TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from KLCS/Los Angeles (Jan. 8, 1978)

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

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'

This week's sign-off segment is a 1978 sign-off from Los Angeles PBS member station KLCS. This was only about five years after KLCS's launch as a service of the Los Angeles Unified School District (the call letters stand for "L"os Angeles "C"ity "S"chools). As sign-offs go it's pretty no-frills (as many things are in the public television realm)--although the voiceover slide stating "Good Night, Good Night" has a nice seventies-style vibe to it. Also, there are good examples of both a 1970s-era public TV underwriting credit and the classic 1970s PBS logo.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from KCET/Los Angeles (Mar. 28, 1978)

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

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'

This week we feature a public TV sign-off, from PBS station KCET in Los Angeles. This is a very short sequence (and may not be the complete sign-off sequence) that lacks any song or national anthem segment. Included are a late-1970s PBS network ID, a promo for Michael Jackson's public TV show (no, not that Michael Jackson, but the radio host and commentator) with guest Billy Barty, and the ownership/technical voiceover on a moving graphic of the KCET logo.

TFTP Sports: MLB Game of the Week, Phillies vs. Cardinals from NBC (Apr. 15, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user 'ClassicMLB11'

Now that Memorial Day has passed, and summer is truly upon us, TFTP says: Play Ball! This game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies from early in the 1978 season of Major League Baseball is a great example of late-1970s baseball in the astroturf and double-knit era. The game takes place at St. Louis's Busch Memorial Stadium, which was one of the typical all-purpose, multi-use stadiums of the time. The Phillies' reddish-purple "P" logo seen here was an iconic part of period baseball uniforms (as was the powder-blue coloration it was paired with); the Cards' uniforms here, on the other hand, look pretty much the same as they do now (and as they always have).

This game is also a great example of how sports broadcasts from earlier periods can seem peculiar to us now, as they lack the polish and graphical sophistication that we have come to expect. For instance, something like not having the score (and in the case of baseball, the strike/ball count) constantly onscreen--which are onscreen continuously and universally, for the most part, on sports broadcasts now--seems odd and disorienting when we are so used to being able to refer to it at any time while watching.

A great deal about this broadcast from 1978 seems familiar, though: the play-by-play and commentary from Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek, the camera angles from which the action is shown, the use of slow-motion instant replay--all of these are used in this now nearly-forty-year-old sportscast in almost exactly the same way they would be today.

As far as the game itself, we're not going to spoil it by naming the winner of this ten-inning contest. But the Phillies were at a high point in the late-1970s, in the middle of their Mike Schmidt heyday, with Tug McGraw pitching here and Larry Bowa contributing. A final fun fact: ten days after this game, on Apr. 25, 1978, was the debut of the Phillies' legendary mascot the Phillie Phanatic.

TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from CBS (Jan. 27, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user '80s Commercial Vault'

Rundown of the commercials in this block (just under 9 minutes in length), by the original YouTube poster:
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1. L'eggs
2. Excedrin (The first guy must have received all of his fashion advice from Carl Sagan)
3. 7-11 (Mr. Hyde drives a Volkswagen Convertible?)
4. Promo for "The Jeffersons", "Maude" and "Kojak"
5. Aim (Note to self: never start an argument with this lady over toothpaste)
6. Wisk (Oh god! Those dirty rings!)
7. Lowenbrau (With Paul Gleason from "The Breakfast Club")
8. "The World Beyond" Commercial Bumper
9. Promo for "The Bob Newhart Show" and "The Tony Randall Show" (Tony Randall had his own sitcom?)
10. Fred Montesi Supermarket (Amazing elevator music here)
11. Dobbs Ford
12. Promo for "Miss Arkansas Universe Pageant" ("Arkansas Universe" is a pretty strange phrase...)
13. Bayer ("It has relieved more aches, pain and fever than any medication in history." Well ok then...)
14. Western Electric Telephones
15. Dial (Oh yeah!)
16. Gallo Red Rosé (This reminds me of one of those product placements on "The Price Is Right")
17. Pam (Money - Calories - Time = Pam)
18. Sucrets
19. "The World Beyond" End Credits
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