On the Flip Side

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It’s always nice when an urban legend turns out to be, well, not a legend after all. I had heard this Flip Spiceland (former popular Ch. 20 weather dude) story decades ago when he first left Springfield.

According to local urban legend, Spiceland asked his prospective employer, as testimony to his local celebrity and name recognition, to turn to any page in the Springfield [phone book], close his eyes, put a finger on a name and call that person. Ask them who their favorite weathercaster is and they'll say "Flip Spiceland," the story goes.

[snip]

There was only one way to get to the bottom of the Spiceland /Springfield phonebook story. Ask Flip.

"I had tried all of the things everybody does in looking for a better job," Spiceland says. "This was a blind box ad from Broadcast magazine that said simply 'West Coast.'

"I responded in kind. I did not send a resume or tape. At the bottom of a nice, professionally written letter, I wrote, 'P.S., this is all BS. I am including one page from the Springfield, Illinois, telephone book. Pick anyone from that page and ask who is the Springfield weatherman.' (I left out that the competition was in Decatur and Champaign.)

"As I recall, it was a page from the Ws. I had a neighbor on that page and was hoping maybe ... "

The San Jose news director bit.

"He called a beauty shop. He figured he could talk to the most people in a beauty shop, more than making a couple of cold calls. Of course, most of the people in the beauty shop were women.

"Of the 20 people, 18 said they watched me. The other two said they watched Mr. Roberts (of WCIA Channel 3). They hired me, pretty much sight unseen."

If I’m not mistaken, this was in the late 1970s. What I wonder now is how that story got so widely circulated locally back then. I mean, Flip must have told someone and it spread from there. I think everyone around back then heard the tale. But those were pre-internet days when rumors were strictly word of mouth. I think the newspapers (including the SJ-R) were a bit stuffier then and perhaps wouldn’t have bothered looking into the story either.