TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from 1965

Posted to YouTube by user '31Mike'
Length - 4:58

Every Wednesday, TFTP takes a break from regular programming to bring you a selection of classic commercials. We will return after these messages...

Most of the commercials in this block from 1965 are video-taped ads that are from local markets in Florida, many (maybe all of them) from a commercial break or breaks during local news. A taped ad for Kentucky Fried Chicken, with an in-studio pitchman, leads off the block. Next is an ad (that suffers from some technical issues) for Rambler autos and local Florida Rambler auto dealers, and this is followed by a real-estate ad for the Sun City development in the Tampa area. A filmed ad for Doublemint gum precedes an NBC network program promo for an airing of the movie "The Rainmaker". Ads for Kentucky Fried Chicken (with voiceover about the local news sponsorship) and Zest soap close out the block.

TFTP Variety: "The Jack Paar Program" with Bob Newhart from NBC (May 28, 1965)

Posted to YouTube by user 'StandApartComedy'

Bob Newhart, before becoming an icon of 1970s and 1980s sitcoms, was a stand-up comic best known for his mock telephone conversations. Jack Paar, after his stint as the host of "The Tonight Show" ended in 1962, hosted a prime-time variety show for a few years on Friday nights on NBC.

This clip is a stand-up appearance by Newhart on one of the final episodes of Paar's prime-time show, which ended in June of 1965. In his introduction, Paar exclaims his appreciation of Newhart's comedy, and Newhart provides a bit that was another of his signature types: assuming the identity of a particular kind of character (here a flight attendant) and mining the character's situation for comedy.

TFTP News: KGO News (San Francisco) (Feb. 8, 1965)

Here's a news clip from San Francisco's ABC affiliate KGO-TV from February 8, 1965. Black-and-white video (as opposed to film) clips from the '60s are always interesting because they give us a great glimpse of what TV actually looked like in terms of its visual texture in this period. Watch closely and you can see the switchovers between video sources as the image shifts between newscaster Bob Dunn in the studio and videotaped/filmed story segments (look for the horizontal rolling interference).

The content here is especially interesting, as it includes a lot of reporting and updates on the evolving situation in Vietnam, a conflict that was very much still escalating and still entering the American conscience and consciousness in early-1965. Other reports concern the space program and racial integration (the latter reported from Atlanta by a young Peter Jennings, later the longtime ABC Nightly News anchor). The local commercial for a car dealership that appears midway through is fascinating as well, as it shows the relative simplicity and primitiveness of local ad spots in this period. A straight-ahead pitch delivered by a salesman who is simply sitting at a desk in the studio, followed by a slide with the business name and address, the spot seems ridiculously simple-minded to us now (even for a local commercial).