TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1982 (KCET/Los Angeles)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'
Length - 2:22

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

This 1982 sign-off from Los Angeles public TV station KCET has just two main parts: a minute-long promo for the Great Performances presentation of "Charterhouse of Parma", and a ownership/technical voiceover that is over a panoramic view of LA. (For reasons unknown, in the later part of the voiceover the camera pans and zooms in on the panorama.)

There's no national anthem film in this sign-off, as usual for most public television sign-offs that have been featured on TFTP (such as here, here, and here). The reasons for this, as for that mysterious zoom in this KCET sign-off, are unclear.

TFTP's Monochrome March, On This Day: "The Tonight Show" w/ Jack Paar - audio only (Mar. 29, 1962)

Posted to YouTube by user 'epaddon'
Length - 1:14:44

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

It Was 56 Years Ago Today: We finish Monochrome March today with an item that is not a monochrome program per se, but the audio from a monochrome program--Jack Paar's final episode as host of the "Tonight Show", which aired 56 years ago today on March 29, 1962.

Many programs from the earliest period of TV history do not survive, but there are others for which the full program does not survive but the audio track does survive--and this last Paar "Tonight Show" episode is one of those. The program's audio above accompanies still images that attempt to illustrate what is going on in the audio track. Perhaps unsurprisingly given Paar's reputation, he spends a good chunk of this final episode settling scores, including with columnists Walter Winchell and Dorothy Kilgallen and those who criticized his visits to Cuba during his "Tonight Show" run (which took place as that country was undergoing revolution). Of course, a farewell show being what it is, there are plenty of testimonials to Paar as well, including from the likes of Richard Nixon, Robert Kennedy, Billy Graham, George Burns, Jack Benny, and Bob Hope.

Paar had been "Tonight Show" host for almost five years by March of 1962, having started in July of 1957 (succeeding first "Tonight" host Steve Allen). Paar's tenure on the "Tonight Show" had been famously rocky, and included a walkout of the show for several days in 1960 as a result of a dispute with NBC about censorship of jokes. (He quips in the monologue of this episode that the NBC legal department was having a luau to celebrate his leaving the program.) Paar was leaving at this particular time to launch a prime-time variety show on NBC that started in the fall of 1962. That program ran until 1965, and for a few years after Paar made an occasional TV special, but then he appeared on TV infrequently for the remainder of his life, which lasted until 2004.

TFTP's Monochrome March Will Return After These Messages: Miscellaneous Commercial Block from the 1950s

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'
Length - 12:25

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

And every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. Monochrome March will return after these messages...

This block of commercials from the 1950s features (among other products) cigarettes, bread, autos, and soap products. There are ads for Palmolive bar soap (for the "schoolgirl complexion look"), Snickers candy bars (an animated look at the layers of a Snickers bar), Jello Instant Pudding, and Spic & Span cleaning solution. There are three different Camel cigarette ads--two of which are animated, one with a lion tamer and lion, the other featuring water skiing. There are also three different Sunbeam bread ads--and only one of them is the same as those TFTP featured a few weeks ago.

As we begin to wrap up this year's Monochrome March, it's worth considering how different these ads are from those we are familiar with today. To begin with, they're much longer; a couple of the ads here clock in at around two minutes. Animation was much more prevalent in ads from the 1950s and '60s; animation is almost never used in commercials now. And there is an unmistakable air of innocence to many of these ads--a girl jump-roping to sell Sunbeam bread, clean-cut teenagers featured in the Palmolive ad. Heck, even in the cigarette ads the worst thing going on is whether or not the cigarettes will irritate your throat.

Maybe, in that era, things really were more black and white.

TFTP's Monochrome March: Network Promo from NBC (Mar. 21, 1958)

Posted to YouTube by user 'obsgia'
Length - 1:12

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

Here is another monochrome network promo from the late-1950s, this one from NBC on March 21, 1958 (not 1957 as the YouTube title suggests). TFTP analyzed some of the qualities of 1950s program promos here, in a previous post on a promo from the late-1950s, and the above promo certainly has the same qualities (and limitations).

