Tripp
Peter Tripp is known for a few disparate reasons: he was the top DJ in Manhattan in the late fifties; he got caught (with Alan Freed) taking payola from big record companies who were jockeying for air time; and he created that hugely popular early-seventies exercise craze called the Dyna-Gym.
Toward the end of his NYC reign, Tripp pulled a publicity stunt for the March of Dimes, pledging to stay awake for over 200 hours (just a couple weeks before Buddy Holly bit it with the Bopper and Valens). Afraid that such sleep deprivation could be dangerous, the station hires two psychologists (Floyd Cornelison and Jolly West) to monitor his top DJs health. It turned into one of the most famous sleep-deprivation experiments of all time. Tripp, who all but invented the concept of Top 40 radio, goes from smooth talking DJ to raving lunatic as we follow him through this dark and often comic hallucinogenic nightmare.