Do You Remember The ‘Pepsi House’ For MDA?

There is not a Labor Day that goes by that I don’t think about one of the many crazy things Dennis Oliver and I did during our career.  We were both working for 99-Q Radio in Quincy and were asked if we would help out with the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon in Quincy.

We both thought we would be asked to MC part of the “local cut-ins” that WGEM-TV would broadcast. Then the powers that be asked if we would live outside the WGEM-TV studios in a make-shift house for a promotion for MDA and Pepsi. We both looked at each other and said “bring it on”.

So Dennis and I would actually live on the pavement overnight for a couple of nights in a house that was built with Pepsi cases. The promotion involved us broadcasting live from the “Pepsi House” and would sell each case that made up the house with a portion of the cost going to Muscular Dystrophy. We did this promotion each Labor Day weekend for a few years.

One year we sold it so fast that we thought we wouldn't have to actually sleep on the pavement overnight and might even get to go home and sleep in our own beds. Then, the Pepsi truck showed up and rebuilt the house. Oh, the stories we could tell of the events that took place in that Pepsi House especially at night.  We never knew who would drop by.

We had all the amenities of home in the “Pepsi House”. A Scotties Pottie, A cooler filled with “Pepsi”, two sleeping Army cots and a TV too.  One night we watched the WGEM-TV news and they broadcast the story of the two of us sleeping “on the pavement” to help MDA and the announcer referred to us as “Two announcers from a local radio station”. He never mentioned our name or station.  So anytime we went live on the radio after that we just referred to ourselves as “just two radio announcers from a local radio station” and never used our names.

By the end of the weekend we usually had the house down to its foundation and we would go home knowing we helped the cause.  Now, years later, the two of us still reminisce about those weekends we helped out and the fun we both had.