Every Friday night from midnight to 2 a.m., a ship sets sail into the sea of satire. The ship is known as Pirate Radio.

Pirate Radio is a weekly radio show on Iowa State’s student-run radio station KURE 88.5 FM. The show is gaining a reputation from night-owl student listeners for being cruel, over-the-top and hilarious.

It seems no one is safe from becoming a target of Pirate Radio’s crew.

Past skits have included knocks at President Clinton, former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and current Gov. Tom Vilsack, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Alliance, GSB President Bryan Burkhardt, former GSB President Rob Wiese and GSB president-elect Matt Craft.

Lighten up, Matey

Making fun of public officials is one thing, but when the Pirate Radio posse makes fun of Iowa State student leaders, they’re ripping on their co-workers. Many of the show’s crew members have been involved in student government or have taken other on-campus roles that are in the public’s eye.

Jeremy Williams, or JC Smooth as he’s known on the air, has been the GSB finance director for the past two years. Ryan Glanzer, one of the show’s main voice actors, has been a GSB senator. Jay McLaren, who takes calls for the show, was GSB vice president last year. Carmen Cerra, who also does voices for the show, is an editorial cartoonist for the Iowa State Daily.

Williams said the show’s intent is to get people to lighten up.

“I think the main premise of our show is that we can laugh at ourselves,” he said. “If there’s something out there we can make fun of it. If you can’t find something to laugh at on our show, you don’t have a sense of humor.”

Glanzer, known on the show as Nuts McCracken, denied that it is a conflict of interest for some of the most influential students on campus to satire members of the ISU administration.

“A lot of the reason we rip on them is because we work with them firsthand,” Glanzer said. “We have actually experienced how these people act and talk. We often parody ourselves and the people we work with, and I don’t think it’s a problem.”

In fact, some ISU administrators actually have listened to the show, and Glanzer said he knows of one faculty member who likes it.

“I know of high ranking administrators who have listened to it,” he said. “I know one who I can’t mention who really liked it and thought it was really funny.”

Building a Following

Pirate Radio seems to be gaining an audience for its controversial brand of satire, Williams said.

“We keep getting a lot more calls,” he said. “Our listening audience is growing for sure.”

Williams said he has been recognized on campus because of his part on the show.

The show is gaining popularity despite its lack of advertising.

“We’ve done posters and stuff, but we’re too lazy to go hang them up,” Williams said.

Despite the new success at drawing a listening audience, Pirate Radio is far from new.

Humble Beginnings

Pirate Radio began in the spring of 1997 under the moniker “The Brew Crew.” It featured mostly music and the occasional “Weekly World News” story, but nothing along the lines of sketch comedy.

Later that summer, the show morphed into Pirate Radio.

“It was still a lot of music,” Williams said. “But when people called in, we’d do skits making fun of them.”

The 1997 summer show featured only Williams and First Mate Matt, another member of Pirate Radio’s current line-up. But by the fall of 1997, that two-man operation had evolved into nearly a spitting image of today’s Pirate Radio.

The fall show aired Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from noon to 2 p.m.

Although the show aired during the day, the pirates found their listening base was predominantly made up of high schoolers.

“I don’t know where these kids were,” Glanzer said. “I guess maybe they were in shop class or something. But they kept calling in all the time.”

The fall show disbanded just before the end of the semester. Glanzer cited a number of reasons for the break up.

“We had some complaints by some of the KURE administration and some of the ISU faculty,” he said. “Everything was being monitored and watched. We decided if they’re going to constantly whine and complain about everything, we’d just stop doing the show.”

Williams had a less complex view of the situation.

“We just got mad and quit,” he said.

But they didn’t stay mad forever. The crew decided to resurrect Pirate Radio this semester, albeit at a different timeslot.

“We like the new time better because we’re reaching more students,” Glanzer said.