PHOENIXVILLE – With the country in the grips of a recession, a small AM radio station in Allentown began a promotional contest that turned into a global spectacle and lasted 261 days.
Three men lived on a billboard platform above a busy highway, determined to outlast each other to win a mobile home. Not since Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds broadcast had such a seemingly ridiculous gimmick resulted in mass hysteria.
“This was Survivor before reality TV, and a true example of something going viral long before the concept ever existed,” said Director Pat Taggart. “This extraordinary story of ordinary men is one of determination, hope, failure and triumph, along with a little bit of everything else: drugs, rock and roll, greed, adversity, hilarity, exploitation and the ever-present pursuit of the American Dream.”
The unexpected national and global media frenzy, along with the release of Billy Joel’s “Allentown” during the contest, set the stage for what amounted to the best & worst radio promotion of all time.
THE BILLBOARD BOYS, a documentary directed by Taggart and produced by Frank Petka, tells the fascinating and bizarre true story of three men who went up and wouldn’t come down.
The premiere screening of THE BILLBOARD BOYS takes place Sunday, May 21st at 1:30pm at the historic Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville. The trailer can viewed at BillboardBoys.com