Before the days of VCRs, isolating and playing these represented a small technological accomplishment. Another precursor to the audio bonus can be found in 1978's BOMO contest, which featured a pre-taped Super Bonus. However, that tape consisted of 20 on-campus speakers reciting the advertising slogans for various products, with teams required to name the accompanying brand names and the person reading each phrase. As such, it doesn't really constitute an audio bonus as we know it. A question featuring a Guest Reader automatically became at least a 3-point play, since ID'ing the person was worth an extra point.
Audio bonuses are different animals.
Assembled in the form we all recognize today, Mike Ryan's lightning-quick montage of 1950's and 60's songs managed to fit 46 clips into 55 seconds of tape. Considering the celebratory atmosphere that greeted Ryan's audio bonus, it is peculiar that no one would attempt another for more than five years. It fell to Charlie Singer of the legendary Phasers on Stun to bedazzle the trivial assembly with his resurrection of the form. Trivia players of the time were struck by the Phasers audio and still remember its impact today. Neither they nor Singer could know that the concept had been used by General Bumble while they attended high school.