This Dwyer & Michaels Stunt Ended Up On A Postcard All Over The Country

Years and years ago, we had a dumb stunt that we did throughout the winter, where we had two of our producers go out with some listeners dressed as Elvis to shovel sidewalks - but only for a few minutes at a time.

We had purchased 5 identical Elvis costumes (not exactly sure why). Anytime there was a huge storm, we’d send them out to where the TV stations were doing live shots and have them shovel. As soon as the live shot was over…so was their shoveling service!

If I remember correctly, the costumes came from a company out of Las Vegas that made them for Elvis impersonators.

We spent about $100 per costume, but everything matched: jumpsuit, wigs, sunglasses, belt, red scarves (until we started losing pieces!) and then we added matching shovels.

Kirk and/or Tattoo usually went and the other “Elvises," who were listeners that did it for Mallards tickets. The van would pull up, they’d all jump out and shovel (aka try to get on camera) then bail.

One particular photo of our Elvi went national;

"Yes, that's my photo...maybe 2002. At the time I was a photographer with the Dispatch/Argus and was listening to you guys on the radio," Chuck Thomas told us in a Facebook comment. "You said you were sending the Shoveling Elvises to the WQAD parking lot. The paper needed a snow enterprise pic so I went up and snapped a few pics. The AP picked it up, then I sold the image to Palm Press and they printed greeting cards for a few years."

But it didn't just stop there, "It was fast. They were gone in a flash. I remember walking into a card shop in Boston and seeing the greeting cards. Also heard they sold them at the Graceland gift shop. Your Shoveling Elvises were everywhere!"

It makes sense now because in the post on Quad Cities On Air, they mention that they saw the photo on a greeting card they received about 20 years ago as a joke because the admin had worked on an Elvis documentary.

Do you have one of these postcards? We'd love to see it. Shoot a photo of it to us with your station app.

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