The above promo, which promotes that evening's prime-time line-up, comes during an episode of the NBC daytime game show "Treasure Hunt". It highlights three programs from the Friday night line-up: "Truth and Consquences" with guest star Lou Costello; "M-Squad" starring Lee Marvin; and "The Thin Man", the TV series adaptation of the movie series by the same name. The promotion for the three programs is held together by a puzzle-piece theme (evident in the promotional art and the voiceover).

TFTP's Monochrome March, On This Day: "The Object Is" from ABC (Mar. 26, 1964)

Posted to YouTube by user 'WarioBarker88'
Length - 28:44

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

It Was 54 Years Ago Today: Early-1960s TV saw many game shows with a clue-guessing format that tried to capitalize on the popularity of "Password". "The Object Is" is a short-lived example of those game shows, and this next-to-last episode of the program aired 54 years ago today on March 26, 1964.

Like others of the clue-guessing subgenre of TV game show, on "The Object Is" a celebrity guest was paired with a regular contestant, with two such teams competing against one another. (The celebrities here are actress Joan Caulfield and comedian Stubby Kaye.) One member of the team tried to guess the identity of a famous or legendary person from a clue given by the other in the form of an object associated with that person. (For example, in this episode the clue "bearded clock" is given for the person "Father Time".)

The game-play seems to proceed smoothly enough, but it must not have been too compelling to viewers, because the show only lasted for about three months, from Dec. 30, 1963 until Mar. 27, 1964. Dick Clark, although already well-known to audiences as the long-time host of "American Bandstand", was making his game-show hosting debut with "The Object Is".

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1981 (HBO)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'
Length - 2:27

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

TFTP's Sign-Offs Through the Years has stuck mainly to broadcast stations that are major network affiliates. But this week we are featuring a cable network sign-off--from the era in which cable networks actually signed-off for the night. TFTP featured a 1979 sign-off for HBO a while back, and the 1981 sign-off here features the same exact "bedtime" film at the very end of it.

The animated "bedtime" film consists of images pertaining to things one would do before turning in for the night--setting an alarm clock, turning out lights, pulling window shades, and the like. The film is preceded by a series of promos for "HBO Weekend", including the movie "Alien" (on Friday), a concert program with country music star George Jones (on Saturday), and the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter" (on Sunday).

TFTP's Monochrome March: Local Newscast from KCMO/Kansas City (Oct. 1959)

Posted to YouTube by user 'KCTVFive'
Length - 5:18

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

This brief clip is from Kansas City station KCMO (now KCTV) and consists of part of the local newscast from a day in October of 1959. Anchor Harold Mack reports several stories, including a local case in which a teen poisoned her parents, a local industrialist who had died, and a Future Farmers of America convention taking place in Kansas City. An ad for sponsor Maxwell House coffee appears, with a jar of Maxwell House sitting on Mack's news desk at the end of the clip.

TFTP's Monochrome March Will Return After These Messages: Sugar Crisp cereal ads from the 1950s

Posted to YouTube by user 'Vintage Fanatic' (top), 'spuzzlightyeartoo' (bottom)
Length - 1:31 (top), 0:50 (bottom)

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

And every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. Monochrome March will return after these messages...

These two Sugar Crisp cereal ads from the 1950s feature three bear mascots that are precursors of the cereal's later smart-aleck bear from the 1970s. The first commercial, done with traditional animation, is a western saga set in a saloon and featuring a stand-off between a good guy and a bad guy--but how bad can a guy be if he likes to eat Sugar Crisp? The second ad portrays the three bears in stop-motion animation style as they assist a little boy and girl in enjoying their Sugar Crisp. Both commercials suggest that Sugar Crisp can be eaten as a meal, as a snack, or as candy, a rather peculiar set of suggestions it would seem to us now.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "See It Now" w/ Edward R. Murrow on CBS (Mar. 9, 1954)

Posted to YouTube by user 'KD'
Length - 25:50

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

Edward R. Murrow is perhaps the most legendary newsman in radio and television history. And his attempt to report on and expose the malfeasance of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the mid-1950s is one of the things that made him legendary. This 1954 episode of Murrow's "See It Now" is where he did most of his work in exposing McCarthy--with a huge assist from McCarthy himself.

