TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1990 (WLBT/Jackson, MS)

Posted to YouTube by user 'jacky9br'
Length - 8:29

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 enter the 1990s in "Sign-Offs Through the Years", here is is a somewhat longer sign-off sequence from Jackson, Mississippi, NBC affiliate WLBT. It begins with a few promos: for "Saturday Night Live" (which was in its 15th anniversary season) featuring guest host Rob Lowe and Dana Carvey in full church-lady dress; for the NBC Sports presentation of The Players Championship golf tourney; and for local WLBT 3 News. These are followed by two PSAs, for a women's shelter called New Life for Women and for the Special Olympics.

A "Sanford & Son" promo slide precedes a very strange ownership/technical voiceover. After a title card with a personal dedication for the sign-off (something mischievous master control operators would sometimes slip in), a segment begins playing with special effects and the title "Purple Haze" with audio of the band Winger doing a cover of the Jimi Hendrix song of the same name. Midway through this clip, a brief ownership/technical voiceover is heard.

The sequence is capped off  by a very nice national anthem film that features local/regional images of Mississippi, including several shots of a rainbow-striped hot air balloon with the name of the state emblazoned on it.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1986 (WKBW/Buffalo, NY)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Travis Doucette'
Length - 4:51

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.

Buffalo, New York station WKBW has made a sign-off appearance before on TFTP, and like in that previous appearance, this 1986 sign-off from WKBW features not just the American national anthem but also the Canadian anthem, "O Canada!" This is the result of Buffalo being a border city where its TV stations reached probably just about as many Canadian viewers as American ones. The "O Canada!" film here (a different one than in the previously featured WKBW sign-off) consists almost entirely of views of Niagara Falls, highlighting that natural wonder's dual role as both a Canadian and American landmark.

The sign-off sequence starts with the last few seconds of a WKBW newscast (this being sign-off time, probably a re-broadcast of the station's late newscast from that night), followed by a PSA with a priest encouraging undocumented immigrants to apply for citizenship (following on 1986's amnesty legislation). The ownership/technical voiceover comes next, with part of it on the same slide of WKBW's transmitter tower seen in that earlier WKBW sign-off. The "O Canada!" film then plays, seguing directly into the "Star-Spangled Banner" film, which closes out the sign-off sequence.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1984 (WJXT/Jacksonville, FL)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'
Length - 6:06

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.

Jacksonville, Florida, station WJXT is the source of this week's sign-off, from September of 1984. The sign-off sequence begins with a few local spots, first a promo for local coverage of Southeast Conference (SEC) college basketball, then a PSA for the Jewish National Fund, and finally a bumper slide promo for "Wheel of Fortune". These are followed by a fairly weird little film with mostly instrumental music against an image of ocean waves lapping the shore, but also with some spoken word poetry or inspirational verse. The ownership/technical voiceover follows this, on a slide of the WJXT logo, with the national anthem film (including the rare second verse) closing out the sign-off.

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 Will Return After These Messages: Woodsy the Owl PSAs from the 1970s

Posted to YouTube by user 'Mike's Classic Commercials' (all three)
Length - 0:30 (top), 0:31 (middle), 1:01 (bottom)

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

"Give a Hoot! Don't Pollute!" was one of the battlecries of the anti-pollution movement of the 1970s, and this group of public service announcements (PSAs) featuring Woodsy the Owl was the frontline on which that battle was fought. Most PSAs from the 1970s look painfully cheesy and contrived to us now, but they generally did their job of raising awareness and suggesting courses of action for average people.

The three spots above (created by the Forest Service of the US Dept. of Agriculture) each enlist a group of kids to highlight an environmental problem--littering (in the top PSA), vandalism in wilderness areas (middle), and tree planting (bottom). Interestingly, in the bottom PSA Woodsy's voice is provided by a different actor than the other two (which of the two voices was the earlier one is not clear).

Christmas at TFTP (Sign-Off Edition): Station Sign-Off from WTTW/Chicago (Dec. 25, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 4:30

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...

