I want you to just picture this for a second.
If you were online in the early 2000s, you probably
have a visceral memory of this exact scenario.
You're sitting in front of one of those massive,
heavy, beige desktop computer monitors. The ones
that weighed like 40 pounds. Exactly, yeah. And
the dial -up tone has just finished screaming
at you. You're clicking around the web, maybe
looking for some music or, I don't know, a flash
game. And then suddenly, a window pops up. Just
out of nowhere. Out of nowhere. And it's completely
filled with these rapidly flashing black and
white smiley faces. Oh, no. Yeah, they're bouncing
violently around your screen. And your desktop
speakers are just blasting this high -pitched,
incredibly mocking chorus of voices chanting,
you are an idiot. You are an idiot. The sheer
panic of that moment. I mean, it was a very specific
kind of digital nightmare for anyone who lived
through that sort of Wild West era of the internet.
Right, because you instinctively lunge for your
mouse. You try to close the window, but every
single time you click the red X, the script instantly
spawns six more windows in its place. And standard
closing hotkeys like Alt F4, those were completely
disabled by the code. Totally useless. It was
brilliant but malicious because it didn't delete
your files or corrupt your hard drive, but it
essentially held your computer's RAM hostage.
Yeah. It rapidly exhausted your system resources
until the entire machine just locked up, freezing
you out while that looping. audio just continuously
mocked you you literally had to pull the plug
or force a hard restart just to make it stop
yeah but and this is why we're here today looking
through the sources we pulled for today's deep
dive there is a wild twist to that entire scenario
a really wild twist that mocking voice the audio
that became the soundtrack to one of the most
notorious browser trojans of its era It didn't
belong to some mysterious underground teenage
hacker coding in a basement. No, it didn't. It
actually belonged to one of the most successful
terrestrial radio DJs of the 20th century. Which
is arguably one of the most bizarre origin stories
for a piece of malware we've ever seen. And that
is exactly what we are getting into today. We
are looking at a massive stack of comprehensive
biographical data. We've got historical radio
charts, legal summaries, archive articles. All
of it to explore the life, the career, and the
surprisingly strange legacy of Rigdon Osman Dees
III. Yes. Of course, if you've ever tuned a radio
dial, you probably know him better as Rick Dees.
Much easier to say. Way easier. So the mission
for our deep dive today is to unpack how a guy
who went to college for motion pictures ended
up completely redefining FM radio. permanently
altering U .S. copyright law and then, yeah,
inadvertently soundtracking a legendary piece
of Internet malware. Because if we connect this
to the bigger picture, we really need to look
at Deez not just as a guy spinning records. He
is a brilliant case study in media adaptability.
I mean, when you trace his career from the absolute
peak of the 1970s disco era all the way to the
modern streaming landscape of March 2025, his
journey actually reveals the underlying mechanics
of how pop culture spreads. It really does. It
shows us how a personality manages to stay relevant
across radically different, often hostile, eras
of entertainment. So to understand how we eventually
get to the digital viruses and the massive modern
streaming deals. We really have to look at how
he built that foundation. Where it all started.
Yeah. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida in
1950, raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. And
reading through his early years, I was struck
by how early the broadcasting bug bit him. He
started young. Very young. He didn't wait around.
He started his radio career at a local Greensboro
station, WGBG, while he was still attending Grimsley
High School. Which is that classic, almost extinct
radio hustler origin story. Yeah, you don't really
see that anymore. Not at all. Getting in the
booth before you even graduate high school, it
gives you an intuitive feel for the medium that
you just can't teach in a classroom. And he does
end up going to the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. He gets a bachelor's degree in
motion pictures, TV and radio. Right. But rather
than heading straight to Hollywood, he just grinds
his way through the southeastern United States
radio circuit. Putting in the reps. Exactly.
Stints at WCAR in Chapel Hill, WSGN down in Birmingham,
Alabama, WKIX in Raleigh. But his real launchpad
onto the international stage happened in the
mid to late 1970s when he landed at WMPS AM 680
in Memphis, Tennessee. They called it the Great
68. The Great 68, yeah. And the timing of him
arriving in Memphis in the late 70s is everything.
The disco craze is absolutely sweeping the nation.