The bulk of the episode consists of film and audio clips of McCarthy making various statements about the supposed threat of communism in America, often juxtaposed with other clips where he contradicts himself. Murrow introduces the clips and provides framing statements at the beginning and end of the program, but for the most part he lets McCarthy's own words do him in. Murrow's statement at the end of the program has become famous for blaming the state of American politics for the problem of McCarthy, quoting Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar": "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars but in ourselves."

In the following weeks, McCarthy asked for and got a chance for rebuttal to Murrow's presentation in this episode, to which Murrow provided a further response. Ultimately, McCarthy's downfall was the result of his censure in the U.S. Senate in December of 1954, a result that this episode of "See It Now" probably helped to hasten.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "Cavalcade of Stars" from DuMont (Oct. 26, 1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'WABDtv'
Length - 49:48

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"Cavalcade of Stars" started in June of 1949 on the DuMont network as a garden-variety early TV variety show--with dancers, singers, comedy sketches, and rotating hosts. Starting in July of 1950, one of those rotating hosts -- soon to become the show's only host -- was comedian Jackie Gleason. Gleason had been kicking around Hollywood for a number of years by 1950 and had appeared the previous year in the first version of the "Life of Riley" TV sitcom. "Cavalcade of Stars" would become the vehicle by which Gleason rocketed to stardom in TV comedy.

By fall of 1952, Gleason had been snapped up by the more prestigious CBS and "Cavalcade of Stars" moved over to the Tiffany Network, renamed "The Jackie Gleason Show". But before that, Gleason had a couple of solid seasons on DuMont as his star rose, and this episode is from the middle of that period, October of 1951. Most of Gleason's famous characters originated on the DuMont show, including Charlie Bratten ("The Loudmouth") and Reggie Van Gleason (both of which appear in the above episode), as well as the Honeymooners--which had appeared for the first time a few weeks before this episode aired.

This episode, after a brief monologue from Gleason (and his signature line "And away we go!"), begins with a dance number by the June Taylor Dancers, followed by a song from Georgia Gibbs. Gleason does a magic act which is followed by a musical/dance number called "Hangin' Around With You". The Loudmouth makes his appearance (with Art Carney's Clem Finch supporting) followed by a pair of songs. The show closes with a long sketch (that includes a comic musical performance) featuring Reggie Van Gleason, a character that lampoons upper class pretensions.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1980 (WVTV/Milwaukee)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'
Length - 7:59

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

The whole first half of this 1980 sign-off from Milwaukee independent station WVTV consists of late news delivered in voiceover on a slide reading "News Final". Many stations--of those that even had a news segment as part of their sign-off--used the same technique of simply having an announcer read news over a still slide.

The remainder of the sign-off has a short film of a hymn, the ownership/technical voiceover, and a curious treatment of the national anthem. An image of the American flag is superimposed on a chromakey image of the map of the United States, as the lyrics for the anthem appear below the map in "bouncing ball" style (so viewers who didn't know the words would be able to follow along?).

TFTP's Monochrome March: Ernie Kovacs as Wolfgang von Sauerbraten (1950s)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Kovac Corner'
Length - 2:46

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

Ernie Kovacs is a favorite at TFTP (see here, here, and here) so this is a Monochrome March special look at another of Ernie's classic characters, Wolfgang von Sauerbraten. Kovacs combined the German Oktoberfest-inspired costume (and moustache) and a mostly indecipherable German accent with the shtick of being a disc jockey to create some farcical humor.

