| Genre | Comedy, Talk, Classic rock |
|---|---|
| Running time | 5:40 A.M.-9:20 A.M. CST |
| Country | United States |
| Home station | KQRS-FM Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota |
| Starring | Tom Barnard Terri Traen Bob Sansevere Brian Zepp |
| Creators | Mark Steinmetz, Dave Hamilton |
| Air dates | 1986 to current |
| Website | 92 KQRS Morning Show |
| Podcast | Podcast |
The 92 KQRS Morning Show (also known as the KQ Morning Crew) is a popular, long-running radio morning show originating from KQRS-FM in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is currently hosted by Tom Barnard, and features several other regular personalities. It is also one of the highest-rated local morning shows in America.[1][2]
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When KQRS - formerly a sleepy classic rock station with a reputation for "stoner" music - was acquired by ABC Radio Network in 1985, it decided to bring in a high-performance team to better utilize the station's 100,000 watts of power. It enlisted program director Dave Hamilton, an industry whiz kid, to turn the programming around. Hamilton in turn hired Barnard, a journeyman disc jockey and highly-successful voice-over artist, and Dan Culhane, another veteran local jock, to anchor the vital morning show.
The show quickly generated huge numbers with its mix of irreverent and sometimes tasteless humor and, usually, very little music. The show dropped Dan Culhane in 1987, and over the years accreted a collection of other characters, with Mike "Stretch" Gelfand and Terri Traen joining in the early 1990s to anchor the rest of the cast.
In 1997, competing station WBOB (100.3FM) picked up the syndicated version of the Howard Stern show, giving Barnard his sternest test yet. After a year and a half, Barnard became one of the few local morning shows in the country to best Stern in the local ratings; WBOB changed formats and dropped Stern.
At around this time, Barnard and the Morning Show were recognized as the top-rated morning show in the country, in terms of audience share; the show had a higher percentage of local radio listenership than any other major-market morning show in the US.
The host of the show.
Terri is the only on-air female crew member. Terri is famous among listeners for her many broadcasting gaffes. She also helps to promote the show by appearing in numerous spots (such as stores and bars) throughout the Twin Cities. As a Roman Catholic, Traen often defends the church when others are more eager to criticize it. When anyone from Britain is interviewed during the show, Traen often asks them if they ever knew, or met, Princess Diana. Also, during interviews with experts in any given field, a soundbyte of her asking if they "ever look[ed] for the F. Scott Fitzgerald" is played which references a gaffe made by her years ago confusing the author with the sunken ship SS Edmund Fitzgerald.
Short, middle-aged, Jewish man who married his mother and a self-proclaimed social liberal & atheist. He frequently interrupts Tom Barnard with his attempt at humor when commenting on an issue and runs the show's dead pool with listeners as well as a weekly football pick segment. He has no problem making fun of others, but gets noticeably irritated and offended if anyone takes a jab at him. Like Barnard, Gelfand is a voiceover artist and a member of the Film Actors Guild. He was a winning contestant on Wheel of Fortune, but was unable to solve the bonus puzzle “from top to bottom.”
A former NFL player and the lone African-American crew member who is almost always referenced when a news segment or topic is about African-Americans (who Barnard jokingly refers to as "Philly's cousins"). Despite the show's racial humor element, Wise and Barnard have been good friends since childhood. Wise is often the subject of racial teasing and plays into the jokes, referring to himself as "a black man in America today".
Sansevere, a sports columnist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, joined the morning show with Jeff Passolt after the departure of Mark Rosen, and is known as "Sanny" by the listeners. He has also served as a city council member of the suburb of Orono, where he and his wife Mary run a miniature horse ranch [1], and hosted a social-commentary segment on KSTP-TV called "Sansevere Sounds Off" until February 2008. [2]
The show's sound effects operator and South Dakota native, a motorcycling enthusiast and Army veteran who is very open about his love for beautiful, large-chested women.
Local KMSP-TV news co-anchor who, like Sansevere, provides insight on news and sports topics being discussed. He was once urged by Barnard to run for political office (in much the same manner as Mark Rosen years earlier).
The show's producer. He also moonlights as a beer vendor at Minnesota Twins, Minnesota Vikings, and Minnesota Wild games.
Lee was the show and segment producer from its debut through early 2000, when he left amid a contract dispute. His most significant contributions were the "Tony Tunes," a series of song parodies written and performed largely on his own, and putting together the year-end compilation CDs that were released from 1989-2001. After his departure from KQ, he helped Radio One create urban station KTTB and in the fall of 2001 launched the station's precursor to Tone E. Fly's morning show.
Lassman is most known to listeners for his character The Chucker, a bumbling jock who did off-air interviews and almost always mistook the interviewee's identity. It is rumored that Chucker interviews with (among others) Dennis Miller and Rob Schneider have caused them to never want to appear on KQ again. Lassman also created the Call of the Day Challenge in which listeners would send him ideas for prank phone calls. Perhaps the best known of these prank calls was one affectionately titled "Mooseburger," in which a man named Mooseburger thinks that comedian Jack Benny (by that time "Benny" was deceased) is the one making the prank phone call. He is now a programming director at CBS-owned Twin Cities stations WLTE and KZJK.
Sports anchor for WCCO-TV; the show's original resident sports expert who was known to the show's listeners as "Little Marky Rosen" or "Rosepetal." In 1988, as the show rose in popularity, Rosen was contractually forced by WCCO to leave KQRS to join WCCO-AM (despite a "Free Mark Rosen" campaign by Barnard).
Sports anchor for KSTP-TV who replaced Rosen in 1988. Went on to work in the same capacity with Dave Pratt at KUPD in Phoenix, AZ. Currently is the 5, 6, and 10pm weekday news anchor at KPNX in Phoenix.
The Cabé (the radio name of Lee Mroszak) joined KQ in early 1997 by way of Andy Savage's morning show on sister station 93.7 The Edge after that station had flipped formats to active rock. His stay was short-lived, however; he managed to alienate Dennis Green during an interview at the 1997 Vikings training camp, and on December 1, the morning of a seminal Monday Night Football game between the Vikings and the Green Bay Packers, aired a bit that allegedly found Brett Favre in a hotel room with a woman that was not his wife. After protests from Favre, Packer fans, and the Packers organization, Cabé revealed the bit to be staged, and he apologized and was subsequently fired.[3] That same week, he was a guest on the Howard Stern Show, where he proceeded to rip into the staff at KQ for making him take the fall.
Culhane - originally a co-host during the show's "Tom and Dan" days - was dropped from the show under uncertain circumstances in 1987. He's worked around the radio industry ever since, currently serving as production director for Salem Radio Network's Twin Cities outlets.
The show's former producer who also appeared on-air, Bryce is a recovering drug addict who freely spoke about his addiction and recovery. He frequently referenced pornographic films and websites, and was teased when women who claim to have large breasts call in because it gets him aroused.
On June 9, 1998, Barnard was reading a news item about a Hmong girl that had killed her newborn son. The crew made several derisive remarks; in particular, Barnard stated that Hmongs should "assimilate or hit the goddamn road" [4] and, in response to his reading of the $10,000 fine levied against the girl, "That's a lot of eggrolls." [5] KQRS weathered protests from the Asian-American community and eventually issued a public apology in addition to making several PR-building concessions to the community. In a related concession, Tony Lee's stereotypical character "Tak" was axed from the show.[6]
In September 2007, Terri and Tom made comments about the Minnesota Chippewa and Sioux tribes, respectively, and the American Indian Alliance that raised concerns from the tribes.[7] The tribes mounted several protests throughout October, and the station again issued a public apology.