TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from WLS/Chicago (Jun. 25, 1971)

Posted to YouTube by user 'pannoni4'
Length - 7:37

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

This block of 1971 commercials from Chicago station and ABC affiliate WLS includes ads for the Kleenex Americana collection (a special set of tissue boxes commemorating America), Cheetos (an animated ad with a mouse painting a billboard), Pepsi, Bravo floor wax ("brightest shine under the sun"), Raid mosquito coil, Rival "Ranch Partner" dog food, Wishbone Italian Rose salad dressing, Northern paper towels, Bactine, Wonder Bread ("how big do you want to be?"), Pop-r-corns snacks, Jewel supermarkets (big meat sale!), and Diet 7-Up.

There are also two local WLS items: a promo for "Howard Miller's Chicago", a talk show hosted by the local radio personality, and a voiceover PSA ("art treasures of the world at the Chicago Art Institute") on a slide of the WLS/Chicago logo.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1977 (WLS/Chicago)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 7:50

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.

As we march into the late-1970s with "Sign-Offs Through the Years", here is a content-packed (and lengthy) sign-off from March 6, 1977, and station WLS in Chicago. It begins with the last few seconds and end credits of the 1961 movie "The Guns of Navarone" starring Gregory Peck. (Watch closely and see at least a couple instances of obvious pan-and-scan of this widescreen film.) This is followed by a couple of promos for upcoming movie broadcasts of "The Gambler" (1974) and "Bless the Beasts and Children" (1971).

A "Note of Interest" slide with voiceover of where to send public service announcements for the station, a long PSA for AARP featuring the late-in-life accomplishments of figures like Frank Lloyd Wright and Grandma Moses, and a station ID with a voiceover PSA for the United Negro College Fund precede a "Reflections" segment with a bible verse reading by Rev. John Ware--who emphasizes the concept of "Keep On Keepin' On" (remember, it was the seventies).

Finally, the national anthem film--with images of portraits of Founding Fathers--is played, preceded by a NAB Seal of Good Practice slide and followed by color bars.

TFTP Local Weather Round-Up! WHBF/Quad Cities, IA/IL, WLS/Chicago (1973), KING/Seattle (1982)

Posted to YouTube by user 'fromuncle' (top), 'Steve Newman' (middle), 'robatsea2009' (bottom)
Length - 3:46 (top), 3:55 (middle), 3:13 (bottom)

Weatherman Doug Dahlgren in clip #1 (top) of this local weather round-up looks like he bought his suit jacket at the same place that "Mary Tyler Moore Show" weatherman Ted Baxter shopped, what with the light blue color and the patch on the left pocket. This 1966 clip from WHBF in the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois utilizes what looks like back projection of overhead transparencies to present the weather, supplemented by a series of number dials to present the temp, humidity, etc.

Clip #2 features weatherman Steve Newman of WLS in Chicago, who apparently shopped at the same store as Baxter and Dahlgren (these blazers were all over the place in the 1960s and early-1970s). Newman, in a 1973 clip, has a rotating four-sided presentation board on which his various weather charts are displayed (and there must be someone on the back side of it putting in new charts, because Newman turns the thing more than three times with a new chart every time).

The last clip, clip #3, with Don Madsen of KING in Seattle from 1982, apart from being a morning weather report, is done almost entirely using electronic graphics, with Madsen offscreen doing voiceover for virtually the entire weather report. As a wintertime weather report in a mountainous state, Madsen's weather report includes additional information such as snow conditions for skiing and the status of various mountain passes.

As you watch these weather clips from different eras, you realize two things about the evolution of local weather: first, there becomes less and less emphasis on technical aspects of weather such as fronts, barometric pressure, etc. (which are hardly ever mentioned in TV weather reports now); and second, there used to be a lot more reporting on national weather, something that is minimized if it is presented at all in most local weather reports these days.

TFTP Flow: "ABC Sunday Night Movie" opening credits w/ commercial break from WLS/Chicago (1980)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 5:57

Television "flow"  -  an unbroken sequence of various on-air elements such as program segments, news breaks, commercials, program promos, PSAs, station IDs, bumpers, and other interstitials, which can be analyzed to understand what viewers of the past experienced when watching TV.

This flow sequence is from a 1980 broadcast of the 1973 film "The Sting" starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford; the film was aired on ABC, with this particular flow coming from ABC Chicago affiliate WLS. It begins with a WLS "Eyewitness News" bumper before launching into the "ABC Sunday Night Movie" intro. This is followed by a commercial break featuring ads for Kellogg's Graham Crackos cereal, Dr. Pepper (one of the David Naughton "Be a Pepper" spots from this era), Johnson's disposable diapers, and Allstate Insurance. It closes with the opening credits and first minute or so of "The Sting".

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".