Kovacs did this at a time when Germany was just re-emerging after the horrors of World War II, and he probably helped to re-establish some of these elements of a more benign image for German culture. Although the lampooning of ethnic characteristics can be seen as questionable today, seeing Kovacs portraying von Sauerbraten is a great window into his style of comedy.

TFTP's Monochrome March Will Return After These Messages: Westinghouse ads from CBS (Apr. 2, 1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan'
Length - 7:04

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

And every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. Monochrome March will return after these messages...

Here are all of the Westinghouse commercials from an April 1951 episode of CBS' "Studio One". In the first ad, Westinghouse celebrity spokeswoman Betty Furness demonstrates an electric dishwasher, an appliance that was still quite a novelty in the early-1950s and that was certainly not commonplace. (Note how she has to explain how to load dishes into the dishwasher, the model being demonstrated a top-loading drawer-style machine.)

The second ad features Furness showing off a frost-free refrigerator/freezer. She explains in some detail the process of automatic defrosting (where does that melted frost water go?) to those viewers who might wonder how such a thing is possible. The third and final Westinghouse ad, without Furness, is not for any particular appliance or product but is rather a general promotion of Westinghouse's research and development activity in the area of ultrasonic sound waves.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "The Tonight Show" w/ guest host Jerry Lewis from NBC (Jul. 2, 1962)

Posted to YouTube by user 'givethechanceakid'
Length - 18:26

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

After Jack Paar left the "Tonight Show" in early-1962, there was an interim period of several months before new host Johnny Carson could begin due to previous contractual commitments Carson had. During this period, guest hosts filled in using the Paar "Tonight Show" set and personnel, including sidekick Hugh Downs and bandleader Skitch Henderson. The clip above is from one of those interim episodes, from July of 1962, hosted by comic Jerry Lewis.

"The Tonight Show" was ninety minutes long in those days and was much more freewheeling and loose in structure--tendencies that are loudly on display in this Lewis-hosted episode. Large chunks of the episode are devoted to Lewis and Downs playing memory games, an avocation of Lewis's. The first part of the clip above shows Lewis guessing the items (written on a chalkboard) that had been compiled from audience suggestions in the previous segment. Then, Lewis recites items from a list he had put into a sealed envelope.

Lewis finally introduces a guest, fellow comic Jack Carter, and the two engage in frantic banter and horseplay before settling down into what at least resembles an interview. (It's not long before this breaks out again into horseplay and antics.) The general melee of this clip and the episode it came from represents perhaps Lewis's lack of commitment to the program, as a transient guest host, or perhaps Lewis was just unable to contain himself, but this episode represents a high point in the lack of structure in early television.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "Ding Dong School" from NBC (1953)

Posted to Internet Archive by user 'Robin_1990'
Length - 29:33

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"Ding Dong School" was an early children's program that laid the groundwork for later programs such as "Romper Room", "Sesame Street", and especially "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood". Airing on NBC from 1952 to 1956, "Ding Dong School" was hosted by the matronly Frances Horwich (referred to on-screen as "Miss Frances"). Horwich was an educator who would later become NBC's head of children's programming.

This 1953 episode seems typical of the series. For its entirety, Horwich sits on a stool in front of a neutral backdrop and for each segment (including commercials) interacts with objects of various kinds that are wheeled in and out on carts. Miss Frances methodically blows bubbles from a bubble pipe, reads a storybook with a crib full of baby dolls by her side, makes commercial pitches for Kix cereal, the show's sponsor, and makes animal shapes out of a folded handkerchief.

