Roasting Rob Christie

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Roasting Rob Christie

Postby jon » Thu Feb 23, 2017 9:17 am

Edmonton radio host Rob Christie will be in the hot seat on March 8 for the Rotary Roast of Rob Christie. Organized by the Rotary Club of Edmonton, funds will go to Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters of Edmonton & Area. Among those roasting the longtime announcer will be Edmonton Sun columnists Marty Forbes and Graham Hicks, Bruce Bowie and Bryan Hall of 630 CHED (CHED-AM) and Susan Reade and Sean Burke of 840 CFCW (CFCW-AM). Christie started out in radio in Montreal in 1968 and has worked at CKXL-FM Calgary, CKGM-AM Montreal, 630 CHED, Power 92 (CKNG-FM) Edmonton, Mix 99.9 (CKFM-FM) Toronto, CTV News Vancouver, KiSS FM (CKKS-FM), JACK FM (CJAX-FM) Vancouver and JACK-FM (CJAQ-FM) Toronto. He returned to Edmonton in 2005 to help launch Magic 99.3 (CIUP-FM). Since 2008, he’s been hosting the morning show at Capital 96.3 FM (CKRA-FM). (Broadcast Dialogue, Feb 23)

Detail and Tickets at http://edmontonrotary.com/SitePage/rotary-roast
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Re: Roasting Rob Christie

Postby Mike Cleaver » Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:05 pm

Slight correction: I worked with Rob at CKXL-AM in 71, the year we won Station of the Year.
Mike Cleaver Broadcast Services
Engineering, News, Voice work and Consulting
Vancouver, BC, Canada

54 years experience at some of Canada's Premier Broadcasting Stations
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Re: Roasting Rob Christie

Postby Rocky » Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:39 pm

And he was Robert G. Lowe at CKXL

Too bad that Audie Lyndes isn't among the speakers . . .
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Re: Roasting Rob Christie

Postby jon » Sun Feb 26, 2017 6:27 pm

Rotary Club of Edmonton gears up to roast longtime radio personality
Nick Lees
Edmonton Journal
Published on: February 26, 2017
Last Updated: February 26, 2017 6:16 PM MST

Rob Christie was a radio station intern in his native Montreal when he asked the late John Lennon, in bed with his recently married bride Yoko Ono, to autograph the Beatles’ double White Album.

“John and Yoko were on their ‘Bed-In for Peace’ promotion in 1969 and staying at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal,” said Christie, host of 96.3 Capital FM’s morning show.

“I was a McGill University student and went to the hotel to set up a sound system for Chuck Chandler and was surprised to find John and Yoko in bed in their 17th storey luxury suite.”

Christie told Lennon he had a problem and had to return to the station for equipment. Instead, he rushed home and grabbed the much-coveted double White Album.

“Back at the hotel, I fumbled around before nervously producing the album and asking John to autograph it,” said Christie.

“He smiled, signed the album and drew a peace sign, adding the words, ‘Peace Man’.”

Later, Christie sold the album at Christie’s New York auction house for the equivalent of $20,000 Cdn.

I mention this story because the Rotary Club of Edmonton plans to roast Christie March 8 before an expected crowd of 600 people at the Edmonton Marriott at River Cree Resort.

These Rotarians meet at the Chateau Lacombe and have raised more than $100,000 in four years by roasting Edmonton Oilers former president and CEO Patrick LaForge, former mayor Stephen Mandel and his wife Lynn, and CHED sportscaster Bryan Hall. Since 2000, the club has raised nearly $2 million to support urgent needs in Edmonton’s city centre.

Funds this year will go to the Boys and Girls Club Big Brothers and Big Sisters and I’m told Rotary representatives are having trouble finding six roasters prepared to cross verbal swords with quick-witted Christie, an International Radio Festival of New York gold medallist.

The crass, mercenary story about his selling a John Lennon autographed album will help potential roasters.

And I have more.

‘I lost my temper’

In 1980, on one of his on-air “Christie’s Kidding” sprees, he called my Journal cartoonist friend Yardley Jones and, claiming he was a neighbour, said Jones’ giant, 120-kg Saint Bernard Bruce had impregnated his miniature poodle.

“I lost my temper,” said Jones, a British Army boxing champion. “I yelled at him. Had we been face to face, I’d have delivered my celebrated uppercut to his chin.”

There was also the time Christie embarrassed the general manager of the Four Season’s Hotel on-air in 1988 by posing as Michael Jackson’s manager Frank DiLeo and requesting a room for the singer when he came to town for Wayne Gretzky’s wedding.

“He’ll be here with his pet chimpanzee Bubbles and Bubbles will also want his own room,” said Christie, who fakes DiLeo’s Chicago gangster voice well. “He’ll need a banana-shaped bed and a date for the wedding.”

The surprised manager, with an eye on business, said he’d ask a female staff member to consider being Bubbles’ date.

After all, didn’t the chimp sleep in a crib in Jackson’s bedroom, use the singer’s toilet and had enjoyed tea with the mayor of Osaka when Jackson was in Japan on his Bad World Tour.

Christie eventually revealed who he was. But not before a leading Edmonton businessman had been dreadfully discomforted.

In Christie’s defence, it should be noted he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars by working as an emcee and auctioneer at countless charity and corporate events.

But some of his pranks have had consequences.

April Fools’ Day 1978


After working at top-rated radio stations in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary, he returned to CHED on April Fools’ Day 1978 and was initially given the station’s Sunday afternoon show.

“I thought I’d bring a little attention to the station and had an acquaintance call in a request,” he says. “I didn’t play it and my planted caller seemingly grew more frustrated and angry each time he phoned again.”

The man then appeared at the station with a gun (a starting pistol). Some angry words were heard and listeners heard a shot fired.

“Eight seconds of dead airtime followed — and then things went wild,” says Christie. “The switchboard lit up, two cops appeared and the RCMP as far away as Red Deer wanted to know what had happened. The fact that it was April Fools’ Day was almost entirely overlooked.”

A nervous Christie the following day went to see his boss Gerry Forbes and thought he would find himself in deep trouble with the law, the station’s owners and the CRTC.

“But Gerry waved it off and said he’d take care of it,” says Christie. “The station got a great deal of publicity and people knew I was back in town.”

He was charged with mischief and had to make an on-air apology. “You’d never try to do something like that today,” says Christie.

(Info.at http://www.rotaryroast.ca.)
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