TUESDAY, Apr 22 – DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION

MORNING SIDEKICK DAILY PREP TEXT VERSION FOR TUESDAY, April 22, 2025
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COMEDY MP3s POSTED ON OUR PREP SITE FOR TODAY: HELP WANTED – POPE

TODAY IS …
(All days repeat annually on today’s date unless otherwise noted; days may or may not be called “National”/”International”/”World” depending on source; sources listed often have additional info. We generally do not list special days which were created by commercial companies for the purpose of marketing – including “holidays” created by the National Day Calendar and Wellcat websites to drive traffic to their websites – or the hundreds of disease awareness listings which occur each year. We present only those specially designated days we feel your listeners would find most interesting or significant.)

EARTH DAY

GIRL SCOUT LEADER DAY
The Holiday Insights website says this:
“Girl Scout Leader Day recognizes and honors the many adult volunteers to the girl scouting program. Girl Scout Leader Day began on April 22, 1982, when a flag honoring Girl Scout leaders was flown over the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. This day honors the thousands of volunteers who help to make the Girl Scout program a success.”

EARTH DAY / MOTHER EARTH DAY

NATIONAL JELLY BEAN DAY

OKLAHOMA DAY
Commemorates the date in 1889 when the Oklahoma region became open to European settlement, sparking the Oklahoma Land Rush.

SCHOOL BUS DRIVER APPRECIATION DAY (Fourth Tuesday in April)
After being celebrated informally for a while in California, the state legislature declared the day official in 2009 to draw special public attention to school bus drivers for their enduring and exceptional contributions to students. The observance has since spread nationally.

April is:

Adopt a Greyhound Month
Car Care Month
Celebrate Diversity Month
D.E.A.R Drop Everything and Read Month
International Guitar Month
Jazz Appreciation Month
Keep America Beautiful Month
National Card and Letter Writing Month
National Garden Month
National Humor Month
National Poetry Month

ENTERTAINMENT & CELEBRITIES

NEW OSCARS RULE: VOTERS ACTUALLY HAVE TO WATCH THE MOVIES

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has approved new awards rules. One of them is this: before voting in a category, voters actually have to have seen all the nominees in that category. Academy members are now required to view all nominated films within a category to be eligible to vote in the final round. Apparently, this was not the rule before. However, questions remain about how the Academy plans to verify compliance and enforce the rule that voters have seen all the films.
* A multiple choice test? Oral report? Guy named Vito who accompanies you to the screening?
* Oh my god, they’re right – voter fraud exists…in the “Best Short Feature – Foreign Documentary” category. I knew it!
* Will they have to actually listen to all of the Best Song nominees? Because most of those, y’know, suck.
* How horrible. No more just checking the scores on Rotten Tomatoes and ticking off a checkbox.
* At least they can be sure Snow White won’t be nominated for anything. Well, besides a truckload of Razzies.

THE BUZZ

HATFISHING

Ladies, have you been ‘hatfished’? Hatfishing is a fairly new word for when guys on dating apps post pictures of themselves in hats and hoodies to avoid calling attention to their baldness. In some cases, men have even gone on a few dates without ever taking their hat off, and then once they think they have the lady on the hook they do the big reveal. Dating experts recommend NOT hatfishing. They say a guy’s best play is to be who you are unapologetically. It might take longer to hit a match, but at least you won’t get called out for it later.
* Let me guess: those dating experts have hair?
* One way to tell is you’re being hatfished: under “My hobbies,” the guy writes “My hat collection.”
* Another is if you go scuba diving, and he’s still wearing the hoodie underwater.
* Guys, don’t post a picture of you wearing a hat. Post a picture of Jason Statham instead.
* PHONE TOPIC: Have you been hatfished? How did he reveal it? How did you take it?

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO NICKNAMES?

