Radio host Mike Cooper announced his retirement from CHFI last week, capping a 45-year career in radio broadcasting. He has been co-host of Erin and Mike in the Morning with Erin Davis for 10 years, while his career also includes stops at Toronto’s 1050 CHUM AM, CFTR 680 and 97.3 EZ Rock. (He steps down on Jan. 29 but will continue to host Coop’s Classics on Saturday nights.)
Cooper with co-host Erin Davis
Immediately after Friday’s show, Cooper headed to Mexico for a listener event. With help from his co-host Davis, who conducted an interview using our questions (and some of her own) we found out why he’s leaving now, his future plans and all the details about that 1976 April Fool’s Day prank on CHUM that went horribly awry.
Why are you choosing to retire now?
Forty-five years is a long time to do anything [and] getting up at the crack of stupid every single morning really takes it toll. My wife had a health scare – she had, and has, colon cancer. It’s not the reason I’m leaving, but it just was a huge wake-up call for us, that every time you think that you’re going to live forever, you get humbled by life itself.
We thought we were going to be just fine, that we were going to die in bed holding hands at 85-years old after two hours of rigorous sex, and then we heard the word “cancer.” That changed everything. We talked about doing everything – for years and years we talked about “We’re going to do this, we’re going to do that, we’re going to go Europe, we’re going to go to Australia.” And what if we run out of time?
So that’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to do all of those things and take care of one another. Instead of taking care of millions of people every single day, I’m going to take care of one, and that’s Debbie, and she’s going to take care of me.
That kind of answers this question, but what are your post-retirement plans?
We want to see the world a little bit. We’ve saved up a couple of pesos here and there along the way so we could do whatever we wanted to do. We could have passed it onto the children, but we looked at each other and said “No, we don’t like them that much.”
I have the best kids in the world, and just when you think they’re going to grow up and you’re never going to need them, something like this happens in the family and they were absolutely marvellous. I have to admit, I might include them in my plans.
I even punched two bosses, and I’m still working in radio.
mike cooper
Why did you choose to embark on a career in radio?
I was desperately shy as a kid and dyslexic, so I had two strikes against me.
For one [in radio], you have to read a great deal and you can’t be shy, but radio was a great way to hide in front of people. Well, until now. These days there are a lot of visuals, more than ever before.
Back in the day, all you had to do was be on the radio and just let people use their imagination. With a voice like mine, I sound really good-looking. It was really a reason to be somebody, to try and entertain people.
Was there a moment or a personality that steered you towards your career?
Yes, there was a guy named Bill Brown. He was my history teacher and had some radio experience. I went to Westdale Secondary School. He started something called Radio Westdale… a little closed-circuit radio station in the cafeteria. Only one volunteer came out for the Radio Westdale club and that was me. He said “How would you like to go to a real radio station and see what happens?”
My father was a lineman for Hamilton Hydro, and he really wanted me to be a grunt: he wanted me to be a cop, to work for the hydro company. When I told him I was going to be a disc jockey, he said “You’re far too big of a boy to ride a horse.” I said “No dad, disc jockeys ride records, we talk on the radio,” and he said “Why would you want to do something like that?”
I said “Well, you listen to these old names on CHML in Hamilton. I want to be like them.” He took me to the radio station with Mr. Brown, and the seed was sown. I did a dreadful audition tape, but everybody looked at each other and said “Are you a natural, or a great mimic?” and I looked at them and said “I’m a natural.”
You’re not a big fan of looking back at the past are you? You’re not one to hold on to all the accolades.
I have some great pictures of [me with] rock bands. I awarded the Bee Gees their first gold record back in the day. They’re in a plastic bin underneath the steps at the cottage. I don’t display them in the house – they’re just some fond memories.
I always look to the future and rarely live in the past. I don’t actually remember what happened back there. There are people I meet along the way that tell me all these wonderful stories about myself, and they’re so good I can’t deny them. Maybe they happened, maybe they didn’t, but they’re good stories.
Looking back, what do you consider your career highlights?
The highlight was first getting into radio at a radio station in North Bay called CKAT FM back in 1970. The second highlight was [working at] CFTR, a struggling radio station with great management and great talent. We put this AM station back together again and took it to number one for about 10 years, which was unheard of. [The station beat perennial ratings leader CHUM AM, a station widely credited with inventing rock radio in Toronto].
When we took [CHUM] down, it was quite a feather in our cap. But of all those 45 years, the true highlight of my entire career was the 10 years I’ve spent with Erin Davis on 98.1 CHFI. It was the best time of my life.
Having the Rogers machine behind us, advertising us and letting people know where we were and putting our faces out there and the brand. That’s been a huge part of the past 10 years.
My job was to talk on the radio, but now it has evolved and I fell behind in social media, I fell behind with Facebook and Twitter. I didn’t know we also had to be writers and editors. I just know how to edit myself in spoken word, so it kind of started to pass me by and I started to feel a little ancient. But there’s one thing they can’t teach you in college, and that is true personality. I think I’ve got that, I’m going to die with it, but everything else I wasn’t doing so well in.”
Why do think radio remains vital in the 21st century?
Because we [offer] instant information. You can go the internet and get it, but we do it in a warm and personal way. It’s all a part of routine, and I love being part of everybody’s routine.
