Johnny Fever, whose real name is John Caravella, grew up in a broken home. His relationship with his father was poor and his parents eventually separated when he was still young. While he was still a child, a tornado struck the mobile home community where he and his mother were living, leaving him with a near-pathological fear of windstorms. He was a hippie in the 1960s, 10 to 12 years before the show's timeframe. Johnny began working his way up in the radio business and became a highly popular and successful DJ. At the height of his career, he was a star at a major station in Los Angeles, where he worked under the name "Johnny Sunshine" and did a popular show called "Johnny Sunshine, Boss Jock" (thus implying the station was "Boss Radio" originator KHJ). After he said the word "booger" on the air, he was fired with a year left on his contract. He sued the station for wrongful dismissal and received a large cash settlement after a few years. After being forced out of LA his career took a nosedive. For several years he led a nomadic existence, going from town to town taking a series of unsatisfying and low-paying jobs at low-rated stations including a job hosting a garden show in Amarillo. He has used many on-air names, including Johnny Duke, Johnny Style, Johnny Cool, Johnny Midnight, and even Heavy Early. (Most of these names appear on the side of Johnny's coffee cup.) He finally hit "rock bottom," in his own words, when he landed in Cincinnati at the worst radio station in town, WKRP, the only station that would hire him, by 1976. He found himself hosting a "beautiful music" show in the morning, so obviously bored with the music that he didn't even bother to make up a new name or on-air persona.