TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from CBS/ABC (Oct. 2, 1976)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Pannoni 9'
Length - 15:39

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

In addition to a selection of ads for dolls, cereal, and kid-oriented food, this Saturday morning commercial block from October 2, 1976, has specimens from two legends of 1970s children's TV: "In the News" from CBS and "Schoolhouse Rock" from ABC. The "In the News" segment featured is a profile of figure skater Dianne de Leeuw who had competed in that year's Winter Olympics; while the "Schoolhouse Rock" segment is perhaps the greatest and most well-known such segment today, "I'm Just a Bill".

Drawn from both CBS (from "Sylvester and Tweety") and ABC (from "Jabberjaw"), commercials in the block include ones for Kellogg's Raisin Bran and Sugar Pops, Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles cereal, Keebler fudge-covered cookies, two different varieties of baby dolls (Don't Cry Baby and Baby Alive), the somewhat obscure board game Worm Wrestle, the similarly-obscure play figures called Wannabees, and Nerf Classic Fighters airplanes.

The block also has a PSA for change of address postal forms (was this an important issue in the 1970s?), several bumpers for the "Sylvester and Tweety" and "Jabberjaw" programs the commercials were pulled from, and the end credits for both programs, both with voiceovers promoting other shows.

Christmas at TFTP: "Johnny Cash Christmas Special" from CBS (Dec. 6, 1976)

Posted to YouTube by user 'PeterRabbit59'
Length - 50:24

Johnny Cash was a veteran at television as well as music by the mid-1970s, having starred in his own weekly TV show for two years from 1969 to 1971. This Christmas special from 1976 is the first of a series of annual Johnny Cash Christmas specials that lasted for the remainder of the decade.

The special is divided in to two distinct parts: The first part is a series of vignettes that are almost proto-music video in nature as Cash, sometimes alone, sometimes with others (including Roy Clark and Tony Orlando), wanders his farm and homestead, stopping for musical numbers that are highly visual and edited in nature. (There are quite a few Seventies-ish shots of nature and trees.) The second part is a gathering of Cash and family members, joined by the Reverend Billy Graham and select musical guests Merle Travis and Barbara Mandrell, in the Cash "home" (obviously a set on a soundstage), where they trade off performing musical numbers of various kinds.

This Christmas special is very light on Christmas music. Cash and guests instead opt for things like a medley of Stephen Foster-composed songs by Cash, Clark, and Orlando; instrumental guitar rags performed by Travis and Mandrell; and because Tony Orlando is a guest, a performance of "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" (because in the 1970s, any time Tony Orlando was a guest he was going to sing "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree"). The only two Christmas songs are a version of "The Christmas Song" (the "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" song) by Roy Clark and a duet between Cash and his brother Tommy on a catchy but obscure tune called "That Christmasy Feeling". The show ends with Billy Graham telling a Christmas-related story about how a child can change everything.

TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from KTLA/Los Angeles, with bulletin of Elvis Presley's death (Aug. 16, 1977)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'

Recorded from a rerun broadcast of the 1960s TV western "The Big Valley" on Los Angeles independent station KTLA, this block of commercials includes the news bulletin of Elvis Presley's death on Aug. 16, 1977.

Rundown of commercials in this block (by original YouTube poster), not in the order they appear:
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Schick Center For the Control of Smoking and Weight
Carpeteria
Queen Mary Tours
Capital Home Loans
Standard American Builders
Hali-Specht's
Silent Valley
TV Guide
Dinah!
Aames Home Loans
Hair Away
The Bryman School
Custom Craft Carpets
H. Salt Fish & Chips
Dr. F.E. Campbell - Credit Dentist
Emergency! One
Banner Carpets
Hall's Furniture
The Sawyer Schools
Vita Mix

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