MJ Morning Show Fan Page

Within just two weeks, two major hurricanes significantly impacted the Tampa Bay area and Florida more broadly. Hurricane Helene made landfall just south of the Florida panhandle on Thursday, September 26. It went on to cause big issues across Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, particularly bringing about a major storm surge on Florida’s west coast during which thousands of residents had their homes and cars flooded. Not even two weeks later on Wednesday, October 9, Hurricane Milton hit Siesta Key and rolled across the Sunshine State. It brought about tremendous winds and torrential rain, causing millions of power outages, a wrath of trees down, major roof damage to Tropicana Field, and other destruction.

MJ has always been both an entertainer and information provider while working on Tampa Bay’s radio airwaves. He previously provided coverage at all hours of the day on various radio stations during the first run of the MJ & BJ and later MJ Morning Show from 1994 through 2012. His penchant for keeping listeners up to date was unmatched once again during this recent string of storms.

On the morning after Helene, he was not able to drive to the Q105 studios in St. Petersburg himself due to the seven-foot storm surge and major flooding in his South Tampa neighborhood. So, a Tampa Police Department truck picked him up after he walked over a mile outside of his neighborhood to transport him across the Howard Frankland Bridge to the radio station. Fester, Roxanne, and Andrew were unable to drive to the studio, so MJ had to run all of the equipment and take phone calls all by himself. He initially recorded some segments from his phone for the 6 a.m. hour before arriving to the station just after 7 a.m. He then stayed on the air until 11:30 a.m. that morning, mostly taking phone calls from listeners from around the area and sprinkling in conversations with meteorologist Denis Phillips and local officials.

On Thursday, October 10, it was like de ja vu all over again. This time, MJ was able to drive himself to the station across the Howard Frankland Bridge which was one of the few bridges open in the area. However, he said he was the only one traveling on the bridge that morning. The rest of the crew was once again unable to get to the station due to road and bridge closures and some street flooding. He did a live cut-in around 5:30 a.m. that morning and then spent nine hours on the air from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. that afternoon. During the first five hours of this marathon broadcast, he didn’t even run a single commercial. He again took dozens of phone calls and provided as much information as possible about power outages, gas, food, and recovery efforts.

MJ is obviously extremely committed to his craft as a radio broadcaster. This was evident during both of these post-storm shows when many other hosts simply might not want to take the risk to even get to a microphone like he did. Even though the MJ Morning Show is entertainment driven most mornings, its storm coverage remains some of the best in the Tampa Bay market.

On a funny note, MJ said he thought the fact that Hurricane Milton was named as such would be the karma he finally deserved for all of his Crotchety Old Man prank calls featuring the Milton Fludgecow character. He even asked listeners to call in and voice their opinion on whether to stop playing the calls for good. However, most listeners said no to this, and some even suggested he make some new calls and incorporate some type of hurricane angle to them.

The reduction in staff at the Beasley Media Group complex in St. Petersburg, FL has continued this summer. In early July, Froggy was let go from the MJ Morning Show in a shocking move. Now, less than two months later, another member of the program has moved on.

Pat George, who served as the main “traffic guy” for the MJ Morning Show and Q105 since the broadcast returned to the airwaves in October of 2020, had his position eliminated. His final day was on Friday, August 23. Following his departure, Shriner has taken over handling traffic reporting duties for the show.

In addition to his Q105 duties, Pat provided traffic updates to other stations and served as a producer on other programs. He would seemingly always bring his cheery personality to the office every day. He would pop into the MJ Morning Show studio on occasion to talk about breaking traffic situations and other things happening in his life. He was also known for cooking grilled cheese sandwiches and cheese quesadillas for Roxanne and other staff members around the building. In fact, according to MJ, he would simply melt slices of Kraft cheese on bread in the microwave to fix a grilled cheese. His wife, Amy, who works as a hairdresser, also appeared on the show earlier this year to talk about a man who was harassing female hairdressers around Tampa.

Pat spent parts of 45 years in Tampa Bay radio, launching his career in 1979 after briefly doing some law enforcement work. He also worked for iHeart Media and other iterations of that company over the years. Plus, he was even part of the Radio Disney network at one time.

While Pat’s voice was only heard on the MJ Morning Show a few times per morning, it is still sad that Beasley continues to make cuts. At this point, we can only hope that these cuts are done for a while and that the morning show will carry on without any further hiccups.

Cue the Fox News breaking news sounder. One of the funniest and most entertaining members of the MJ Morning Show (and former MJ & BJ Morning Show) in its 22-year history was let go from the program this week. On Monday, July 1, 2024, Froggy’s contract with Q105 and the Beasley Media Group was not renewed.

After a weeklong vacation over the week of June 24 spent with his family at their beach house on Redington Shores, Froggy came back to work on July 1. Little did he know this would be his final broadcast with the crew. After the show, Froggy was pulled into a meeting where he was told that, due to budget cuts, his contract would not be renewed, and he was being let go from the radio station. Following the difficult meeting, Froggy posted on Instagram about the news, and Fester confirmed it to the MJ Morning Show Fan Page later that day.

On Tuesday, July 2, the crew was visibly upset about Froggy’s departure.

MJ said he was made aware of this impending decision back on Friday, June 21. He said he “fought like hell” to convince management to retain Froggy, even offering to take a pay cut out of his own salary to keep Froggy on the show. The management team was not interested in this idea. MJ also said he hopes to bring Froggy back for occasional guest appearances and said he will try to bring in more ad revenue to the station in order to potentially bring Froggy back in the future on a full-time basis. He said he was shocked and angry about the decision, stating that it crossed his mind whether to even continue the MJ Morning Show at all.

