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Jupiter Radio Memories with Charles Nelson Reilly

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Contributed by: Jan Davisson on 11/3/2007

On Sunday, November 11th, the Maltz Jupiter Theatre is premiering a film based on Charles Nelson Reilly's successful one man show, "The Life of Reilly." Proceeds from the event will benefit the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum.
Hearing about this event brought back many memories of Charles visiting me at WRYZ, Jupiter's first FM station. At the time, I was hosting The Morning Show from 7-9 a.m. on weekdays geared for the Pratt & Whitney audience.
In the late seventies Jim Adams, owner of Idea House Advertising, came on the air with me. This guy was not only the most creative man I ever met; he was also fun and a bit wacky.
Our most successful venture, The Whitney Pratt Traffic Report, began when Charles Nelson Reilly came to town and agreed to be a guest on our early morning show. It got to be 7:30 a.m. on the day of the interview and still no guest. Then in burst Charles with his tale of woe. "Sorry I'm so late," he lamented, "I got hung up in a traffic jam."
Jim and I thought that this was hilarious as back in the late seventies, there weren't enough people to create a traffic jam!
"I got stuck behind a bus and can you believe there were two people on it?" he said. Coming from L.A., where the traffic never ceases, he was fascinated that Jupiter even had a bus, let alone only two people riding it. This got him started doing an improvisational comedy routine as a Jupiter traffic reporter. It was worthy of Saturday Night Live. He was a highly entertaining guest and became a regular visitor to the radio station whenever he was in town.
All this talk about traffic jams started Jim and I thinking about doing a fictitious traffic report each morning for our Morning Show listeners.
The next day, Jim brought in a script and sound effects and "The Whitney Pratt" Traffic Report was created..
Whitney (Jim) would talk from his helicopter to Sandy Beach (me) about the traffic situation. Every day interesting problems were discovered from the helicopter, always tied in with local politics, events and national news items. The "off the wall" report became so successful that media people from other radio, television and newspaper sources, who happened to drop by Idea House, would ask to be included as characters in the script. Jim would record them and bring in a new adventure each morning.
This was his creation. I was the straight man and would respond to wherever his script led me. He even developed an Oriental side kick character played by David Dew who became a regular and even showed up at WRYZ some mornings to do the report live .I don't remember the characters name but do recall that he always traveled with his hibachi. This dynamic duo got in a great deal of trouble just doing traffic reports around Jupiter.
This, of course, was back before anything was ever considered politically incorrect; Jupiter had a population of 10,000; and people enjoyed the tongue in cheek humor of Whitney Pratt. And to think that it all started with a visit from Charles Nelson Reilly.
Tickets for the "Life of Reilly" film premier at the Maltz are $15 for the show and $25 to be included in the reception at the Burt Reynolds & Friends Museum following the event. Tickets can be purchased at the Maltz box office; or by calling 575-2223 or on line at jupitertheatre.org

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