KDUP radio show continues onto its eighth season on air
Junior Steven Langston, senior Jason Weeks, senior Kyle Kearney, and alumnus Kyle Mechling host "Animorphs (Kevin Kadooka -- The Beacon)
By Elizabeth Vogel, Staff Writer -- vogel11@up.edu
The word Hawkward is defined on Urbandictionary.com as "A term used to describe relationships, usually of a sexual or intimate nature, between a human male, or female, and a bird of prey, gender unimportant."
This would make sense if you listened to KDUP show "Animorphs: the Radio Drama Uncensored" because the term was coined by the show's creators.
"This is definitely a quirky show, at least," current co-host junior Steven Langston said.
The show has listeners tuning in from South America to England, according to senior Jason Weeks, current co-host of the show.
"One girl in South America can't get a hold of the books, so she listens to the show," Langston said.
On the show, hosts read aloud books from the popular 1990s series "Animorphs" by K.A. Applegate.
"The entire plot line, summarized, would be a whole bunch of pre-teen kids get together to fight mind-controlling aliens called Yeerks, which are slugs that climb into your brain and take over your body. The kids do this by morphing into animals with the help of Andelites, the good aliens," Weeks said.
"Animorphs: the Radio Drama Uncensored" started in 2007 when three friends realized a shared past with the book series and agreed to bring their collections to Christie Hall. According to Kyle Mechling, UP alumnus and one of the original hosts of "Animorphs: the Radio Drama Uncensored," he and his fellow students began reading the series out loud and creating voices for the different characters.
"We started to think we were actually funny and moved the location from the dorm rooms to the dorm lobby," Mechling said.
"Animorphs" first aired on KDUP in the spring of 2007, with Mechling, Matthew Tongue, and C.J. Hainley as the original DJs.
"After about a semester of reading amongst friends, C.J. had another horrible idea and signed us up for a radio show on KDUP," Mechling said.
Weeks and Langston are the current co-hosts. Weeks said he listened to the friends read aloud in Christie Hall and wanted to get involved when Mechling and Hainley graduated. According to Mechling, Langston jumped aboard later.
"Steven was a DJ with his own show on KDUP who happened to be available to sub for me on a show where I totally bailed on helping Matt out," Mechling said. "He did such a good job with Matthew that when Matt graduated, Jason teamed up with him to continue the show."
Weeks and Langston have guests on the show to fill the third position.
Currently, the show has four rules. One, no homework in the studio. Two, try to take a tangent every five minutes. Three, always blame C.J. Four (Weeks' personal rule), if a cell phone goes off in the studio, it has to go out the window. According to Langston, it is usually Weeks' phone that ends up in the bushes next to KDUP.
Weeks' current tagline for the show is, "Relive your childhood through the books you love to hate."
Langston defines it a little differently.
"It's a four – hour period of craziness and sexual innuendo," he said.
Each Sunday night at 10 p.m., three people read aloud from one of the 58 books of the series on air. One person does the narration, the others do voices and sound effects. It usually takes three episodes to get through one book, according to Langston. They are nearly halfway through the series. They will begin book 33, "The Conspiracy," in their upcoming episode.
The show is unique in that it continued even after its creators graduated.
"It is one of the only shows that has survived the graduation of a cast," Weeks said.
What are they going to do when they've completed the book series?
"My hope would be that they pick up a new series," Weeks said. "We've had people mention ‘Goosebumps.'"
The group has also produced special fan-pleasing shows, according to Mechling. For example, the show for book six.
"We dedicated the entire book to an elementary school class in Hillsboro that told us they liked "Animorphs" and wanted to hear our show," Mechling said.
There is also a special every Halloween.
"We relive zombie invasions," Weeks said.
According to Mechling, starting this show in college has had outside benefits.
"I let it slip at work that I was involved in a radio show and it actually came up in one of my reviews as a reason they decided not to fire me," he said.
Weeks says he hopes the show will continue at least until the series is finished. That would require finding students willing to continue it when the current cast graduates.
The show hosts have worked out an effective reading system. (Kevin Kadooka -- The Beacon)
The next book in the "Animorphs (Photo courtesy of randombuzzers.com)
