WPUN

Our predictions stink!

"Our signal is KRAP. Our studios are KRAP. Even our staff is KRAP."

— KRAP Radio About Page

The call letters of a television or radio station can sometimes spell out funny names, often beginning with either "W" or "K" (assigned to American stations east and west of the Mississippi River respectively^note with a few exceptions grandfathered in). This trope applies to stations in fictional media where call letters spell something humorous. If the name is a slight variation (or Take That!) to a real station, it may overlap with Writing Around Trademarks. May also overlap with Meaningful Name, if the call sign describes the content of the station.

Subtrope of Punny Name. See also Fun with Acronyms and Alphabet News Network. If you were looking for punny weapon names, take a look at A.K.A.-47.

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Examples:

Comedy

• The late George Carlin built a routine around being a Seventies disc jockey at WINO, wonderful wino radio. "Wonderful Wino, the big sound in the big town." Naturally, much of the routine revolved around Filling the Silence.
• Cheech & Chong with Wink Dinkerson from KRUD radio.

Comic Books

• The major radio station in Astro City is KBAC, which is short for "Kurt Busiek's Astro City", the full title of the book.
• The TV arm of Lexcorp in Superman was intially given as "Superstation WLEX". (Later LNN.)
• In Shazam!, Billy Batson is traditionally a kid reporter for WHIZ Radio, a reference to the character's first appearance in Whiz Comics. His Captain Ersatz Willie Fawcett in the Superman story "Make Way for Captain Thunder!" works for WHAM-TV.

Films — Animation

• Cat City 2 has the news channel CINN, which is a pun on CNN and "cin", the Hungarian onomatopoeia for a mouse squeaking.
• Scooby-Doo! and the Reluctant Werewolf: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, it's shown that the TV camera Wolfgang is using to record and broadcast Dracula's commentary for the race is from station KRUD.

Films — Live-Action

• The Kentucky Fried Movie segment "A Fistful of Yen". In the stronghold of Dr. Klahn, the protagonist finds a microphone with the station name "KLAHN" on it.
• Perhaps more ironically appropriate than punny in The Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult. When Jane Drebin storms out on her husband Frank, leaving him standing there alone, a DJ on a background radio announces "KSAD: sad music, all the time".
• Even though it is set in New Mexico (west of the Mississippi), the radio station in The Vast of Night has the call letters WOTW (War Of The Worlds) instead of something beginning with a 'K'.

Literature

• The school radio station in George Brown, Class Clown is called WEBS - which is both a reference to their school's mascot, the Spiders, and an acronym for the school's name, Edith B. Sugarman.
• Played with in Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series, where telepathic dragon Ellegon amuses himself by beginning broadcast telepathic messages with the words "This is radio K.A.R.L., the Voice of the Emperor."
• Monster of the Year: Mike and Kevver's favorite radio station, with its DJ Skip Toomaloo (and which ends up sponsoring the titular Monster of the Year contest), has the callsign WERD.

Live-Action TV

• The Bugaloos. Uptown's only radio station is KOOK; disc jockey Peter Platter and his talking microphone often argue over whether or not a new song is a smash hit.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffing on the soundtrack of The Brain That Wouldn't Die:
  Tom Servo: You're listening to KPORN—sleazy, slutty music all morning long.
  • Also used in Angels Revenge as the movie's villain listens to a radio broadcast recapping the previous scene:
  Mike: You're listening to KPLOT.
• Sesame Street. In an episode from the early nineties, the all-dog radio station WUFF broadcasted out of the Fix-It-Shop.
• WKRP in Cincinnati has WKRP itself - in-universe it's a homophone for "carp" but it's can also be read as "crap" - plus their crosstown rivals WPIG, "those swine!" ^note In 1979,there was an actual WKRP, in Dallas, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
• World's Dumbest.... Anytime the show has a skit involving a news or radio station, inevitably, the call letters will be WDUM.
• Remember WENN: WENN is, of course, a pun on "when", which works in-universe, but even more so out-of-universe (as the series is unabashedly nostalgic about The Golden Age Of Radio in the 1930s-40s).
• In the first two seasons of Martin, the titular character worked as a DJ at a radio station called WZUP, which was a play on his well-known "Whazzup?" Catchphrase.
• Frasier: The title characters works at KACL, which is meaningless in-universe but refers to series creators David Angel, Peter Casey and David Lee. Several episodes mention a rival station that uses the letters KPXY and is colloquially referred to as "The Mighty Pixie".
  • In "The Late Dr. Crane", the TV station that mistakenly reports Frasier as dead is named KYLL.
• On Mama's Family, the local TV/radio station in Raytown is KRAY, pronounced "K-Ray". This goes along with the theme naming almost every other business in town, most of which have "Ray" in their names.