It's dominating the culture, the fashion, and
most importantly... The airwaves. Okay, we have
to pause here because, okay, let's untack this
whole situation because it goes completely off
the rails. It really does. It's 1976. Rick Dees
decides to write and record a satirical novelty
song called Disco Duck. Disco Duck. Now, on paper,
you would assume a joke song about a duck doing
a disco dance would just be a local morning show
goof. Right, something you play for cheap laughs
for the morning commuters, right? Exactly. You
play it a few times, people chuckle, it fades
away. You would think so. It has all the hallmarks
of a localized throwaway gag. But this track
explodes. I mean, it sells more than six million
copies. Six million. It hits number one on the
Billboard Hot 100. It even gets a brief feature
in the movie Saturday Night Fever. Oh, yeah,
there's that scene. Yeah, the scene where a group
of older folks in a dance studio are learning
to, quote, move their feet to the disco beat.
And that is the song playing. It's wild. It earns
a BMI award for record sales in one year. And
Deez actually wins a People's Choice Award for
favorite new song. The cultural penetration of
a song like that is just staggering. But I think
what's fascinating here is the corporate irony
that immediately followed this massive mainstream
success. Oh, this is the best part. You have
a local radio DJ holding a platinum number one
record in the country. Naturally, rival radio
stations in the Memphis market flat out refused
to play Disco Duck. They blacklisted it. They
did. They did not want to give free airtime and
cross -promotion to a direct competitor. Wait,
I get not wanting to help a rival station, but
if Disco Duck is literally the number one song
in the entire country, aren't those rival stations
actively angering their own listeners by refusing
to play the biggest hit of the moment? They absolutely
were, but radio at that time was fiercely territorial.
didn't give the other guy an inch. Wow. But the
incredible part, the part that defies all business
logic, is that WMPS station management, Deez's
own bosses, also expressly forbade him from playing
the song on his own show. It is the ultimate
catch -22. He writes the biggest song in America,
and nobody in his entire broadcast market will
play it, including himself. And the climax of
this whole situation is just hilarious to read
about. Deez is on the air one morning, and he
casually mentions to his listeners that his song
is almost number one, but his own radio station
won't let him play it for them. And we know what
happens next. Management fires him. They literally
fire their most popular personality, claiming
his on -air comment was a conflict of interest.
It's a perfect example of radio management completely
misreading the room. They thought the power resided
in the station's frequency, not in the personality
behind the microphone. And before we move past
this era, I have to share this amazing behind
-the -scenes secret from the sources. Oh, please
do. Rick Dees, the man who conceptualized and
wrote Disco Duck, couldn't actually perform the
duck vocals on the track. No way. He literally
couldn't talk like a duck. So the signature duck
voice on the record was performed by a guy named
Ken Pruitt, who recorded it at Shoestring Productions
in Memphis. Which creates a massive logistical
problem when the song becomes a national phenomenon
and you have to go on tour. Exactly. Pruitt ended
up moving away before the song exploded. Oh,
man. So when Deez took the act on the road, which
was this massive tour build as Rick Deez and
the cast of Idiots that played everywhere from
Disney World to New York City, he had to hire
a completely different guy, Michael Tesney, to
stand on stage and do the live duck vocals. It's
such a surreal image. Isn't it? But if we look
at the trajectory of his career, this whole incident
proves something vital about Deez's understanding
of the media business. He didn't let getting
fired over a novelty song derail his momentum.
Not at all. He waited out a 45 -day non -compete
clause in his contract, and then he immediately
jumped to WMPS's direct rival, WHBQ AM560 in
Memphis, doing the morning show for RKO Radio.
Right across the street, basically. Exactly.
It proved that genuine audience loyalty will
almost always trump corporate management's attempts
to control the narrative. The listeners simply
changed the dial and followed him. And his success
at WHBQ was so undeniable that station owner
RKO General decided to take a huge swing. They
wanted to replicate that magic in a major market,
so they offered Deez the morning radio show in
Los Angeles at KHJ AM. The big leagues. Now,
he definitely helped their ratings, but the landscape
of broadcasting was violently shifting beneath
their feet. right at that time. We are talking
about the mass migration from AM to FM music
radio. Right. AM music radio was dying out, losing
ground incredibly fast to FM's superior sound
quality. Cage J ended up switching formats entirely
to country music. Yeah. And this is where Deez
shows that adaptability you mentioned earlier.
He pivots again. In July 1981, he takes the morning
position at Key IIS FM. And this transition is
the inflection point where Deez stops being just
a successful broadcaster and becomes an absolute
industry titan. A giant. You mentioned AM music
dying out. And Deez understood that to survive
on FM, he couldn't just play the hits. He had
to make the morning drive time show an event.
Right. Appointment listening. He revolutionized.
morning advertising, built deep parasocial relationships
with his listeners, and transformed KISFM into
the number one revenue generating radio station
in all of America. Number one in the whole country.
