Thanx IV Sharin’ was an Internet phenomenon in a pre-Internet world.
A talk show that aired Sunday nights into Monday mornings on WPRB in the mid-to-late 1980s, the program was one of the few in the station’s history to take live phone calls from listeners – a jerry-rigged hand-crafted “seven second delay” involving two reel-to-reel machines and a well-placed pencil pushed into a wall the only safety net keeping potential obscenity from getting over the air.
Since the immediacy of the computer age and social networking was at least a decade away, interaction between audience and the show’s many hosts beyond the telephone line was primarily made up of letters sent to the station during the week (a fair percentage courtesy the incarcerated) that would then be read on the air – often requesting other fans of the show to contact them directly.
If you listened to Thanx IV Sharin’ on a regular basis, repeat callers began to pop up frequently, almost all under aliases I can still rattle off today such as “Dad,” “Packy Vomit,” “God,” “Jane Pod,” her brother “Bill Pod” and “Chris Makepeace” (not the Canadian actor of the same name).
I can only imagine how this underground community of unconnected misfits would have flourished further with the Internet at its disposal.
As a grade schooler growing up in central New Jersey, I would try to stay up late on Sunday nights, pressing “record” on the longest cassette I had when my eyes became heavy so I could listen to as much Thanx IV Sharin’ as possible on the way to school the next day.
I have fond memories of walking around Europe with my family one summer with a tape (or two) of TIVS in my Walkman on repeat.
Even though I would become a DJ at WPRB in 1988 and have always been fairly comfortable speaking into a microphone, I was terrified of calling Thanx IV Sharin’ and could never bring myself to phone in. In my young mind the show’s rotating hosts were impossibly quick-witted and I’ve always been a subpar improviser.
Going through old boxes at my parents’ house recently, I’ve found several letters I started writing to “Arlo,” “Beetle Bailey,” “Gordon Wu” and “Golf Ball Head” Ken Katkin that I never felt were decent enough to add a stamp to.
As a longtime admirer of Thanx IV Sharin’ from afar, I’m delighted to instead present this pair of beautiful listener postcards sent to the station during the show’s initial run. To me they exemplify how creative and devoted the show’s listeners were.
You can read some of Ken Katkin’s Thanx IV Sharin’ remembrances here.
If you have old airchecks, recordings or ephemera related to Thanx IV Sharin’, please contact us as they would make for great WPRB History posts!
