TFTP On This Day: "Password Plus" with David Letterman from NBC (May 31, 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Fun & Games Channel'
Length - 24:05

It Was 39 Years Ago Today: "Password Plus" was the second revival of the game show "Password"; the original had run on CBS from 1961-1967 and another run of the original game had appeared on ABC from 1971-1975. In this new revival, which aired on NBC from 1979-1982 and like all versions up to this point was hosted by Allen Ludden, the "plus" took the form of an extra element in which the individual passwords accumulated to become clues to an overall word or phrase that had to be guessed.

The episode above, which aired 39 years ago today on May 31, 1979, features David Letterman and Marion Ross of "Happy Days" as the celebrity contestants. (This copy of the episode is from a much later rerun on Game Show Network, and thus has packaging and interstitial elements from that broadcast.) Letterman, a few years prior to the launch of his "Late Night" program--and thus at a point in his career where he was having to do game-show guest appearances--is his regular grumpy and irascible self, but still engaging in the game at hand. Contestant Sally cruises through two "Alphabetics" bonus games (one with Letterman and one with Ross) to become the winningest "Password Plus" contestant ever to that point (five months into the show's run).

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1979 (WDIV/Detroit)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Retrontario'
Length - 7:10

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 1979 sign-off from Detroit station WDIV begins with the tail end of a segment (presumably public service in nature) called "Classroom". The NAB Television Code slide leads into PSAs for Tel-Law (a public service in Detroit for getting legal advice over the telephone) and the Detroit Institute of Arts, which are followed by a local promo for "First 4 Sports", the station's sports department. 

Next is an Editorial Reply in which the president of the Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association responds to a recent station editorial about a new bottle deposit proposal. (Fans of "Seinfeld" will now flashback to the episode centering on the Michigan bottle deposit scam.) Editorial replies like this were often seen on TV in this era, and one wonders if this one ever saw the light of day at any time other than right before sign-off.

The ownership/technical voiceover on a curious criss-cross weave "Goodnight" image precedes more PSAs, for the Michigan Heart Association and the Detroit Community Music School. Rabbi Dannel Schwartz then presents a religious segment. The very disco-looking "go 4 it" WDIV logo (with serious neon) appears for a final voiceover "good night" and the intro to the national anthem. The anthem film itself is a quick-cut montage of mostly still images, many of them very "seventies" in nature. The disco-logo returns for a few seconds before the signal cuts out.

TFTP Game Shows: "Wheel of Fortune" from NBC (Dec. 4, 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Fun & Games Channel'
Length - 27:03

"Wheel of Fortune" is a game-show juggernaut that in 2017 celebrated its 35th anniversary as a nightly syndicated program. Many people might be aware that it also existed as a daytime game show in its early years before and after its launch in syndication. What most people probably do not know (or remember) is that its original host (from 1975-1981) in its daytime version was game-show stand-by Chuck Woolery.

In the classic game-show precincts of YouTube, these early, Woolery-hosted episodes are known as "Woolery Wheel", and here we have a 1979 episode of "Woolery Wheel" that also features original letter-turner Susan Stafford. Contestants Susan, Lea, and Ginger face off in a version of the game that seems terribly quaint and retrograde to us today, with letters that actually had to be turned, a returning champion similar to many other game-shows of the era (and thus no bonus round), a wheel with much fewer bells and whistles, and the original bazaar-style shopping segment at the end of each game. Because of the need to physically turn the letters, the show is considerably slower-paced than it is now. But the core of the game is already there--and is one of the things that has made the game so perennial.

This recording includes original commercial breaks, with many interesting late-1970s era ads. These include: Nestle Bowl O' Noodles, Mueller's Spaghetti, a Sears commercial for women's clothing, Purina Moist & Chunky and Gravy Train dog foods, Metamucil, Chiffon margarine, Maxwell House coffee, Sunlite sunflower oil, Rice Krispies cereal, Milk Mate chocolate milk mix, and Cross Your Heart bras. In addition, there is a bumper ad for Ben Franklin Five and Dime stores and a WNBC local program promo for "The Newlywed Game".

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from WAFF/Huntsville-Decatur, AL (1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'
Length - 4:52

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...

This sign-off from 1979 for northern Alabama station WAFF begins with a few NBC program promos: for an episode of "Little House on the Prairie" (NBC hadn't started to use the "very special episode" trope yet, but if they had, this one would've qualified), for the prime-time special for the 17th anniversary of "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson", and for NFL Football on NBC Sports.

A locally-branded bumper for "News 48" sports leads into a short religious segment called "A Seed for the Sower" coming from somewhere called the "Guido Evangelistic Association" in Georgia. The ownership/technical voiceover follows, on images from a TV master control room (WAFF's, presumably). The national anthem film closes out the sequence, with a rather spare piano rendition over stock images of monuments, military transports, and natural wilderness ("Courtesy of the Army National Guard").

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from WHEC/Rochester, NY (Mar. 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'
Length - 5:30

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...

This station sign-off from Rochester, New York, CBS affiliate WHEC begins with several great 1979 program promos for the CBS shows "M*A*S*H", "WKRP in Cincinnati", and "Lou Grant", and also for the animated special "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". Then an oddly-placed bumper for "The CBS Saturday Night Movies" is followed by a promo for the very obscure Brenda Vaccaro-starring program "Dear Detective". A CBS network ID precedes a few local Rochester commercials, including a droll and deadpan local commercial for a music store called House of Guitars.