Music

• Harry Chapin's ballad "I Am the Morning DJ" is sung from the point of view of an aging jock who is considering packing it in to become a record-store owner. His station is called WOLD.
  I am the morning DJ, at W*O*L*D;
  Playing all the hits for you wherever you may be.
  The bright good-morning voice who's heard but never seen;
  Feeling all of forty-five going on fifteen!
• They Might Be Giants: "The End of the Tour" from John Henry mentions "a girl with a crown and a scepter / who's on WLSD".
• The Title Track to Jazz Fusion artist Donald Fagen's solo debut, The Nightfly, is about a DJ on a jazz station called WJAZ.

Music Videos

• In the music video for "The Vengeful One" by Disturbed, the band's Metal Band Mascot The Guy shuts down several parodies of real news networks, including TNN (CNN), Kox News (Fox News) and BSNBC.
• Hard N Phirm: The music video for "Pi" opens with a spoof on WGBH as "WHNP".

Puppet Shows

• In Muppets Tonight, the TV station The Muppets were working at was KMUP.
• The Johnny Cash episode of The Muppet Show has a country and western radio station called WHOG broadcasting from the Muppet Theatre.
• An unmade Jim Henson environmentalist project would have been set at a TV station run by animals called WILD.
• On Bear in the Big Blue House, Bear would sometimes listen to W-CHA-CHA. The series finale, "This is Your Life, Bear," involved him winning a contest held by them.

Radio

• In Adventures in Odyssey, a radio station for children operates with "KYDS", named "Kids Radio".

Video Games

• In Chaos: A Fantasy Adventure, the radio station you hear in your trailer at the beginning of the game is KAOS. You eventually visit the station studio.
• In Duke Nukem 3D, one level is set on a radio station named KTIT. Duke, being Duke, immediately puns "tits" from the name.
• Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories has a radio station called LCFR. Add a few letters and you get "Lucifer".
• Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work: Patti has to infiltrate a building of K-RAP Studios which is a radio station.
• Rhythm Heaven Fever: "Ringside" takes place during an interview on television station KRIQ, short for Rhythm IQ, the Working Title for the series.
• The hip hop radio station in the Saints Row series is called KRhyme.
• The second episode of Sam and Max Save the World, "Situation: Comedy", takes place mostly at television station WARP.

Webcomics

• KPET in Newshounds.
• One of Dan Lietha's "After Eden" cartoons featured radio station WRNG, whose playlist of Christmas Songs included Miss Piggy's cover of "Santa Baby".

Web Videos

• Steve D'Monster . In the Monstrocity News episodes, the fictional television station that broadcasts the program is WICU (I see you), a local HOG (in-universe FOX parody) affiliate.
• FreedomToons features The Echo Chamber With Dr. Mac on cable network MSNBS.

