TFTP Local Weather Round-Up! WHBF/Quad Cities, IA/IL, WLS/Chicago (1973), KING/Seattle (1982)

Posted to YouTube by user 'fromuncle' (top), 'Steve Newman' (middle), 'robatsea2009' (bottom)
Length - 3:46 (top), 3:55 (middle), 3:13 (bottom)

Weatherman Doug Dahlgren in clip #1 (top) of this local weather round-up looks like he bought his suit jacket at the same place that "Mary Tyler Moore Show" weatherman Ted Baxter shopped, what with the light blue color and the patch on the left pocket. This 1966 clip from WHBF in the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois utilizes what looks like back projection of overhead transparencies to present the weather, supplemented by a series of number dials to present the temp, humidity, etc.

Clip #2 features weatherman Steve Newman of WLS in Chicago, who apparently shopped at the same store as Baxter and Dahlgren (these blazers were all over the place in the 1960s and early-1970s). Newman, in a 1973 clip, has a rotating four-sided presentation board on which his various weather charts are displayed (and there must be someone on the back side of it putting in new charts, because Newman turns the thing more than three times with a new chart every time).

The last clip, clip #3, with Don Madsen of KING in Seattle from 1982, apart from being a morning weather report, is done almost entirely using electronic graphics, with Madsen offscreen doing voiceover for virtually the entire weather report. As a wintertime weather report in a mountainous state, Madsen's weather report includes additional information such as snow conditions for skiing and the status of various mountain passes.

As you watch these weather clips from different eras, you realize two things about the evolution of local weather: first, there becomes less and less emphasis on technical aspects of weather such as fronts, barometric pressure, etc. (which are hardly ever mentioned in TV weather reports now); and second, there used to be a lot more reporting on national weather, something that is minimized if it is presented at all in most local weather reports these days.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1973 (WVIR/Charlottesville, VA)

Posted to YouTube by user 'stevations'
Length - 1:42

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 1973 sign-off from Charlottesville, Virginia, station WVIR (the community's NBC affiliate) continues the early-1970s pattern of consisting of original audio with still images. The audio (after beginning with a jaunty instrumental passage) again features just the ownership/technical voiceover. The still images here (and in all of these such sign-offs) are not just filler--they consist of interesting information about the station being featured. Here we see the WVIR station logo from the era, pictures of the WVIA studio and technical facilities, some of the station's on-air personalities, and even a "fact sheet" about the station.

TFTP Game Shows: "The Price is Right" from CBS (Jul. 19, 1973)

Posted to YouTube by user 'PTR'

Here is a great example of a typical early episode of the 1970s version of "The Price is Right" from when the show was still only half-hour in length. The Bob Barker-hosted revival of "TPiR" had been on for less than a year (premiering in fall 1972) when this episode aired in mid-summer of '73.

The half-hour version is in most respects similar to the later hour-long version (which started in 1975 and is still on the air of course today), except there are only three pricing games and no bonus wheel to determine who got into the showcase. (The top two moneymakers of the three pricing game contestants were simply automatically advanced to the showcase.)

The three pricing games featured in this episode are a classic group that includes the True/False Game, the Grocery Game, and the Clock Game. The quality of the video in this episode is also especially good (far better than many of the blurry taped-off-of-GSN vintage "TPiR" episodes that pop up on YouTube). The upload seems to come directly from a master tape of the episode, although this means that there are long slugs of black where commercials would have been dropped in by the network or local station.

TFTP Kids: "The Adventures of Letterman" from "The Electric Company" (Feb. 28, 1973; Apr. 6, 1976)

Posted to YouTube by user 'NantoVision1'

In this first TFTP Kids post, we have a pair of segments of "The Adventures of Letterman" from the legendary 1970s PBS kids show "The Electric Company." "The Electric Company" was the 1971 follow-up show from the Children's Television Workshop, after CTW--and the fledgling PBS's--smash success with "Sesame Street" which premiered in 1969. This second CTW program was focused on alphabet and phonics skills in youngsters (as opposed to the more broad-based concerns of "Sesame Street"). Although the two shows shared many characteristics (much animation, recurring segments, an ensemble of actors, an emphasis on teaching basic skills), "Electric Company" was less precious, more ironic and wry, and way more wacky in its comedy and perspective.

"The Adventures of Letterman" debuted on "The Electric Company" at the beginning of the show's second season (in Fall 1972) and was featured until the original run of the show ended in 1977. Letterman, a parodic superhero (and one that would not have been mistaken for David Letterman, whose fame was yet to come in the early- to mid-1970s), saved the day from the malicious spelling changes wrought by the Spell Binder (the villain which was, for today's tastes, a little too much of a parody of an Arab figure).  Like many of the segments in CTW's shows, this one featured a cast of celebrities: Joan Rivers as the narrator, Gene Wilder as Letterman, and Zero Mostel as Spell Binder.

The two segments here are "Hands Full", which appeared on the Feb. 28, 1973, episode of "Electric Company"; and "Small Talk", which appeared on the Apr. 6, 1976, episode.