BY ISAIAH FRIZZELL
It’s a running joke on the Joe Rogan podcast that controversial comedian Owen Benjamin lost his mind after eating a pot brownie on the Joey Diaz podcast. Benjamin walked out of the show, proceeded to move his family out of Los Angeles and relocated to Sandpoint, Idaho, to become a homesteader and a very controversial online personality. But where did this sort of shenanigan get started? Certainly, radio DJs have been inebriated on air since radio, but not like in Sun Valley.
Blaine County has its own silly pot gaffe that, like all things Sun Valley, set a record.
The Banana Boat
Gary Humbock was a huge fan of the beloved morning radio show on 103.7 KSKI-FM with DJs Ron Harrison, Kyla Kelly and Heavy D. It was customary for Ketchum locals to bring lemonade or homemade baked goods as gifts for the DJs. It being a morning show, they’d enjoy the comestibles and prattle on about the little nothings of life, making for an enjoyable hour to ease the morning commute.
The weekend before the fateful show, Humbock hatched a plan to put on the ultimate prank. “I thought I’d play a practical joke,” he said. Humbock was a young connoisseur of marijuana and fairly well known across town for his potent concoctions. “All around the Valley everybody knew about Gary’s banana bread, I got really good at baking it.” Pun intended. Humbock put the two together and ended up making history. “I just dropped it off to Ron and said, ‘Hey Ron, enjoy it!’ and boy did they enjoy it.” Humbock laughs hysterically.
May 12, 1997
Unbeknownst to Humbock, his timing would become Sun Valley legend. Every year a county in Idaho would run the Just Say No campaign, with police from other counties putting on their own big show for the so-called War on Drugs. “Well, apparently, Blaine County was the county that they picked and that week was the week they’d be doing it. I didn’t know! And I didn’t know, also, that a Senator owned the radio station at the very same time. I mean, I’d probably still have done it if I knew all that. I was a crazy son of a gun. I had fun and didn’t try to hurt anybody. It was a practical joke.”
As Harrison and Kelly ate the bread, the typical morning show morphed into a wild and wonky e-ticket ride of nonsequiturs and bizarre tunes. “They were playing all types of music that they shouldn’t have played. ‘I really want to hear some Pink Floyd right now.’ ‘Well, we can’t play Pink Floyd!’ ‘I don’t care, I want to hear Pink FLoyd right now.’ And then they got hungry. They’re like, ‘Someone bring us a pizza!’ So my buddy who delivered pizza brought two to the station. It was a special show and this was a special time. So many things changed after that and after 9-11. They even legislated a law that radio and TV stations can’t take homemade baked goods from the public.”
“It was a really great joke. Everyone loved it and everyone laughed but the Senator. So, he put together a task force and spent a lot of taxpayers’ money to find me. They came storming in with guns drawn and it was just like a movie. I was mid-bong hit and they go ‘FREEZE!’ and I just blew this huge hit out. It was just comical.”
Humbock received a $15,000 fine, spent 363 days in jail, plus five and a half years of probation, for the joke. They took him to the state penitentiary for a month and half and then to Cottonwood for a six-month bootcamp. “Sir, yes sir, and all that!” Humbock laughs. His joyful recall of it is pure levity.
“No one knew I was going to do it. The DJs didn’t know. My friends didn’t know. And after it happened, I got calls from around the world. Friends in Australia heard the news. Howard Stern called me and we talked for a minute. David Letterman even included the prank in a Top Ten and all the radio stations, on that day, got the fax ‘KSKI is high on air!’ It was insane.”
“Jail is the only thing I really regret, but, looking back, you know, it’s 27 years back—you pick it apart for the fun it was and just laugh.”
All’s Well That Ends Well
Considering the above-mentioned podcasts that openly smoke and drink on video, you could almost say Humbock and the DJs at KSKI were trailblazers. “I guess I started a trend. It was fun. It was a fun time to do it. Things were different back then.”
“The Senator, he sold it to the guy who owns KECH Radio. You know, he wanted to get this blemish off his record so he sold it really inexpensively. The guy who owns KECH Radio even thanked me for that because he got a great deal. He actually bought me a drink at The Pioneer.”
Taking it all in stride, Humbock laughs and chuckles, recalling the vibe of the ‘90s and his love of that morning show.
Humbock now enjoys life, and the medicinal qualities of cannabis, in a state where it is legal.
This publication and straight-edge writer in no way encourage or endorse the use of any illegal substances.