In 1959, WNEW hired the biggest DJ in Cleveland, and the wildest DJ anywhere, Pete Myers, to bring his unique style and personality to New York radio. Myers’ air persona, The Mad Daddy, was as wild as wild can get  with continuous sound effects, screaming, maniacal laughter, tons of echo, and lots of rock and roll for the kids.
On July 4th, 1959 “The Mad Daddy Show” debuted on WNEW and was met with massive, negative reaction. WNEW listeners, who were at the time upper middle-class Manhattanites, politicians and Broadway producers, didn’t understand what they were hearing. WNEW management decided that “The Mad Daddy” would be no more  after just one show! Myers stayed at WNEW as just another DJ, but in 1963, Myers moved to New York’s 1010 WINS, where his new boss happened to be his old intern from the Cleveland days. “The Mad Daddy Show” was resurrected!
It lasted for two years, until WINS changed to “all news all the time” and mild Pete Myers returned to the middle-of-the-road obscurity of WNEW. In October 1968, WNEW changed his shift from afternoons to 8 – midnight.
Friday, October 4, 1968, on the first night of his new air shift, 40-year-old Pete Myers  once at the top of his craft  took his own life.