INTERESTING STUFF ABOUT IAN MACRAE

As a young "panel operator" at a very conservative, middle-of-the-road Melbourne radio station, when the rostered announcer slept in one morning, he took over the mike and played full-on hard rock and roll. The complaints came in all day.

During his early days in country radio he was known for, and almost lost his job because of, his practical jokes. e.g scattering feed under the microphone desk and shooing some chickens into the studio during someone else's program.

He sold his car and bought a ticket to the U.K. where he worked for two years on the off-shore "pirate radio" stations. At one point he and the rest of the crew were held hostage at gunpoint for a week by a boarding party. As a result of which the owner of the station was murdered.

The "pirate" stations had a huge audience and the various functions they put on for listeners were very popular. Regular bands used were the Rolling Stones and The Who. MacRae remembers being compere at one of the last concerts by Jimmi Hendrix in some caves that were often used for such shows.

One of the Beatle's newly released singles was flown out to the station by helicopter and was heard on air before any other radio station in the world.

The first "pirate" station MacRae worked for was forced to close down when the British Navy put a sailor wearing big gumboots onto a sandbank that was only exposed at low tide during summer where he planted the Union Jack and claimed it for Mother England. This then put the station within territorial waters!

MacRae presented the 2SM breakfast show for 13 years during which time the station became a huge number one force in Sydney radio. During that time he became famous for the many "stunts" pulled on unsuspecting listeners. The most famous is still talked about today when he promised to take a "jumbo" beneath the Harbour Bridge. Thousands gathered around the harbour that morning having been talked into believing it would be a 747….of course it turned out to be a big elephant on a barge! Hear the Jumbo stunt now! (requires Windows Media Player)

Other stunts included "transmitting" smells to designated points around Sydney, convincing people to put their phones in Glad Bags because Telecom were going to blow all the dust out of the lines and telling listeners that we were going to convert to "decimal time"

Many famous stars visited 2SM during that time expecting to be put through the usual predictable interviews but finished up taking part in pre-written comedy sketches. Among them were Bette Midler who took the role of a castaway in "Robinson Crusoe"

Compered a T.V. show on the Ten Network called:"Thank God it's Friday at the Zoo" which was taped on a Saturday and broadcast on a Monday (?) The program was designed to be a "Tonight" show which takes place in a disco. It failed because the younger viewers were bored by the interview segments and the adults hated the disco dancing!

With his on-air partner The "Hon" Nick Jones MacRae stood for election to the Senate on such policies as promises to build a piggery in Mosman and declare war on the Antarctic. Their slogan was "Put a stinker in the Chamber!" The couple got so many votes they were quite concerned that they would have to actually go to Canberra!

With The "Hon"Nick he recorded a comedy song in commemoration of the marriage of Princess Diana to Prince Charles. It was called "Ballad of Lady Di" and went to Top Ten both here and in the U.K. The pair went to London to perform it on the top rating T.V. show "Top of the Pops" but that same week the BBC received a number of death threats against the royal couple and pulled the song off the playlist. It disappeared from the charts the very next week!

Hear a warning on the evils of mixing alcohol with radio..."Tired and Emotional" on air at 6am after partying from lunchtime the previous day, through the night. (requires Windows Media Player)

Did live radio shows from a cage full of spiders…some deadly….at the Centrepoint complex and from the lion's cage at a circus. During this the lions were brought in a started to refuse to obey their trainer. He told MacRae not to be scared because they could "smell his fear"!

During his stint on a breakfast show in Adelaide he formed a team of show biz "midgets" who went out and "did good and fought evil." He had a gorilla at the zoo successfully predicting the football results and claimed he was setting up a bullfight which caused huge protests from animal libbers and got as far as questions being asked on the floor of Parliament in Canberra.

Began Australia's first "Mr. Puniverse" quest…..where "thin was in". It eventually went international with MacRae taking the winner to compete in the U.K. version.

Was the first commercial radio disc-jockey to present a night-time music program on a satellite network to stations across Australia.

Was, more than likely, the first to do a live breakfast show from Bulgaria! (mind you, nobody else wanted to!)