My Scott Shannon Story

In the annals of NYC morning radio, no DJ except Howard Stern (and probably Jim Kerr) is as legendary as Scott Shannon.

For nearly 40 years, he's been waking up this city with his hypnotic timber. After working in Florida, he came to NYC in 1983 and started the "Z-Morning Zoo" on Z100, a widely imitated morning radio show format of wacky phone calls, in-studio guest, stunts, and music interspersed with news and traffic. After a brief hiatus in LA, Scott returned to NYC and spent roughly 23 years at WPLJ where he co-hosted "Scott and Todd in the Morning", one of the longest running duos in morning radio history. Then, in 2014, he left WPLJ (five years before it ceased to exist) and did mornings at WCBS-FM -- and he'll be retiring from there, and from morning radio, this December.

I've blogged in years past about how, one summer in the 1990s, I was an intern at WPLJ. It was a pop music station with the forgettable slogan, "No rap, no hard stuff, no sleepy elevator music. Just the best songs on the radio!" At the time I was too ignorant to understand this dog whistle to mean, "No black stuff, no dirty stuff, no weird stuff. Just boring square white music!"

Anyhoo, Scott Shannon was in his "Scott and Todd" heyday and was a really big deal at the station. Not only was he the morning guy but he was also the program director, so he was treated as a God at the station. As a lowly intern, I had almost no contact with him -- except one day where I was given a huge stack of letters to fax (remember fax machines?) which happened to be located right next to his office. I spent the better part of this day just faxing stuff, and Scott Shannon would be in and out of his office, passing me by. He mostly ignored me but then, out of nowhere, he asked me if I "got chicks." I was a hopelessly nerdy no-girl getting shrimp so I just laughed nervously. So he started calling me "Chick Magnet!" Every time he walked in and out of the office he'd shout "Chick magnet!" For the rest of my internship, whenever I passed him by, "Chick magnet!" My only other interactions with him were when he asked me to fax something for him (I obliged) and then when he talked up and put his fingers around one of my wrists, telling me he couldn't believe how thin my wrist was. He was right, but it was weird.

Anyway, I never saw or thought about him or WPLJ for years after I left until the station went off the air in 2019. And, honestly, Mr Shannon was quite nice to me. So I congratulate him on a long career and wish him a happy retirement. His legacy in NYC radio is quite secure.