Western Animation

• The All-New Popeye Hour had an episode called "W.O.I.L.", in which Olive Oyl and Bluto ran competing radio stations, with the respective call signs WOIL and WBLU.
• The American Dad! episode "A Smith in the Hand", as part of its theme about Stan discovering masturbation, has him taking over television station W-ANG.
• Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! used KRUD as the main TV station of San Zucchini.
• BoJack Horseman has MSNBSea (instead of, naturally, MSNBC).
• The Dog City episode "Radio Daze" is set at the studios of WFIDO.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: The radio station the Bagges listen to is WDIL, which is a play on creator John R. Dilworth's name.
• Crashbox: Jumpin' Johnny Jumble of "Radio Scramble" runs a station called KBOX, named after the show itself.
• Dan Vs.: As seen in "Dan vs. Chris," Dan listens to a radio station KLIE, The Lie, which, aside from doing the giveaway for the Ray Gun, discussed the cover-up for UFO attacks in Santa Fe.
• In The Fairly OddParents! episode "MicroPhony", Timmy wishes for his own radio station named KTIM to challenge Vicky and her babysitting service during summer vacation.
• Some episodes of Garfield and Friends feature the TV station WBOR.
  • "DJ Jon" features KDUM Radio.
• Hey Arnold!: While Arnold normally listens to Jazz on MJZZ, in "24 Hours to Live," he is woken up by a dedication by Helga on KILL about his upcoming fight with Harold.
• Looney Tunes:
  • A number of shorts feature station KFWB, an actual radio station that started its life on the Warner Bros. lot, and still operates today.^note KFWB's current format broadcasts Latin American music.
  • The 1988 TV special Bugs vs. Daffy: Battle of the Music Video Stars has Bugs running radio station WABBIT, while Daffy ran rival station KPUT.
• On Rugrats, the grandfather character liked to listen to K-OLD: "Music for the old and the old at heart."
• The Simpsons:
  • Springfield's talk station is KBBL (KBabble).
    "No sports, no rock, no information. For mindless chatter, we're your station."
  • In the Latin American translation of "The Joy of Sect", once the Movementarians employ lawyers to take over KBBL in the middle of an expose by Kent Brockman, the line of Brockman appreciating the Leader being his new boss was changed from him saying "Leader is the owner of KBBL" to "Leader is the owner of K-LLE-C" ("callese", "shut up") showing even more the Orwellian power of the cult.
  • The episode "Colonel Homer" features the country station KUDD ("Don't touch that dial! You've got KUDD (cud) on it!")
  • Another episode had a station called WKOMA (or coma), which described their station as having sedate and relaxed music (which is apparently what it feels like to be in one).
• On Sitting Ducks, Ducktown’s radio station is named KDUCK.
• SpongeBob SquarePants:
  • The episode "Mid-Life Crustacean" has the oldies station KOLD.
  • Other episodes, such as "Krab Borg" feature KRUD.
    "And now, back to KRUD with all of your personal YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH STEALING MY CAR hits!"
• WordWorld has a radio station, call letters WORD.
• The Beany and Cecil short "The Wildman from Wildsville" has the title Wildman paint a "crazy test pattern" on Cecil's face. The station's name on the test pattern is KOOL.
• The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo: In the last episode ("Horror-scope Scoob"), the gang goes to station KREEP to appear on an episode of Boris Kreepoff's show.

Real Life

• Very much Truth in Television (or Truth in Radio), as demonstrated here.
• Up until the early 2000s, a radio station in central Wisconsin went by the callsign of WIZD. You can read that as either "Wizard" or "Wizzed".
• As seen in the page image, KRAP radio broadcasts out of Washington, Missouri.
• Then you have the oldest radio callsign in the United States: WATD (At The Dump). No points for guessing where their broadcast tower is located.
• A sister station to Seattle's NBC station KING is cleverly named KONG.
• The station formerly known as KOME. "Don't touch that dial, it's got 'KOME' on it!"
• Lorenzo Milam, one of the pioneers of non-commercial community radio in America, had a reputation as a Cloudcuckoolander with an oddball sense of humor (for example, his handbook for starting a station was titled Sex & Broadcasting). This was reflected in some of the call letters he chose for his stations: KRAB, KBOO, KUSP.
• In the United Kingdom, 96.7 KLFM was not an American-themed or American-sounding radio station, despite the KLFM name, but an abbreviation of King's Lynn FM. It was chosen for brevity, rather than any American call-sign purposes. However, since the Bauer Media buyout of the station in March 2019, the station was rebranded to Greatest Hits Radio West Norfolk.
• The San Francisco radio station KOIT is named after the city's iconic Coit Tower.
• The PBS & NPR station in the Philadelphia region is WHYY.
• KKOW "The Cow" is a country music station broadcasting out of Joplin, Missouri.
• In Columbia, Missouri, home of the University of Missouri, there are several stations with college-inspired call letters.
  • KOMU, the NBC-affilliate owned by the University, has the acronym as its last two letters.
  • KMIZ and KZOU, the local ABC and FOX affiliates, take their call signs from Mizzou, a nickname of the school.
• Three radio stations are directly named after their city of license: WARE (Massachusetts), WISE (Virginia), and WACO (Texas). The last of those has a grandfathered first letter, as the dividing line was the Texas—New Mexico border before 1923.

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