Mark Oppenheimer, a writer for “The Wall Street Journal,” thinks that nicknames are going extinct. He says he has five kids, ages six to 18, and none of them have been given nicknames by their friends. And none of their friends have a nickname either. He points out that there aren’t many young people who go by initials, like “J.D.” or “A.J.”; no “Junior,” no “Billy” for William or “Red” if they have red hair or “Marky” or “Tex” or “Curly” or “Crazy Legs” or “Teddy.” The writer thinks it’s sad because, he says, nicknames are almost always a positive thing, or a sign of affection. He thinks they are less common now because we’re more worried about offending people.
* So that’s what Brainiac here thinks. (to your co-host) What do you think, four-eyes?
* Nicknames haven’t gone extinct. They’ll just all been grabbed by rappers.
* Oh, I call a lot of people nicknames, mostly when I’m driving and alone.
* Anyway, it’s nice of the Wall Street Journal to be concerned about this instead of keeping an eye on our cratering economy.
* Now, here’s a song by Jelly Roll.
* PHONE TOPIC: Do you have a nickname? Do you like it?

U.S. NEWS

ROBOT CONVENIENCE STORES OPEN

A first-of-its-kind robot-operated convenience store is now open in California. A robotic technology company called VenHub has opened their first fully autonomous smart stores in Glendale and North Hollywood. Customers browse the store on an app, place their order, pay, and then the robots in the store grab the merchandise and deliver it to a pickup window. The company says the robots reduce building and operating costs by at least 31%. And, adds Shahan Ohanessian, CEO of VenHub, “The robots don’t take time off and they’re working seven days a week and they don’t really celebrate holidays.” The smart store comes with six smart refrigerated cabinets, four dry refrigerated cabinets and four delivery windows. It can also serve multiple customers at once.
* Not even Walmart, with 16 registers, can do that anymore.
* So it’s C-3P0pen 24 hours a day.
* Where have I seen this concept before? Oh yeah – Coke machines, invented in 1929! Except you can’t rock it and pound on it when it screws up your order.

CEILING PANEL DROPS OFF DURING FLIGHT

Air passengers were forced to hold up the ceiling panel of a plane after it suddenly dropped down during a Delta flight from Atlanta to Chicago on April 14. Footage of the incident on board a Boeing (* there’s that word again!) 717 shows a group of men extending their arms upwards to support the detached overhead panel – while at 30,000 feet. The panel was eventually affixed into place with duct tape. The flight returned and passenger were transferred to another plane with about a two-hour delay.
* The delay was because the passengers refused to get on the new plane without a roll of duct tape.
* Oh, Boeing, you never fail to delight us with your exciting tales of air travel.
* From now on, it should be mandatory that all Boeing flight crews include a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, and handyman.
* Just to repeat: those bolts holding the doors on have to come from somewhere. It’s not like they grow on trees. Do you want doors, or ceiling panels?
* It’s like while they’re building each plane, they spin a big wheel, and whatever part it lands on, that’s the part they leave off.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

NORTH KOREA SENDS POOP BALLOONS; SOUTH KOREA RETALIATES WITH BOY BAND MUSIC

For months now, South Korea has been on the receiving end of excrement- and garbage-filled balloons from the Kim Jong Un regime in North Korea. More than a thousand balloons have sailed over the border zone and soiled South Korea. On Sunday, South Korea struck back by blaring music of the Korean boyband BTS. North Korean soldiers and border residents would have been within earshot. Within hours of the music, Kim Jong Un’s hot (* Google her!) younger sister, Kim Yo Jong warned there would be a “new counteraction” if the unwelcome transmissions continue. She said, “This is the prelude to a very dangerous situation.”
* Sorry, but South Korea has had enough of your crap.
* Battle of the Bands is a helluva lot safer than missiles.
* They bring knives, we bring guns. They blast BTS, we blast Justin Bieber.
* If South Korea were serious, they’d drop the actual BTS boys across the border, but that violates the Geneva conventions.
* This could very well escalate into Morgan Wallen and Shaboozey.
* South Korea hasn’t released any excrement. Well, unless you count the second season of Squid Game.

