TFTP Promos: Local Promos for KTHI/Fargo, ND (c. Oct. 14, 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'RetroWinnipeg'
Length - 1:01

KTHI-TV was one of the local network affiliates in TFTP's backyard (first for ABC, then switching in the early-1980s to NBC). (The station has since changed call letters to KVLY.) Here are a few local promos for various KTHI programs from October of 1983. First is a promo for a broadcast of the 1950s sci-fi classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still" on a local Saturday afternoon movie series called "Take 11 Theater" (KTHI was on channel 11). This is followed by a promo for the drama "Fame" (premiering Saturday, October 15 at 6:00 pm!), which was just entering first-run syndication after having aired for one season as a network show on NBC. Finally, the clip closes with a promo for a football game between the regional home-team Minnesota Vikings and the Houston Oilers.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from KTHI/Fargo, ND (Oct. 14, 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'RetroWinnipeg'
Length - 2:27

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...

Here's a sign-off sequence from TFTP's backyard in Fargo, North Dakota, from station KTHI (now KVLY) in October 1983. (Here's another one from our backyard from 1989.) It leads off with the technical/ownership voiceover on a lovely slide of one of the many lakes in the region. The national anthem follows, featuring some local footage of the North Dakota Air National Guard building and fighter jets that are presumably from that same unit. Color bars close out the sign-off.

TFTP On This Day: "Go" from NBC (Oct. 5, 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'excuseyou77'
Length - 21:58

It Was 34 Years Ago Today: Having premiered on Monday, Oct. 3, 1983, this episode of the game show "Go"--which aired 34 years ago today--is only the third episode of the series. Kevin O'Connell (before and after "Go" a longtime weatherman) hosted with game-show master Bob Stewart producing--and both would be out of a job by January of 1984 when the show was cancelled.

Two five-person teams (with one celebrity on each team) competed in a game that resembled the one where two people alternate in giving one-word each in a sentence meant to be a clue for guessing a word. (If this sounds a bit elaborate and incomprehensible, it is, and additional rules added on top of this may be one reason why the show only lasted four months.) In "Go", four of the team members gave clues in chain fashion while the fifth was the guesser. In essence, "Go" was a ridiculously overcomplicated (and much faster-paced) version of "Password".

The celebrities in this episode are Richard Kline, then at the height of his fame as a cast member of "Three's Company", and actress Elaine Joyce, by 1983 near the end of her remarkable decade-plus run as a go-to game-show celebrity guest (she appeared on everything from "Tattletales" and "Match Game" to "Super Password" and later versions of "What's My Line" and "I've Got a Secret").