All the people that hugged me when we got to Mexico with our listeners, each one thanked me for their own personal memory: thanks for getting me up in the morning, thanks for making me smile, thank you for the information you gave us, but mostly thank you for the laughs. That was really important. We laugh all the time in the studio, but does anybody else?
What will you miss most about morning radio?
We do more laughing before 7 a.m. than most people will do in an entire year. Sometimes 7 a.m. isn’t funny when you’re by yourself, but when you’re with your friends and you’re trying to construct a show, there is still time for laughter. Those laughs mean a lot, and I think they stop the aging process. The moment you stop laughing is the moment you slowly die.
The sergeant who came in said ‘I don’t know what we can do about this, but I just want to make sure you never ever work again.’
What won’t you miss?
I didn’t mind getting up in the morning. I have to admit I looked forward to it. I will probably still get up early, maybe a little later – maybe 5 a.m., maybe 5:30 a.m. I loved it all, I really did. I hate stupid management, and I’ve had some very stupid program directors. I’ve had 55 program directors [and] only three were memorable – and only three really made me a better broadcaster. But where are the other 50? Who knows, but they were in charge of my life and my mortgage for the longest time. They’re gone. I’m still here.
What do you think your contribution to the medium has been?
I broke a few rules along the way. I’m not a big fan of following the rules, but I am a company man. I’ve always been fair. Anybody who’s been mean to me, I’ve always got mean right back to them, so they knew where I stood.
Standing up to people and standing up to bosses kind of made me a local hero to other broadcasters, who always wanted to do that. I would do it and not care. As I got older, I was a little more cautious [laughs], but when I was a young broadcaster I was ruthless. I even punched two bosses, and I’m still working in radio.
What was your worst on-air moment?
The time I “killed myself” back in 1975 working for CHUM. I did an April Fool’s joke where a guy who had been taunting me all day long on April Fool’s Day worked his way into the studio. We had a sound effects record of a gun going off, and I waited seven seconds as I fell to the floor [before yelling] “April Fool’s.”
You never hear dead air on an AM rock station, and in those seven seconds everybody reacted. The police came, a SWAT team came down and cordoned off Yonge St. I had an M1 rife pointed at my head through the studio door and they wanted to know where the gun was, and I had to explain that it was an April Fool’s joke.
Not everybody laughed, and the sergeant who came in said “I don’t know what we can do about this, but I just want to make sure you never ever work again.” I thought my career was over. I wasn’t fired, a lot of people thought that. I was suspended, but all of the DJs phoned in sick the next day. I was the swing guy and the all-night guy, so they had nobody to work. They had to call me back in.
So how is that a worst moment if it’s part of your legend?
I hear it now and I hate it. I loved War of the Worlds and that’s where I got the idea. [Orson Welles] panicked an entire nation and he kept saying that this is April Fool’s Day so something could happen that isn’t real. It was so real that people refused to believe the obvious.
When [CHUM listeners] reacted, they reacted negatively, and the repercussions… what if a police car hit a pedestrian and I am ultimately responsible and then they told me all the things that could have happened that didn’t and if they did how much trouble I’d be in and how much the station would be in. With all those facts and figures in my head, I figured I should not have done that. But boy did I make a lot of people move.
Can you tell the story about setting the Guinness World Record for riding a ferris wheel?
Our boss Bob Wood had a DJ meeting and said ‘I can guarantee you a washer and a dryer and a car.’ My hand shot up. I don’t have a car or a washer and dryer. I’m newly married.
Nobody even pretended to put their hand up, they weren’t even thinking about it. My hand was waving above everybody else, and that’s when I thought ‘What have I done?’
They worked it all out. I rode the ferris wheel for 21 days, 10 hours and 10 minutes at the CNE in an open seat with a little canopy over me through all the weather. We had lightning storms and here I am attached to this giant metal A-frame and it is arcing lightning.
I got beat up in the middle of the night: a couple of guys stayed over after an AC/DC concert and started rocking the ferris wheel back and forth. I knew I had to get out because I was in trouble, and the moment I unzipped my canopy I get sucker-punched right in the head.
I struggled the best I could. I took out one guy, and when the others ran like thieves in the night I picked up my knapsack, headed down the CNE and I was walking home.
I had no money and was going home in the pouring rain when a cop pulled up on Lakeshore Boulevard and said ‘Where you going son, it’s a mean night?’ I said ‘I’m going home.’ I had my CHUM shirt on and he said ‘Are you the guy from the ferris wheel?” He took me back to the wheel and phoned the radio station and told them what had happened and they convinced me to stay.
I got sued for assault and battery because I hit [his would-be assailant] with a crescent wrench. I had a lawyer by the name of Julian Porter [who would serve as TTC Commissioner through 1987]. He was a very distinguished man, and he and I hit if off immediately. He said ‘$750 and you’re out,’ and I said ‘Who do I give that to?’ and he said ‘Me.’ That was a staggering sum of money.
The car [I received] was an Austin Marina. It was like a Mini Cooper with a fastback. It got uglier every day I was behind the wheel. The record stood for less than a month. Somebody else had a great idea, and three disc jockeys got on a wheel in Boston and rode it for almost half a year, taking shifts. The record wasn’t that important to me, the notoriety was.
