KLOS veterans Mark Thompson and Brian Phelps inducted into Radio Hall of Fame

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- After ruling Los Angeles radio for decades, morning show duo Mark and Brian have earned themselves a place in the Radio Hall of Fame. The two were inducted Thursday for their 25 years on the air at 95.5 FM KLOS.

"How did this happen? I'm in the what? Are you kidding me?" joked Brian Phelps as he held up his Hall of Fame award. "You can't take this back. You're not getting this back!"

"To be welcomed into the room of the greatest of all time, its honestly unthinkable," Mark Thompson told Eyewitness News. "It is the ultimate moment in something that I've loved my entire life, which is radio."

Thompson, who now lives in North Carolina, joined Phelps in an online interview for this story. The two shared memories from their time on-air, first starting out in Birmingham, Alabama for 18 months before moving to L.A. in 1987. The pair say they didn't expect to last very long.

"You know what? We'll get a couple, three months out there before we're fired and we can put L.A. on our resume," Phelps said with a chuckle.

Mark and Brian earned a staunch fan following for leaving the studio and going out into the community. They walked through a driving range dressed in suits of armor and launched a 200-pound Big Boy statue across the fountains of Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

"We just decided to let it all hang out, just do the thing and if it fails then we go down swinging," said Thompson.

The two eventually retired in 2012 after a quarter century on L.A. radio.

ABC7 Eyewitness News helicopter reporter Scott Reiff spent more than 20 years as Mark and Brian's airborne sidekick, dubbed Skylord.

"The guys were amazing," Reiff said. "They were huge back then and they just ruled the market and they had a helicopter and stooge like me to fly around and do their bidding. It was great."

But choppers and stunts weren't the only secret to Mark and Brian's Hall of Fame success.

"We're nice guys," Phelps explained. "We're irreverent as far as radio rules go, but it's a show where we had fun with and not made fun of."