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 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 KLAX/Alexandria, LA (1988)

Posted to YouTube by user 'jacky9br'
Length - 4:34

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 late-1980s sign-off sequence from Alexandria, Louisiana, station KLAX begins with a few program promos, for "Mama's Family", the local early-morning news program "Sun Up", and "The Greatest American Hero". A "Hooperman" bumper precedes the national anthem film (which has a pretty spiffy a cappella vocal arrangement). The sequence concludes with the ownership/technical voiceover on a "Good Night" slide (followed in the clip by about a minute's worth of black).

TFTP Local Weather Round-Up! WBAL/Baltimore (1959), KAKE/Wichita (1974), WAGA/Atlanta (1982)

Posted by YouTube users 'EyeLikeTooWatch' (top), 'Troy Diggs' (middle), 'radioman1968' (bottom)

Here is the inaugural TFTP Local Weather Round-Up, a periodic feature in which we will round up a few clips of weathercasts from local TV stations. Typically, the Local Weather Round-Up will consist of three clips, one from the 1950s or 60s, one from the 1970s, and one from the 1980s.

Local weather reports are fascinating to watch now, due in part to the folksy charm that many of them exhibit, in part to the variety of techniques that were used over the years by different stations, and due to the way in which weathercasting technology evolved in the decades between the 1950s and 1980s.

Clip #1 above is from April 12, 1959, on station WBAL/Baltimore. The single-sponsor method of sponsorship, common in the early days of TV, is evident in this clip from the ways in which Luby's Chevrolet is integrated so closely into the weathercast, which utilizes entirely a chalkboard method of weather presentation. Clip #2 is from KAKE/Wichita in 1974. Apart from being in color, the main difference here is a slightly more sophisticated presentation of the weather, largely using a suitably seventies-ish round board with several layers that are progressively revealed (the last couple seemingly utilizing chroma-key). Use of weather radar has begun in this mid-1970s era as well. Finally, the third and final clip--from WAGA/Atlanta from April 3, 1982--is from a time when chroma-key technology has been fully embraced as the chief (although not exclusive) weathercasting technique (as it remains today). (Gotta love those rotating sections of weather map!)

TFTP Signs-On for October: Launch Day Sign-On from WTIC/Hartford, CT (Sep. 21, 1957)

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'
Length - 4:37

TFTP marks the beginning of each new month with a classic station sign-on sequence to "sign-on" for the month....

Throughout the late-1940s, 1950s, and even into the 1960s, a new TV station's launch day sign-on was always a special event not just for the station but for the community in which the station was being established. Here we have the launch day sign-on for Hartford, Connecticut, station WTIC, which at its September 1957 launch was an independent station not affiliated with a network (it would become a CBS affiliate the following year).

As with most station launch sign-ons, this one seems to be taking place not in the early morning but rather in the evening, as there is reference to the broadcast of a station launch ceremony that most likely took place in prime time. After a few seconds of test pattern, the sign-on begins with the camera tilting up the WTIC transmitter tower while the opening ownership and technical voiceover is announced. This is followed by a national anthem film before cutting to the station's studio where the president of the Traveler's Broadcasting Service Group, WTIC's owner, gave a brief introductory speech, followed by a priest offering an invocation for the ceremony to follow.

TFTP Signs-On for June: Station Sign-On (w/ "Carolina Calling") from WBTV/Charlotte, NC (c. 1959)

Every first of the month, TFTP signs-on with a classic station sign-on sequence, to launch another month of Television from the Past...

Posted to YouTube by user 'iblefty1951'

This is maybe the oldest station sign-on sequence available out there on the interwebs: a late-1958 or 1959 sign-on from Charlotte, North Carolina, CBS affiliate WBTV that includes the first few minutes of legendary local program "Carolina Calling".

This clip begins with a customary voiceover of ownership and address information, over images of the station's studio and transmitter and a few varieties of station logo. This is followed by the image of an alarm clock (reading 7 o'clock) going off, the opening to "Carolina Calling".

"Carolina Calling" was a morning variety show, with music from Arthur Smith and his band the Cracker Jacks, with the kind of information we've come to expect from morning shows--weather conditions, etc.--sprinkled into the banter between songs. The show was a TV extension of the show by the same name that Smith had been involved with on radio in Charlotte.

Professional video taping systems (invented in 1956) only became available to local stations in the middle to latter part of 1958, and WBTV was reportedly one of the first to get one--thus dating this video-taped clip to circa 1959.

TFTP News: "11 Alive Newsroom" from WXIA/Atlanta (Apr. 13 1980)

Posted to YouTube by user 'NewsActive3'

From Apr. 13, 1980, is the local newscast--titled "11 Alive Newsroom"--from WXIA-TV in Atlanta, which at this time was the Atlanta ABC affiliate but later in 1980 would switch its affiliation to NBC, which it retains (along with the "11 Alive" branding) to this day. Curious local news tidbit: the painted portraits of newsmakers that are utilized as graphics in several of the stories here.

Stories featured in this newscast: demonstrations related to racial strife in the town of Wrightsville, GA; Ted Kennedy wins the Arizona primary in the 1980 Democratic presidential race in his run against incumbent president Jimmy Carter; a local rodeo in the Atlanta area; final results from the 1980 Masters golf tournament; flooding in Louisiana; and details related to severe weather in the Atlanta and north Georgia region, including a recent tornado watch.

Most of the commercials and interstitial elements have been edited out here, with a few significant exceptions: there is a Cadillac ad at the very end, an ad for the regional Krystal fast food chain midway through, and at the very beginning there is a brief bumper promo for local syndicated airings of "Star Trek".

TFTP Game Shows: "Shadow Stumpers" from WAAM/Baltimore (c. early-1950s)

Posted to YouTube by user 'ClassicTVshows'

From the days when local stations produced programs for their local audiences in genres such as the game show, "Shadow Stumpers" is a fascinating example of a game show premise and of game play specifics very unlike other game shows, before or since.

Aired on WAAM (now WJZ) in Baltimore, and hosted by Brent Gunts, who was apparently sort of an impresario of local Baltimore TV, the show has a delightfully quaint pace and tone. Two families compete by guessing what an object is from a silhouetted shadow of the item; points are given for each correct guess, but that's mostly beside the point, as the purpose here is to showcase the wholesome family members (especially the kids) and highlight the interchanges between Gunt and family members. A family living-room set further enhances the tone.

Before program syndication became prevalent and networks took over almost every spare hour of a local affiliate's schedule, local stations used to produce programs in many genres--weekday talk shows, afternoon teenage dance parties, kids' programs--but relatively few ever attempted a local game show (outside of the high-school knowledge bowl variety, at least). "Shadow Stumpers" is one of those rare attempts.

The YouTube posting of this episode is labeled as being from 1962, but this is a mislabeling, as the program aired in Baltimore from approximately 1949 until 1953.