Lan Roberts was KJR's most creative air personality during its Top 40 era. Pat O'Day said of him, "he had a childlike imagination that was a thing of beauty. He wanted radio to go beyond the mundane. He wanted to make people laugh every hour." Coming to Seattle from New Orleans, he was heard on KJR from 1962 to 1968, and then at KOL for two years before returning to KJR from 1970-73.
Born Lanny Lipford in Bonham, Texas, on December 18 1936, Lan started out in radio at a small market in North Texas and during college worked as the youngest jock ever at radio station KLIF in Dallas, one of the nation’s first top 40 personality stations. He later moved to New Orleans where he was morning show host at WTIX owned by Todd Storz who is credited with inventing Top 40 radio.
Some of the characters on Lan’s show included: The Hollywood Reporter, Phil Dirt, Clyde Clyde-The Cow’s Outside, W.A.L. Street Senior, Manuel Dexterity (a decorative soap salesman), Mr. Science of Mr. Science and Jimmy Fame.
Lan would hold contests where the "prize" would be such things as a dime or the opportunity to wash his car. When he offered to send listeners "a little green thing with a picture of duck on it" the station received so many SASE requests that a minor crisis ensued. He would show silent movies on the radio.
1969The first (scoped) aircheck opens with "The Hollywood Reporter." Send for your very own UFO Detector Plans through the mail. Willie Mays hits his 501st career home run. "Old Maid" game might win a listener a Fab 50 record and more.
KJR Supercar, Lan (right) & Pat O'Day
Lan in 1965Lan developed and executed a laundry list of radio promotions during his time spent at KJR.
The World’s First Slug Race Festival in 1969 staged on the then giant parking lot of a WhiteFront store. Reigning over the festivities was the Lan Roberts Slug Queen, a U of H costume designer that won the contest when her room mate poured a box of salt on her during the Slug Queen auditions. Over 5000 people showed up for the racing event in Burien.
KOL Seattle 1970
Lan in 1966The Queen was an 80 year old local Issaquah resident with an incredible sense of humor. Ammunition for the event was picked up at a buffalo/llama ranch Southeast of Tacoma. The pick up committee included Lan, his current girlfriend at the time, and the buffalo ranch owner’s daughter.
It seemed that the ranch owner knew nothing about the pickup committee coming. His daughter invited the committee to the ranch without his approval. It turned out to be almost deadly. While picking up the poop and putting it in plastic bags, buffalo bull number one started slowly coming over to check it out. The pick up committee later found out that the bull had almost killed several people. At the same time the pick up committee was attacked by a raging llama. Films such as “When LLamas Attack” had never even been thought about at that time.
Here is a composite of the body of work Roberts contributed to the airwaves. [ LISTEN ] (6:50)
The KJR years (early ’62 to mid ’69), with Phil Dirt, the Hollywood Reporter, a ’62 Name-it-and-Claim-it intro and Lan’s Old Maid Game. Over to KOL (late ’69 through May ’71) where (following a legal battle with KJR) Lan takes an on-air poke at Pat O’Day, a Robin Mitchell Snow Bust promo of Lan’s parachuting skills, Mr. Science and Jimmy, and Lan’s famous Jimmy Stalwart grape stomp with another great voice man, Terry McManus, back to KJR/KISW (May ’71 to May ’74) and a ’71 50th anniversary snippet, followed by a ’77 cameo stint on O’Day’s KYYX (at the time Roberts was working at O’Day’s KORL), and finally another brief ’88 KJR encore to help the station’s 1968 class reunion promotion (as morning man on ICRT.)
The committee ran to safety with their prized buffalo chip throwing ammo. 5 members of Hell’s Angels led the Buffalo Chip Throw Sunday in Issaquah. Political activist Tiny Freeman and the Issaquah Mayor were the Buffalo Chip targets during the contest. During the contest the mayor’s wife was hit in the head with a large ripe chip. When told about the incident, the mayor just smiled and continued to be one of the targets. It was amazing what Lan could talk politicians into doing back in those days.
One event that wasn’t really a promotion but caused a lot of talk happened in 1965. With the help of UFO investigator Major Wayne Aho Lan asked on the air for any UFOs in the vicinity to answer their plea to communicate via KJR’s frequency. After asking for them to answer Lan turned the transmitter signal off to see if contact could be made. Nothing happened for five days. On the 5th day Lan and Major Aho asked any UFOs in the area to land at the Seattle Sky Sports grass runway.
At 8:00pm that evening about twenty people were gathered at the skyport looking up. At approximately 8:15pm there was a glow from the east over the Cascade mountains that moved slowly toward where they were. When it got directly over the area it began to zig zag back and forth. After descending what looked like a couple of thousand feet it shot off to the north at an incredible speed. It was amazing that with all the observers watching this to verify what had just happened, not many people believed Lan when he reported it the next day.
In order to get into the act Pat O’Day started the story that he had hired a sky diver to perform and that was what Lan and his followers had seen.Pat was even quoted that he had hired a sky diver from Issaquah. “That’s funny” Lan said, “The owner of the Sky Port was there with us and was also astounded by what had happened.”…..None of the skydiving planes were in the air at the time and hadn’t been since the previous weekend. Other sky diving drop zones in the area were shut down that day.
Lan’s final disappearing act came in 1974. At the peak of his career he decided to do what a lot of guys wanted to do but never had the guts to do it. Take off and sail to Tahiti. He finally settled in Honolulu about a year after his journey and worked on the radio for over ten years. He was offered a job he couldn’t refuse in Taiwan in 1985 at radio ICRT, the only English language radio station on Taiwan. He eventually became general manager and left to return to the states after a seven year sojourn.While in Taiwan he flew to South Africa on numerous occasions, as an official ambassador of goodwill for Taiwan, to do the morning show at Radio 5 in Johannesburg.
Later in life, Roberts returned to live in his old home town and worked as a radio consultant. He gained a new following by sharing his liberal political views on his website. In addition, he used his Internet presence to chastise the corporate mentality and lack of creativity in the modern broadcast industry.
He lived life to the fullest and inspired others to do the same. Lan passed away December 30, 2005 in Denison, Texas from complications associated with his long battle with cancer.
WHERE DID LAN WORK? Here is the list: KJR, KOL, KJR, KORL, KIKI, ICRT (Taipei), KRQR, and KBIG-FM.
Some materials found on this page were originally published by the following: Puget Sound, Norm Gregory, Edmond Bruneau.