Throughout Horwich maintains a presentational style the likes of which would later become the hallmark of Fred Rogers on his program--and for which Horwich in "Ding Dong School" serves as a precursor and perhaps an inspiration. First, she addresses the TV camera as if it is the child viewer; she looks directly into the camera as if making eye contact with a child and speaks to it as if conversing with a child. Also, her tone of voice is soothing and mellifluent, very easy on the ears. This style of address and her style of program is one that clearly had some influence on later kids' TV, and in this way "Ding Dong School" is a pioneer of children's programming.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1979 (WDIV/Detroit)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Retrontario'
Length - 7:10

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

This 1979 sign-off from Detroit station WDIV begins with the tail end of a segment (presumably public service in nature) called "Classroom". The NAB Television Code slide leads into PSAs for Tel-Law (a public service in Detroit for getting legal advice over the telephone) and the Detroit Institute of Arts, which are followed by a local promo for "First 4 Sports", the station's sports department. 

Next is an Editorial Reply in which the president of the Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association responds to a recent station editorial about a new bottle deposit proposal. (Fans of "Seinfeld" will now flashback to the episode centering on the Michigan bottle deposit scam.) Editorial replies like this were often seen on TV in this era, and one wonders if this one ever saw the light of day at any time other than right before sign-off.

The ownership/technical voiceover on a curious criss-cross weave "Goodnight" image precedes more PSAs, for the Michigan Heart Association and the Detroit Community Music School. Rabbi Dannel Schwartz then presents a religious segment. The very disco-looking "go 4 it" WDIV logo (with serious neon) appears for a final voiceover "good night" and the intro to the national anthem. The anthem film itself is a quick-cut montage of mostly still images, many of them very "seventies" in nature. The disco-logo returns for a few seconds before the signal cuts out.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "Winky Dink and You" from CBS (mid-1950s)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Mark Mentzer'
Length - 28:33

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"Winky Dink and You" is one of the most interesting programs in television history, and it's not clear that there has ever been another program like it. It has been heralded (both when it was on the air and since) as TV's first "interactive" program. Host Jack Barry (of later quiz show scandal--and "Joker's Wild"--fame) and animated sprite Winky Dink led child viewers on a quirky journey involving drawing on their television screen.

Unless the child was especially mischievous, this drawing was done on a clear plastic sheet (referred to as a "magic window") and a special set of crayons that could be ordered through the show (the kit is advertised several times in this episode). The sheet was spread out over the TV screen, staying in place via static cling, and Barry and Winky presented several different images per episode that kids could complete with their crayons. In the episode above, these images include members of Winky's family from his "family album" and an automobile that then goes on a drive against a moving background.

"Winky Dink and You" aired on Saturday mornings on CBS from 1953 to 1957. It was revived in syndication for a few years circa 1970 and was even distributed in home video form in the 1990s--complete with drawing kit.

TFTP's Monochrome March Will Return After These Messages: Sunbeam Bread ads from the 1950s/60s

Posted to YouTube by user 'MattTheSaiyan' (top), 'Vintage Fanatic' (bottom)
Length - 1:11 (top), 1:03 (bottom)

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

And every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. Monochrome March will return after these messages...

Here's a pair of black-and-white commercials for Sunbeam bread from the monochrome era of the 1950s and '60s. The first ad features two animated figures, a jump-roping little girl and a Sunbeam baker (complete with the puffy hat). A fairly obnoxious jingle plays, seemingly sung by the girl and baker as female and male voices alternate. "Sunbeam energy" is the theme of the ad, as a title with this message is superimposed on live-action images of Sunbeam bread.

The second ad takes the "sun" in Sunbeam literally, with a parable of a sunbathing fellow who is unconvincingly said to have "vim, vigor, and vitality" from eating Sunbeam bread. He frolics with his family, picnicking on the beach (sandwiches made with Sunbeam bread, natch) and playing with a beach ball with his daughter.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "You Asked for It" from DuMont (1951)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MeditationsBySharri'
Length - 29:22

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"You Asked for It" is a program that defies categorization and which has no real counterpart in today's TV landscape. The title is quite literal in that viewers sent in letters asking for something (an answer to a question, a particular type of guest or presentation) and the show gave it to them--with host Art Baker declaring "You asked for it!"