Roxanne even started to tear up when she talked about learning of the news during her flight back home from Italy. She said she did not get along with Froggy during their first year of working together, but admitted there was a misunderstanding between the two of them for a while. She later learned to embrace him and shared that he would text her supportive messages when she was stressed or feeling down. Fester, who clearly has a great rapport with Froggy and would routinely banter with him on the show, said it was a business decision and that things like this are not uncommon in radio.

Froggy was such a valuable asset to the MJ Morning Show crew over the years. He started out as a syndication producer back in the late 1990s when the MJ & BJ Morning Show was syndicated to stations in St. Louis and a few other smaller markets around Florida. Froggy 1, a.k.a. Scott Langley, originally had the nickname, but Froggy took it on (originally as Froggy 2) in 2002 when Froggy 1 departed from the program. He went on to do crazy parking lot stunts, prank calls, and always brought an edgy sense of humor to the broadcasts. Even when the show returned to Q105 in October of 2020, he managed to do some stunts in the shoebox-sized studio. He invented characters like Hal Herman, the crazy game show host who hosted segments like “Eight Bit Hit” and “The Truth Booth,” then transitioning into “Hal Herman Headlines.” Plus, he did bits as DJ Skrizzle and became known for his impersonations of Al Pacino and former Family Feud host Louie Anderson. In spite of calling in sick more often than his fellow crew members, “medicating” in the parking lot, and making a few too many crotch jokes, it was all part of his persona in a sense.

We can only hope and pray that Froggy will return to the MJ Morning Show in some capacity in the future. Whether it’s calling in or coming into the studio every few weeks or actually being rehired, the show benefits from his contributions in countless ways, and the crew will absolutely have to work harder to make up for his absence.

MJ rarely ever appears on other shows or podcasts as a guest. However, a local Tampa Bay radio guy recently scored a 40-minute interview with him.

Ryan Hoppe, who has worked for multiple radio stations and companies in the area, hosts the “Hoppe Hour” podcast on which he interviews a variety of guests in pop culture and entertainment, including radio personalities from around the country. He even briefly filled in for Andrew on the MJ Morning Show at one point as MJ was hoping to train a backup producer.

On the March 6 episode of his podcast, he had MJ as the featured guest. The two spoke about MJ’s radio career, the early days of the MJ & BJ Morning Show, how the show has evolved over the years, the Crotchety Old man CDs and how they continue popping up, what MJ enjoys most about still hosting the MJ Morning Show in 2024, and the current state of radio and content consumption. Listen to the full episode on YouTube here.

We’ve all heard MJ talk about how the Q105 management team promised the crew a new studio to work in at some point after the MJ Morning Show returned to the Tampa Bay airwaves in October of 2020. We’ve also heard MJ use a wide range of analogies to describe the crew’s current studio setup, everything from “shoebox” to “dump” to “hell hole.”

However, over 40 months later, the crew is still waiting for a larger and more visually appealing space for MJTV that would offer them a better line of sight and the opportunity to have more guests in the studio without essentially sitting on top of each other. They’re also hoping to get an updated console and equipment which apparently dates back to 2006.

That’s why a few weeks ago, MJ called a meeting with some of the “top dogs” at Q105 and within the Beasley Media Group company. This included Brian Beasley himself. MJ said he essentially demanded that they finally provide them with new digs. After the meeting, it was agreed upon that the show would ultimately move into a new studio by Q3 of 2024, meaning between July and September of this year. MJ said the move should realistically happen by mid- to late September.

Because the crew has been waiting for so long, there is no guarantee that this new studio will actually happen this year. In other words, they’ll believe it when they see it. But MJ seemed pretty optimistic for the first time when he brought this up recently. Let’s all cross our fingers that the new studio is finally coming. Not only does the crew deserve it, but it would put an end to the ongoing saga of the over-the-top descriptors MJ likes to use to paint a picture of their current arrangement. And who knows…such a setup could bring interns onto this version of the morning show for the first time and even opportunities to do more stunts with additional space.

Over the years, MJ and the crew have handed out a huge variety of prizes, from plastic surgery to Microsoft Surface Pro tablets to dash cams to Japanese rice cookers.

The MJ Morning Show’s contest this past week – dubbed “MJ Bill Pay” – was designed to kick off the new year by giving away a total of $20,000 to listeners to help them pay off their inflated holiday credit card bills. During every hour of the program, listeners could win $1,000 in cash by being a certain number caller and identifying the name of the previous hour’s winner.

During the 7 a.m. hour on Monday morning, a woman named Peggy called in and correctly identified the 6 a.m. winner to collect a cool grand. However, right before MJ was about to pass her over to Andrew, Fester piped up and asked Peggy whether they should mention who she actually was, totally throwing MJ for a loop. It turned out to be his 85-year-old aunt, his late mother’s sister, who happens to live in St. Petersburg.

Many radio station contests come with legal fine print about who is eligible to win. Because Peggy is related to Fester, the crew immediately investigated whether she was allowed to participate in the contest and win a prize on the station where her nephew works. It was determined that several categories of “immediate family” relatives were not eligible. However, aunts and uncles were not specifically included in the rules as being ineligible.

Later that morning after MJ and the crew signed off for the day, promotions director Tyson Jones sent out an internal email to the Beasley Media Group team which MJ read on the air about a new update to all contest rules. The language was updated to now include a mention of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Because this change was apparently made in response to Aunt Peggy winning, she still took home the money.

It just shows that you never know who is listening and calling in to radio stations. It also demonstrates that, on this rare occasion, Fester was actually honest about something for once.