Under his tenure, the asset value of that single
radio station rocketed to approaching half a
billion dollars. Half a billion dollars for a
terrestrial radio station. It's insane. It's
wild to even conceptualize that kind of localized
value today. But for me, Looking through the
sources, here's where it gets really interesting.
It's not just the money. It's the strategy. Okay.
In 1983, Deez launches the weekly Top 40 Countdown
program. Now, you would assume a show of that
magnitude, which came to define pop music for
decades, was born out of some grand strategic
corporate vision in a boardroom. That would be
the logical assumption. But actually, it was
born out of a delightfully petty dispute. Of
course it was. Key SFM used to air Casey Kasem's
American Top 40. But the station got into a huge
argument with the network over playing network
commercials, and Kies just dropped the show.
Just dropped American Top 40. Just dropped it.
Dees sees the massive void left behind, steps
right up, and creates his own countdown. He launched
it on the weekend of October 8th and 9th, 1983,
on just 18 stations. And from those 18 initial
stations, the growth was staggering. The weekly
top 40 became an absolute juggernaut. He understood
the mechanics of syndication better than almost
anyone. The show was eventually syndicated in
over 200 countries worldwide. It aired on the
Armed Forces Radio Network. reaching military
personnel globally. Incredible reach. And he
didn't just syndicate one version of the show.
He adapted the format to ensure maximum coverage.
They produced hit radio editions, hot adult contemporary
editions for stations targeting older demographics,
plus dedicated 80s and 90s editions. Wow. In
December 2008, it even made history by becoming
the first English -speaking radio show to air
in China. Today, it stands as the longest continuously
running pop music countdown in the world. That
is just an unparalleled run. And it wasn't a
straight uninterrupted line either. After 23
years of dominance at Key IASFM, Dees left in
February 2004. There was no official explanation
at the time, and he was replaced by Ryan Seacrest.
Which is really the ultimate changing of the
guard for that era of pop culture. But he never
actually stops. He bounced to Can Vien Move in
93 .9 in 2006, right up until they flipped to
a Spanish format in 2009. And he actually spent
his last moments on air brilliantly redirecting
his audience to his website, RACK .com, ensuring
he didn't lose his listener base. Always adapting.
Always. He returned to Kiai's sister station,
KHHT, in 2011. And fast forward to March 2025,
his holding company strikes a massive deal with
iHeartMedia. They're streaming his current programming
alongside a dedicated classic channel featuring
his archives from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. He
even re -entered briefly with his old co -host
Ellen Kay on CoST FM to promote it. When you
look at that timeline, what stands out to you?
Because to me, he essentially engineered his
grand to survive every major extinction -level
event in the audio industry. That's a great way
to put it. From the AM to FM shift to the rise
of digital streaming, he navigated all of it.
And his hustle wasn't just confined to the radio
booth. If you were consuming pop culture in the
80s and 90s, he was everywhere. Everywhere. He
hosted a late night show on the ABC television
network in the early 90s called Into the Night,
starring Rick Dees. Now, it only ran for one
season and was canceled due to low ratings, but
getting a late night network show is an insane
milestone. Absolutely. He hosted the syndicated
series Solid Gold. He even performed the title
song for the Bill Murray comedy Meatballs. And
his voice acting credits from that era are equally
surprising when you dig into them. Oh, they are
fantastic. He voiced Rock D's in The Flintstones,
Rocket Rick in Jetsons, the movie. You can hear
him as the radio DJ during the opening credits
of the 1983 film Valley Girl. He played the iconic
Los Angeles disc jockey Ted Quillen in the movie
La Bamba. He really was the definitive DJ voice.
More recently, in 2020, he actually provided
the voice for Peter Griffin's impression of him
in a Family Guy episode. And in August 2021,
Nexstar Media Group brought him on as the voice
announcer for their Rewind TV network. But operating
at that scale and having your hand in that many
different revenue streams, this raises an important
question about the dark side of that massive
success. Right. It's not all fun and games. Omnipresence
and immense wealth inevitably invite friction.
In 1991, for example, Dees found himself in serious
legal trouble. A former business partner sued
him regarding the diversion of profits from his
massively successful Top 40 Countdown program.
Ouch. The court proceedings were intense, and
the judge actually found that Dees and his business
manager acted with, quote, malice and oppression.
Dees was successfully sued for $10 million in
damages. A $10 million penalty in 1991 is staggering.
It's a fortune. But it really shows how high
the stakes were. Dees was operating at a scale
where every move he made had massive financial
and legal implications. And actually, that willingness
to push boundaries and take huge swings didn't
just get him sued in that instance. No, it didn't.
