KRLA – Dave Hull Program – July 9, 1965 – Rob Frankel Collection –
You never won anything before – you tried. You tried a lot. You lost count of how many “twenty-five words or less” contests you’ve lost. Half the cereal boxes in the kitchen are missing labels because you had to have a box-top in order to win something. You’re never going to get enough S&H or even Blue Chip stamps to get anything more than a two-piece set of Melmac dinnerware. Winning prizes just isn’t in the cards for you. That’s until today.
Today you are determined to get Beatles tickets for the Hollywood Bowl in August. Your entire life goes on hold until you absolutely-no-doubt-about-it have those tickets in your hand. All week you’ve been trying, but you’ve missed “caller Number 4” by being caller number 8 or caller number 3 or caller number 100. Your timing was bad – maybe you aren’t doing something right. Maybe you’re cursed.
So you stay up all night, drag the phone into your room, turn on KRLA and wait. And wait. And wait. You dial all the numbers except for the last one and wait some more.
Then Dave Hull comes on – you are now a nervous wreck. You don’t even think you can dial the last number, but you keep telling yourself to stay calm and take deep breaths.
And it happens – three snippets of Beatles songs and you have to guess each of them and be Caller Number Four. That’s easy; I Feel Fine, Eight Days A Week And Mister Moonlight. You dial the last number. The phone rings – you’re CALLER NUMBER FOUR!
And then your mind goes blank – you can’t even remember your name. Every ounce of saliva has drained from your mouth and you feel like you’re going to faint dead-away, right on the phone, in front of God, Dave Hull and the entire city of Los Angeles. And then you yell: “I Feel Week”! “Eight Days Are Fine”! and Moonlight!. After a deadly silence, the voice on the other end says “WHAT?”. Finally, one last gasp and you yell out the right words in the right order.
You’ve won – you almost died trying, but you won. Two tickets are yours. You sputter out something that makes no sense and they ask you to spell your name three times before they get it right.
You finally broke the spell. You won something. For the first time in your life you actually won something and it’s something big.
And you don’t remember too much after that because you passed out with the phone dangling off the hook and your mother banging on your door wondering if you’re all right and did you want dinner.
Somehow, you missed the rest of the day. But you’re not missing the concert. You’re going to see The Beatles at The Bowl.
And to all the other “Caller Number Four’s” – here’s 90 minutes worth of Dave Hull from KRLA on July 9. 1965.
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