So Long, Big Guy
• Gerald “Jerry” Blum, former President and GM of former legendary Atlanta Top 40 powerhouse 790 WQXI-AM and FM (94Q), and the inspiration for the character of GM Arthur “Big Guy” Carlson on WKRP In Cincinnati, died Saturday, Feb. 16 at the age of 86. Blum’s son Gary told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his father died of congestive heart failure Saturday morning.
Blum ran WQXI from 1960 to 1989 and what is now WSTR (Star 94.1) from 1967 until 1989. At the time, WQXI was known as “Quixie from Dixie” and drew huge ratings, back when people primarily listened to AM radio. “He was still brash, still in your face,” said Rob Stearns, who worked in sales at WQXI & 94Q toward the end of Blum’s run in the late ’80s. “He was an old-school guy. He was a fighter. He wanted to crush the competition. He had a very charismatic way. Always surrounded himself with the best talent and best people. A real strategic guy. Nothing could constrain him. He wanted everything big. That’s where his ‘Big Guy’ nickname came from.”
Among WQXI’s most notable promotions under Blum included the “Ramblin’ Raft Race” on the Chattahoochee River that ran from 1969 to 1980 and the “Light Up Atlanta Festival” in the early ’80s. “His philosophy was to bite off more than you can chew, then swallow it,” Gary Blum said. “Raft Race day became the No. 1 beer sales day of the year in the state of Georgia. And he cordoned off blocks of downtown for Light Up Atlanta. He knew how to throw a party and make a promotion happen.” Former WQXI morning host Gary McKee said both events ended in part because they became too crazy and too popular.
Hugh Wilson, the creator of WKRP In Cincinnati was a former Atlanta ad agency rep and knew firsthand of Blum’s antics, incorporating some of them into the show’s episodes, including the series’ most infamous episode — Turkeys Away — which first aired October 30, 1978, and focused on a promotional idea WKRP‘s Carlson came up with for Thanksgiving Day: give away turkeys by throwing them out of a helicopter.
As we all know by now, the turkeys came crashing down to earth as an increasingly horrified Les Nessman provided the play-by-play. Noting that the turkeys were hitting the ground “like sacks of wet cement,” Nessman cited the famous Hindenburg line, “Oh, the humanity!” That now legendary promotion was inspired by a much less horrific turkey giveaway Blum did in the late ’50s at KBOX/Dallas when he dropped turkeys off a flatbed pickup truck in a shopping center parking lot. “The public went nuts fighting over the turkeys and it was a mess,” Blum said. In 1996 Blum told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that his father actually uttered the words, “I didn’t know turkeys couldn’t fly,” similar to Carlson’s words on the show. Blum was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame in 2007.