TRENDING

MOST POPULAR BASEBALL WALKUP SONGS ARE COUNTRY

Someone has done an analysis of Major League baseball walkup songs – the songs the stadium plays as the batter head up to home plate – and four of the top five are country songs:
#1. White Horse – Chris Stapleton
#2. God’s Gonna Cut You Down – Johnny Cash
(#3. The Stroke – Billy Squire)
#4. God’s Country – Blake Shelton
#5. Ain’t No Love In Oklahoma – Luke Combs
and #14 is Cowgirls by Morgan Wallen

ALMANAC

NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES

May 11, Sunday – Mother’s Day
May 26, Monday – Memorial Day
June 14, Saturday – Flag Day
June 15, Sunday – Father’s Day
June 20, Friday – Summer begins (The June solstice occurs at 10:42 P.M. EDT)

BIRTHDAYS

Amber Heard (actress, ex-Mrs. Johnny Depp, “Aquaman” movies, “The Stand” TV series) … 39
Eric Mabius (actor, “Chicago Fire”) … 54
Jeffrey Dean Morgan (actor, “The Walking Dead,” “The Unholy”) … 59
Peter Frampton (rock singer/guitarist) … 75
John Waters (film director) … 79
Jack Nicholson (actor) … 88

Today’s Birthdays grade: A quirky actor who became a cultural icon (partly because almost anyone could do an impression of him), an 8x Platinum guitarist, and one-half of the nastiest celebrity divorce of the 2010’s. A big day of birthdays for late-night talk show hosts needing monologue material. Grade: C-plus.

[Want to try something different with the daily birthdays? Try grading them! Some days have “good” celebs, some have “great” celebs, some have “lousy” celebs. For fun, give the group an arbitrary grade: A-plus through F-minus. Sidekick will give you our take on it; you can to take the concept and run with it.]

BIRTHDAY QUOTE QUIZ – Ask your listeners “Who said it?” HINT: Today’s their birthday!

“I’ve always been a private person, and I’ve always valued my private life.”

(A) Kim Kardashian
(B) Prince Harry
(C) Amber Heard

ANSWER: (C) Amber Heard

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

2002 – Actor Robert Blake was charged with murder, solicitation of murder and conspiracy in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, outside a Los Angeles restaurant. He was later found not guilty in a criminal trial. In 2005, Blake was found liable in a California civil court for her wrongful death.
* I don’t know. It didn’t seem to have the pizazz of the O.J. case. I give it a 5 out of 10.

1999 – NATO warplanes struck directly against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, destroying his luxurious mansion. He wasn’t home at the time.
* You would think a smart bomb could come back later …

1995 – The first beauty contest for camels was held in Saudi Arabia. It was called “Miss Dromedary.”
* And no, I don’t know if there was a swimsuit competition.

1970 – Millions of Americans concerned about the environment observed the first “Earth Day.”
* Is the environment much better after more than 40+ years? Well, we HAVE banned most public smoking …

1952 – An atomic test conducted in Nevada became the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.
* It remained the biggest bomb ever seen on TV until “Space Force.”

1864 – Congress authorized the use of the phrase “In God We Trust” on U.S. coins.
* Only fitting, since they knew we couldn’t trust Congress.

THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY

2010 – Bret Michaels was rushed to a hospital. It was discovered that he had suffered from a brain hemorrhage. Two weeks earlier Michaels had undergone an emergency appendectomy.

1991 – The Dave Matthews Band played their first ever-live show when they appeared at The Earth Day festival in Charlottesville, Virginia.

1979 – As a condition of Keith Richard’s sentence for drug trafficking, the Rolling Stones played the first of two benefit concerts for the blind in Toronto.

1978 – John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd made their first ever appearance as The Blues Brothers when they appeared on Saturday Night Live.

X-TREME TRIVIA CHALLENGE

Every installment of X-Treme Trivia Challenge includes three mystery factoids. Create your own “Impossible Question” contest – great for listener giveaways and phone interaction starters! Also a perfect sponsorship opportunity!

1. About 85 million of THESE are sold each year, but only 6% of them are actually used. What are they?
Neckties

2. About 10 million of THESE are sold every minute. What are they?
Cigarettes

3. Recently, 45 million boxes of THESE were sold in America in one year. What are they?
Golf balls

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