TFTP Kids: "The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show" from CBS (1974)

Posted to YouTube by user '70's Kids'
Length - 28:10

"The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show" is one of the more interesting shows--at least visually--from the 1970s live-action kids' show trend. The Hudson Brothers were a family musical act (those were also very popular in the Seventies) that had been around for about a decade by 1974, and the Brothers (Bill, Brett, and Mark) were just coming off of a prime-time summer variety show (those were also very popular in the Seventies). The summer show, titled simply "The Hudson Brothers Show", had aired in July and August, and just a week after its end, on September 7, 1974, "The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show" premiered on Saturday mornings (running until the following August).

Like many shows of the genre, the "razzle dazzle" consisted of brightly colored, somewhat psychedelic sets and costumes, a madcap sensibility to the songs and sketches, and a supporting cast of comical entertainers. The episode above includes several musical numbers, one with a troupe of acrobats jumping and flipping around using props such as a bathtub and a barber's chair. A couple of non-musical comedy sketches appear as well, one with a child network vice-president and another with a bear-costumed private-eye ("Sam Bear", a take-off of Sam Spade with noirish office complete with ceiling fan and blond moll).

There are commercials (most of them for toys of the 1970s) included in the commercial breaks in this copy of the episode, but they appear not to be original to the broadcast and inserted after the fact.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1974 (WKBS/Philadelphia)

Posted to YouTube by user 'stevations'
Length - 0:55

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.

"Sign-Offs Through the Years" moves into the mid-1970s this week with this sign-off from Philadelphia independent station WKBS. As full, intact sign-offs from this period are still rare, this is another one with original audio but with still images in place of the original video. This audio consists of the ownership/technical voiceover--as most do from this period--but also includes the intro to the national anthem film (but not the national anthem itself).

TFTP Local Weather Round-Up! WBAL/Baltimore (1959), KAKE/Wichita (1974), WAGA/Atlanta (1982)

Posted by YouTube users 'EyeLikeTooWatch' (top), 'Troy Diggs' (middle), 'radioman1968' (bottom)

Here is the inaugural TFTP Local Weather Round-Up, a periodic feature in which we will round up a few clips of weathercasts from local TV stations. Typically, the Local Weather Round-Up will consist of three clips, one from the 1950s or 60s, one from the 1970s, and one from the 1980s.

Local weather reports are fascinating to watch now, due in part to the folksy charm that many of them exhibit, in part to the variety of techniques that were used over the years by different stations, and due to the way in which weathercasting technology evolved in the decades between the 1950s and 1980s.

Clip #1 above is from April 12, 1959, on station WBAL/Baltimore. The single-sponsor method of sponsorship, common in the early days of TV, is evident in this clip from the ways in which Luby's Chevrolet is integrated so closely into the weathercast, which utilizes entirely a chalkboard method of weather presentation. Clip #2 is from KAKE/Wichita in 1974. Apart from being in color, the main difference here is a slightly more sophisticated presentation of the weather, largely using a suitably seventies-ish round board with several layers that are progressively revealed (the last couple seemingly utilizing chroma-key). Use of weather radar has begun in this mid-1970s era as well. Finally, the third and final clip--from WAGA/Atlanta from April 3, 1982--is from a time when chroma-key technology has been fully embraced as the chief (although not exclusive) weathercasting technique (as it remains today). (Gotta love those rotating sections of weather map!)