TFTP On This Day: "Today" from NBC (Feb. 22, 1982)

Posted to YouTube by user 'AmpexQuad'
Length - 3:21

It Was 36 Years Ago Today: This brief clip from the "Today" show--from 36 years ago today, on February 22, 1982--was from very early in Bryant Gumbel's tenure as "Today" host. He'd become Jane Pauley's co-host (replacing Tom Brokaw, who'd been promoted to "NBC Nightly News" anchor) only about a month-and-a-half earlier, on January 4, 1982. (Pauley was in her sixth year hosting, having started in 1976.)

Pauley recounts some information about how men's hair and whiskers grow faster in the spring, following up on a comment about how she'd had a sneak preview of spring on a trip south a few days before. Weatherman and sidekick Willard Scott participates as well, and he seems tickled by the fact that spring might make his toupee'd head grow hair faster. Taken from old Ampex quad video tape, the footage repeats twice, the second time without any sound.

TFTP's Monochrome Monday: "The Morning Show" w/ Jack Paar from CBS (c. 1956)

Posted to YouTube by user 'tvdays'
Length - 13:05

TFTP's Monochrome Monday brings you a classic black & white TV program or clip every Monday morning to kick off the week....

Before he became the second host of "The Tonight Show" in 1957, Jack Paar was host of the first early morning news program on CBS. After NBC premiered the "Today" show, CBS felt compelled to compete in the new early morning period, and so "The Morning Show" launched in March of 1954. For its first year the program was hosted by newsman (and future CBS anchor) Walter Cronkite, who was succeeded by Paar in 1955.

Paar had begun his career in radio as a substitute host on shows like "The Breakfast Club" and as a humorous disc jockey in local radio, and those influences show in this clip from during Paar's stint as host of "The Morning Show". Sitting at a nondescript desk with clock behind him on the wall, Paar leads a light banter with the camera and with his stable of regulars. These regulars (including musician Jose Melis and singer Rosemary Clooney) engage with Paar in a long spoof ad for selling air, while both Melis and Clooney offer musical performances that help to punctuate Paar's banter. Charles Collingwood reads the news in a curious style in front of a mock-wood-paneled-study backdrop (while discreetly putting out a cigarette).

This easy banter carried over into the rest of the TV shows Paar hosted in his career, including the "Tonight Show" and his 1960s prime-time variety show. To some extent, this type of light back and forth had a lasting influence on the network morning show as well, probably in larger proportion than Paar's relatively short (only about two year) stint as "Morning Show" host would suggest.

TFTP Kids: "Ray Rayner and His Friends" from WGN/Chicago (May 16, 1980)

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

"Ray Rayner and His Friends", despite the fact that it seems incredibly bizarre to us now, was a venerable and long-running children's program on Chicago independent station WGN. Many local stations had similar programs in the 1960s and '70s, in which a human host interacts with puppets or other anthropomorphic characters while introducing cartoon short subjects. This episode is from 1980, the final year (due to Rayner's retirement) of a run that started in 1962.

There is a certain slapdash quality to the show--from Rayner's strange coveralls (upon which he has pinned various notes, a Rayner trademark) and the laughably low-budget set, to the decidedly low-tech (even for 1980) use of a chalkboard for displaying weather info and sports scores. Rayner brings a definite improvisational feel to his performance as MC, seemingly (and probably actually) making it all up as he goes along. Kids most likely didn't care, as the Rayner segments were just interstitial to the cartoons they tuned in to see--and which also provided adults in the room with a little weather info with which to plan their day.

This episode has most of the cartoons themselves cut out (except the bulk of a 1930s-era "Flash Gordon" serial), but some of the commercials included (such as a great McDonald's ad featuring Ronald himself).