Val in Radio Station Contest in 1987

Would you believe that Valerie got dragged into a popular San Diego radio station contest 20 years ago?

As long as we're on that line of thought, might as well go through with it.

If anyone watched a past episode of "Headliners and Legends" on MSNBC from a few years ago for an hour-long look at Valerie Bertinelli's life in acting, family, and career, then you've may have noticed that an excerpt of Saturday Night Live was shown where Valerie was introducing her husband guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who was also a guest band member of G.E. Smith and the Saturday Night Live Band. If you looked at her "91X" bumper sticker she placed on her, you may be asking "what's this 91X doing on Valerie Bertinelli in the first place?"

For that story, we take you back to February 1987 where radio station 91X, who had just given away six Yugos in an ill-fated contest giveaway, staged a contest where one listener would win a $25,000 prize for the most creative way they exposed the "91X" logo. Fourty celebrity judges including Jim Wilkerson of KGTV 10, Sam Spital, George Varga, Billy Ray Smith of the Chargers, and the late Monte Kobey from his Swap Meet, had a say in the voting of the entries that flooded the station. 126 entries in all!

Several people exposed the "X" in many innovating ways over the month. There was one house painted yellow-and-black with 91X, but it was disqualified for having an illegal sign and got cited by the city.

While looking at the 1987 "X-Pose the X" VHS tape for the story, I also made a note of what the 91X deejays looked like back then. Russ T. Nailz hosted the hour-long special that was originally televised on KUSI-51 in April. Longtime current deejay Robin Roth was once on nights from 10pm-2am, Steve West, who hosts Resurrection Sunday mornings, had the 10am-2pm midday shift. Mike Halloran, who should have been retained at 91X when Jacor took over in the mid 90's, had the 6pm-10pm evening shift. The 91X Breakfast Club, Oz and Katy, had the morning shift. And the afternoons were hosted by who knows? I forgot.

There were a pair of skydivers exposing a 91X sign while free-falling. There were 1,000 National City High School students forming a 91X. There was a mock "lost dog" poster of a dog with polkadots forming "91X", one lady painted her contact lenses "91X", and there was also body painting, balloons, sailboats, and more sporting "91X" on it. A band of audience members of "The Joan Rivers Show" exposed the "91X" logo when a camera panned to them during the opening sequence. In the Andy Williams Open, in the shot where George Burns gets an eagle, a 91X umbrella was strategically exposed during his shot that made the highlight clip of the day in many sports news segments nationwide. Three men in jetskis exposed the "X" when they all rose up in the bay. One tried to send "91X" into outer space with a cheap toy rocket. One guy hawked a "91X Blimp" as enthusiastic as Cal Worthington. One guy projected a 91X logo all over town with a spotlight, once even on KGB and KYXY! There was also a 91X van, 91X balloon display, a 91X flasher, a 91XROKS license plate, 91X Cereal, 91X billboard, 91X shaved on a head, dental tattoos of 91X, 91 Eggs, a gorilla lawyer with a 91X mirror and the list goes on and on.

One wacky stunt involved an old 1966 Cadillac with 91X spray-painted on it and hoisted up in the air by a crane for 91 hours. Cliff Walker was the SDSU student that endured the dizzying feat.

Gary Allan Springfield was the man who got Valerie Bertinelli involved. During the course of the contest, he, under the name "G.A.S.", sent 91X memos and clued them in on what he was going to do. The day before the exposure, the 91X staff put the clues together and figured it out. On "Saturday Night Live", something was going to happen. It turned out that he called Valerie Bertinelli at the SNL studio about 11 or 12 times. He sent her flowers and other stuff while pleading with her to expose the 91X logo. Eventually, she agreed to his wishes.

On February 28, 1987, Valerie Bertinelli hosted the long-running NBC series Saturday Night Live, with guest musicians The Robert Cray Band. Eddie Van Halen also added some guitar wizardry to the program.

Her opening dialogue talked about her still being...well...the girl next door. Her husband Eddie appearred with her in a couple of sketches.

Sometime in the middle of the show, we come to the rock instrumental number involving the house band with Eddie. When Valerie was introducing G.E. Smith and SNL Band with her "best friend" Eddie Van Halen, she was wearing the "91X" bumper sticker.

But the man who convinced Val to expose the logo only got second place! The winner of the $25,000 went to Julie Armitage who made four commercials exposing the "X" through Claymation and Chipmunk sounds.

Yours truly also got into the act as well. I exposed the 91X logo on my car's center brake light so that when I hit the brakes you can see the bright red 91X logo. I never made the top five, but my idea was "stolen" by many other people in the area. Just remember where you got the idea from. ;-) You could say that Val got me off my duff to just try entering the contest, although I didn't win.

Not only was there was a 91X X-posure contest going on, Valerie Bertinelli, herself was on a few other talk shows in the week, plugging her four-day miniseries "I'll Take Manhattan", which drew a lot of viewers and established her as a major miniseries star and as a grown-up at last.

Valerie was on so much that week that if there was a Dave's Radio Waves in existance back then, she would have been a Media Hog of the Month for Feb 1987 easily!

What Val did for a fan was totally thoughtful. At least it's good to know that kind-hearted celebrities do exist that are not too big to listen to the fans.

Summary:

In case anyone didn't make a note, Val was on Saturday Night Live way back on Feb 28, 1987. Her opening dialogue talked about her still being...well...cute.

When she was introducing G.E. Smith and SNL Band with her husand Eddie Van Halen doing an instrumental number, Val was wearing a bumper sticker of a radio station "91X" in San Diego. This was part of a contest sponsored by that radio station where you had to get the radio station logo exposed in any way possible. The guy's name was Gary Allen Springfield or whoever, and he called Val about a dozen times at the SNL studio and sent her flowers and stuff and pleaded to expose the 91X logo. Val agreed. Then the 91X was exposed, but the guy who convinced Val to expose the logo only got second place.

The winner of the $20,000 went to some cute blonde gal who did the Gumby 91X logo shorts.

Yours truly exposed the 91X logo on my car's center brake light so that when I hit the brakes you can see the bright red 91X logo. I never made the top five, but my idea was "stolen" by many other people in the area. Just remember where you got the idea from. ;-)

What Val did for a fan was unselfish and totally thoughtful. At least it's good to know that kind-hearted celebrities do exist that are not too big to listen to the fans.

The next four days, CBS ran her miniseries "I'll Take Manhattan".

10 years later this week, Val had another miniseries "Night Sins" which part one earned only a 10.0 Nielsen rating. That's good considering it was a rough night for the other competetors on opposite her, but finishing FOURTH in the time period must hurt. No word on what her part 2 did yet.

Keep the faith. We all enjoy letting you entertain us, Val.