Airing on the DuMont network from 1950-51 and then ABC until 1959, "You Asked for It" fulfilled hundreds of such requests over the course of its run. In the episode featured here, soldiers get to see pin-up girls act out the pin-up photos they've appeared in, a pair of trained birds do charming tricks, a Hawaiian country music singer performs, and a group of actors from the "Our Gang" comedy shorts has a reunion. Baker interviews each of the former child actors about their lives since "Our Gang" and the actors are also reunited with crew members from their films (plus there is cake!).

Sponsored by Skippy peanut butter, several commercials are included here as well, including one very weird one in which host Art Baker tries to hypnotize the audience into liking Skippy.

TFTP's Monochrome March: "The Steve Allen Show" from NBC (Jul. 1, 1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'balsamwoods'
Length - 58:23

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

This episode of "The Steve Allen Show" is the famous one where Elvis Presley, in one of his first appearances on national television, was forced to sing "Hound Dog" to a hound dog. Steve Allen was famous for denigrating and ridiculing rock music. His disregard for rock--right up until the end of his life in 2000--became a real blind spot for him, as his attempts to (he thought) expose the ridiculousness of the form instead made him look ridiculous. This was the context in which he made Presley serenade the hound dog in this episode.

Allen's prime-time variety show had premiered just a month before this July 1956 episode. He had been host of NBC's "Tonight" since 1954 (the premiere episode of which was featured on TFTP recently), and he did double duty on "Tonight" and this Sunday night variety show until he left "Tonight" in 1957. The Sunday night show competed with the "Ed Sullivan Show" and this booking of Presley was undoubtedly an attempt to score an early ratings victory. (Presley, of course, would soon after make an even more famous appearance on Sullivan's program.)

The episode above begins with a bit between Allen and fellow variety host Milton Berle before going on to a musical number of the song "Picnic", a humorous sit-down interview with then-newcomer Andy Griffith, a viking-themed number by Allen show regulars Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and a bit by Allen (of questionable taste to us now) where he lampoons an Indian yogi. Allen and guest Imogene Coca play a married couple in a sketch that sends up the "realism" seen in recent Hollywood movies, and finally three-quarters of the way through the episode Elvis makes his appearance.

Presley, after a brief introductory chat with Allen, gamely and in good humor performs "Hound Dog" to the hound dog, wearing a tuxedo to boot. Presley returns, along with Griffith and Coca and host Allen, in a show-closing musical comedy sketch that sends up country and western music.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1978 (KXAS/Ft. Worth-Dallas)

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'
Length - 3:31

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off sequence for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

This sign-off from station KXAS in Ft. Worth-Dallas, Texas, from 1978, starts in the middle of a religious segment called "Day to Day" in which a woman is singing a hymn while a pianist accompanies her. It then shifts to the national anthem, but without any kind of film--the music simply plays over a slide of the KXAS logo. (This qualifies as the least elaborate and most bare-bones national anthem presentation we've seen here at TFTP.)

The KXAS logo is a spiffy number "5" with a star incorporated into the curve of the number (presumably an implied reference to Texas' motto as the "Lone Star state"), and with a smaller version of the late-1970s NBC "N" logo perched next to it. The logo stays on screen for the next portion of the sign-off, which is the ownership/technical voiceover. A brief on-screen message about the station's microwave transmitter link closes the sign-off.

TFTP's Monochrome March: A Whole Month of Black & White Television from the Past!

Posted to YouTube by user 'tvdays'
Length - 0:59

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March!

For the entire month of March, TFTP will bring you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white! That means that in addition to TFTP's Monochrome Monday, which brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week, all the posts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in March will also be programs or clips in black & white. ("Sign-Offs Through the Years" will continue its progression through the years on Fridays each week.)

Peter Rabbit Ears in the ABC promo above (from circa 1959) is just a first taste of the monochrome TV from the past that will be featured during the month of March.