It forced him to literally change U .S. copyright
law. This is one of the most consequential pieces
of his legacy, and it has nothing to do with
playing records. So back in 1984, Dees released
a comedy album called Put It Where the Moon Don't
Shine. On that album, He wanted to do a parody
of the classic Johnny Mathis song, When Sunny
Gets Blue. Which is a very well -known, incredibly
earnest ballad, the kind of song that practically
begs to be made fun of by a morning zoo DJ. Exactly.
And Dees wanted to parody it with a 29 -second
spoof titled When Sunny Sniffs Glue. Just 29
seconds. Right. So, following standard industry
protocol, Dees and his record company reached
out to Marvin Fisher, the owner of the copyright,
to ask for permission. Fisher flat out said no.
He refused to grant permission for the parody.
He wasn't having it. But Dees, true to form,
just went ahead and recorded and released the
29 -second spoof anyway. Predictably, Fisher
sued Dees for copyright infringement. And this
is where the legal precedent that shapes our
modern entertainment industry is set. The trial
court looked at the case and found that Dee's
song, When Sunny Sniffs Glue, was clearly intended
to poke fun at the specific breathless style
of singing that Johnny Mathis was known for.
Right. Therefore, it was legally categorized
as a parody. That decision was appealed, but
it was firmly upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals in 1986 in the landmark case of Fisher
v. Dee's. It's amazing that a 29 -second joke
about sniffing glue became cited legal precedent.
But the broader implications are massive. That
ruling helped establish the robust fair use protections
we rely on today. It fortified the legal framework
that allows comedic artists, late -night hosts,
and internet creators to mock existing copyrighted
works without requiring the original creator's
permission. It changed everything. Without Fisher
VDs, the landscape of modern comedy and parody
would be incredibly restricted. So when you step
back from all these seeming disconnected events.
Yeah. You have to ask. So what does this all
mean for his legacy? How do we synthesize a career
that goes from a disco duck to a half billion
dollar radio station to a Supreme Court level
copyright battle? It's a lot to take in. Well,
we have to bring the story full circle right
back to our hook about the malware. Because that
very same 1984 album, Put It Where the Moon Don't
Shine, is exactly how an analog comedy sketch
mutated into a digital nightmare. The origin
of the You Are an Idiot Trojan. Yes. On that
1984 album, amidst the song parodies, there's
a prank call segment. It's titled Candid Phone
Dog Funeral. And during that specific segment,
there's a brief vocal jingle featuring a high
-pitched mocking chorus singing You Are an Idiot.
There it is. Fast forward nearly 20 years to
2002. A man named Andrew Regner takes that exact
audio clip from the Rick D's comedy album, samples
it, and builds a website around it called youandidiot
.org. And as we discussed at the top of the deep
dive, that website functioned as a devious browser
-based trojan, the pop -up bomb that relentlessly
exhausted a computer's memory by spawning endless
windows of flashing smiley faces. Yeah. What's
fascinating here is the paradox when you really
think about it. Rick Dees is a man who built
an entire empire strictly through terrestrial
radio, traditional syndication models, and physical
vinyl comedy albums. The old school way. Yet
he accidentally achieved this bizarre form of
digital immortality when a throwaway audio clip
from a prank call in 1984 became the inescapable
soundtrack to one of the early internet's most
infamous memes. He crossed the chasm from an
analog broadcaster to a digital virus without
even trying. To recap this genuinely wild journey
for you, Rick Dees was never just the voice talking
over the intros of pop songs. He was a multi
-platform pioneer. He earned a Grammy nomination
for his 1983 comedy album, Hurt Me Baby, Make
Me Write Bad Checks, and later received the Grammy
Governor's Award. A huge honor. He's an inductee
in the National Radio Hall of Fame, the National
Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, the
North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. and the Tennessee
Radio Hall of Fame. The list just goes on. He
won Billboard Radio Personality of the Year 10
consecutive times and has a star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame. He fundamentally shaped U .S. copyright
law regarding parody, defined the FM morning
show format, built the longest -running pop countdown
in the world, and inadvertently provided the
voice for an iconic piece of early 2000s malware.
It is a massive footprint that touches almost
every corner of modern media, which leaves us
with a final thought to mull over. Rick Dees
inadvertently changed copyright law by mimicking
a famous singer, and he achieved internet immortality
because a coder sampled and stole his voice for
a malware script back in 2002. Today, as we enter
an era of generative AI where any broadcaster's
voice can be cloned with eerie perfection in
a matter of seconds, how will the law evolve
to protect the audio identities of the next generation
of creators? That is the big question. We solved
the parody problem in the 80s, but the battle
for who owns the very sound of a voice is just
beginning.