'Strassman.' I'll never know, frankly. But we had to identify an anticipatory unit of measurement of when to come in with a production element, how a voice would come in and when it would come in. It had to be right on the money. If it was off you may not notice it, but we would notice it. 'You're off a Strassman on that, Morgan, we're going to have to redo it.' That's how that was born. People asked 'What the hell is a Strassman?' It's not an ohm, it's not a volt, it's not an ampere--but that's what the thing was, the immeasurable amount of how far it was off. Could a Strassman only be handled with a razor blade? Oh, today I'm sure you could do an electronic Strassman, yeah."
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