Then the actual sign-off sequence begins. The ownership/technical voiceover is heard on a slide of the rainbow-striped "WHEC-TV 10" logo. The national anthem film follows, featuring some sort of a military brass band. Finally, another slide with the rainbow-striped "10" logo bids us "Good Night".

TFTP Special: "Vincent Price's Once Upon a Midnight Scary" from CBS (Oct. 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'mrprice07'
Length - 46:56

Vincent Price was, of course, legendary for being associated with spookiness and horror, based on his appearance in a number of such films in the 1950s and 1960s, including "The House of Wax" in 1954 and several films based on Poe stories in the '60s. By the end of the '70s, Price's identification with such themes had reached near-camp levels, a status that certainly informs this 1979 Halloween special that he hosted.

The program is an anthology of three separate ghost stories, one classic and two contemporary: "The Ghost Belonged to Me" by Richard Peck (from 1976), "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving (from 1820), and "The House With a Clock in Its Walls" by John Bellairs (from 1973). Price doesn't actually appear in any of the stories themselves, rather he appears in segments bookending the stories and provides a little bit of voiceover narration during them.

Price exploits his image to good effect in his segments, levitating a book off of a table, waking up inside a coffin, and holding a raven on his arm. As we celebrate Halloween tonight, the figure of Vincent Price and his spooky image helps us to appreciate the holiday.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Network Sign-Off from HBO (1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 2:09

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...

This week instead of a local station sign-off (the most common type), here is a network sign-off for cable pay-TV network HBO from 1979. Of course, to us now, the idea of a network like HBO signing-off for the night (and really any kind of TV station) is completely bizarre. But in the early days of cable (in 1979, HBO had only been around for about four years as a national network), programming practices were still evolving.

HBO's sign-off sequence at this time did not consist of much. Here following a promo for a Martin Mull special, it consists only of an animated segment that shows different actions that people take as they turn in for the night--turning off lights, checking on sleeping children, setting alarm clock alarms, locking doors, brushing teeth. With no voiceover of any kind, just a nice relaxing musical score, it's a pretty chill and low-key way of ending a day's programming, culminating with a final logo graphic in which the "HBO" logo (an early version of the same logo the network uses to this day) goes dark letter by letter. Then the clip cuts to color bars for about the last thirty seconds.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from WPIX/New York (1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'tapthatt2012'
Length - 5:03

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...

WPIX in New York City was for many years--from its 1948 inception into the mid-1990s--one of the most high-profile independent TV stations in the nation. (It has since been New York's affiliate for, first, The WB, then The CW.) It was also one of the first cable "superstations" when that concept took hold in the late-1970s--right around the time of this station sign-off.

Beginning with a copyright statement, the sign-off sequence continues with the technical/ownership voiceover on a slide of the station's late-1970s/early-1980s "11 Alive" logo. The national anthem film follows, in this case consisting simply of a close-up of the stars and stripes fluttering in the wind. (A couple of minutes of black are after that, which then cuts to color bars.)

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from WLW/Chicago (Aug. 7, 1979)

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 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'

From Chicago ABC affiliate WLS comes this late-1970s station sign-off with a couple of elements that were not uncommon but also not universal in sign-off sequences. First is an FBI most-wanted bulletin, of the kind that still occasionally appears on local affiliates today, as a sort of public service element in the sign-off sequence. The other element, which was found in many sign-off (and also sign-on) sequences, is a religious thought-of-the-day type piece; stations including such segments sometimes created their own using local clergy and sometimes utilized syndicated national segments. WLS's is a locally-made one called "Reflections". These are followed by--and the sign-off sequence concluded with--the "Star-Spangled Banner".

TFTP Sports: NBC SportsWorld (1979)

"SportsWorld" was NBC's answer to ABC's "Wide World of Sports"--a diverse array of sporting events presented under the umbrella of a single series. This clip is the opening tease for a 1979 episode of "SportsWorld" that included horseracing (the Marlboro Cup), swimming (the FINA World Cup), and track (a 1500 meter race held at the Brussels World Fair).

The "SportsWorld" series ran for 14 years on NBC between 1978 and 1992, featuring, like "Wide World of Sports before (and after) it, lower-profile and sometimes offbeat sports that would never have warranted independent TV coverage. Bowling and auto racing (both of which have, at different times, had independent TV coverage on various networks) were mainstays of "SportsWorld" for many years. The "SportsWorld" name lives on for NBC in a recently-launched section of the NBC Sports website dedicated to long-form sports-related reporting.

TFTP Flow: Public TV Pledge Breaks during "Summerfest '79" on WTTW (Chicago) (Aug. 25, 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'

Here at TFTP we work in public television, and we just finished the latest pledge drive, so here's a set of vintage public TV pledge breaks from 1979. These are from Chicago's WTTW Channel 11 and they feature as the on-air personalities Cherie Mason and Paul Brian. Compared to today's pledge breaks, which can often be a little staid and stuffy, Mason and Brian are refreshingly loose and improvisational in their banter and pitching. Other elements are likewise offbeat and clever, such as a brief filmed segment in the first pledge break (featuring a pre-fame and pre-"Cheers" Shelley Long).

One striking thing about the names of the programs above the ranks of phone volunteers in the background is how many of the shows are still on the air 35 years later. "Masterpiece Theatre", "NOVA", "Sesame Street"--these are public TV mainstays even today (and some of them, such as "Sesame Street", had already been on the air for a decade in 1979). Public television in the U.S. television system is a unique creature that remains dependent on viewers becoming members (or to use the terminology here, "subscribers") in order to survive. Here we see a relatively early example of the ways in which public television sought to acquire those memberships.