‘Good Morning Vietnam’ DJon
air Monday
By Adrian McCoy FOR
MOST PEOPLE, “Good Morning Vietnam” is a Robin Williams movie
about a disc jockey who staged a one-man assault on the airwaves in
Vietnam. For others - those who served in that conflict — those three
words were a wakeup call in a strange land. The
film was based on the experiences of Adrian Cronauer, an Air Force
sergeant whose “Dawn Buster” program aired in the mid-’60s. Now
National Public Radio has decided to broadcast a sampling of the real
Cronauer’s show in a Veterans Day salute to Armed Forces Radio Services.
“Good Morning Vietnam 1991” was produced by NPR member station WETA-FM
in Washington, D.C., and airs Monday at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on WDUQ-FM. Except
for his rousing signature “Goood Mooorning Vietnam!” greeting,
the movie Cronauer is more Williams than Cronauer. If anything, expect the
real “Dawn Buster” to reflect the Wilkinsburg native’s roots. Cronauer
was heavily influenced by former Pittsburgh morning man Rege Cordic. “When
I grew up, Cordic owned morning radio in Pittsburgh. What he did was my
image of what a good morning show should be like. I did a lot of the
things he did. I used a lot of drop-ins. I had stock characters who
were prerecorded.” He
programmed a mix of top 40 songs and oldies designed to have a wide
appeal. “Good
Morning Vietnam 1991” will include music and commercials from his
original 6 to 9 a.m. air shift, his own reminiscences, interviews with
veterans and their reactions to Armed Forces Radio. Robin Williams will
introduce the show. Cronauer,
53, says the program has two target audiences. “For anybody who was there, it’ll be a bit of a nostalgia trip. For those who were not there, it will give them a better idea of what Armed Forces Radio was all about.” The
program will look at the role AFRS played in helping GIs overcome.
homesickness and culture shock. in foreign lands, especially Vietnam. “Most
of our listeners were young guys in their late teens and early 20s. Very
few of them had ever been outside of the United States. Many had never
been outside their own home town,” Cronauer says. “The Army came along
and literally picked these guys up, transported them halfway around the
world and dropped them into a totally alien environment. Sure,
culture shock is going to set in. “It
was our job to counteract that, to make them feel a little less like they
were totally away from home.” Cronauer
doesn’t have any air checks of his old broadcasts, but taped portions of
the shows - such as interviews, special features and commercials -
will be included. It
will feature an original folk song written by a vet - an ode to the
notoriously awful Vietnamese beer, whose brand name translates into
English as “33.” “There was a rumor that the stuff contained
formaldehyde,” Cronauer says. “The quality control was kind of lax. These
days, Cronauer is a communications attorney in. Washington, D.C.. His
radio career started here at the University of Pittsburgh. Cronauer waa
one of .the founders of Pitt’s radio station WPGH (now WPTS). The
school. gave the students a $250 grant to. build a transmitter. “We ‘cannibalized our parents’ stereo systems and put a station together,” he recalls. “It was ‘a ragtag operation, but we got it on the air.” He
also worked as an announcer at WQED-TV. His
brief (1965-66) stint as an Armed Forces DJ in Vietnam was the inspiration
for the 1988 film that starred Williams as an airwave maverick who
alienates Army brass by playing popular records instead of soothing Muzak.
But that was mostly fiction, the real Cronauer says. “Nobody
was forcing us to play polkas or Lawrence Welk. We were the only English
language station around, so we tried to please everybody’s tastes.
Instead of narrow-casting and developing a musical personality for the
station as a whole, we set up block programming - country, Top 40, jazz,
oldies. Within the contexts of their …
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