In anticipation of Christmas Day on Monday, here's a 1978 Christmas Day station sign-off from WTTW/Chicago, "public television for Chicago" (as stated in the station voiceover). The clip begins with the last few seconds and the end credits of a Christmas concert program called "Sing We Noel". This is followed by the sweet 1970s PBS network ID with its bouncy musical cue. Then a program promo for the upcoming "New Years at Pops" program precedes a PSA with Phil Donahue for a local social services organization called Yule Connection.

Announcer Marty Robinson does the ownership/technical voiceover on a slide of a birds-eye view of the loop in downtown Chicago (the photo for which was probably taken from the top of the Sears Tower). This is followed by (and the sequence is concluded with) a national anthem film (which was not always included in public TV sign-offs) that features scenes in and around Chicago.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week--and Signs on for December! Station Sign-Off and Sign-On from WCBS/New York (1977)

Posted to YouTube by user 'SignOffsGuy'
Length - 8:53

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...

AND

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

This special post--coming on a 1st of the month that is also a Friday--features a unique clip that includes BOTH a sign-off sequence and a sign-on sequence. Apparently (according to the notes for this clip on its YouTube page), WCBS (the flagship affiliate for CBS) at this time signed off each morning at 5:00 am for just one hour before signing back on shortly after 6:00 am. The clip above contains both the sign-off sequence as well as the start of the subsequent sign-on sequence for the era circa 1977.

The sign-off sequence begins (after a brief closing bumper for "The Late Late Show") with a public service announcement for the Jewish Chautauqua Society consisting of poetic voiceover on images of children's drawings and footage of abandoned concentration camps. This is followed by a religious segment called "Give Us This Day" featuring a Jewish rabbi delivering an inspirational message. Next is the ownership/technical voiceover (with some slide mix-ups involving the NAB code slide), with the national anthem film (a rather prosaic one featuring images of flags and national monuments in Washington, D.C.) closing out the sign-off.

Then the sign-on sequence starts. A WCBS test pattern kicks it off, followed by a ownership and technical voiceover that starts by greeting us with "Good Morning".

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from KABC/Los Angeles (Oct. 5, 1976)

Posted to YouTube by user 'MicroJow'
Length - 18:14

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 more lengthy 1976 sign-off sequence from station KABC in Los Angeles includes a feature that was in many sign-off sequences: a newscast. Sometimes a sign-off newscast would be simply a re-broadcast of the station's 10 O'Clock/11 O'Clock news (or a portion of it); sometimes it would be a news update-type newscast aired live during the sign-off; often--as in the case shown here--it would be just voiceover of headlines read over still slides (a technique most likely used in cases where the station had already shut down its studio cameras for the night).

And so the first three-quarters of this sign-off sequence is reporter/announcer Len Beardsley doing such a newscast. Here it is broken up into several parts (local, national, sports, weather) with commercial breaks in between parts. These commercial breaks include ads for some local or regional LA stores (Leo's Stereo, Zodys discount store, Ohrbachs department store, Ralph's supermarkets), a couple of PSAs (for the lawyer referral service of the Yellow Pages and the Fair Housing program in the LA area), and ads for other products such as Face Quencher Make-Up by Chap Stick, Grape Nuts cereal, Audi automobiles, Crisco Oil, and General Foods International Coffee.

After the final commercial break, Beardsley does the technical/ownership voiceover on a slide of the KABC circled "7" logo, followed by the "Star-Spangled Banner" film (here with imagery of paintings depicting Revolutionary War-era scenes).

TFTP Flow: "CBS Late Movie" Intro & Commercial/Promo Break from KXJB/Fargo, ND (Sep. 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'

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.

Some time ago, TFTP featured a hometown station sign-off segment from CBS affiliate KXJB/Fargo, North Dakota. Here is a "flow" clip from the same station from September 1983. (See above for a definition of television "flow".) An intro to the CBS Late Movie is followed by several commercials, including ones for Rubbermaid microwave cookware (just becoming a thing around this time), Sears, and Kibbles n' Bits (n' Bits, n' Bits). Two program promos join the mix: for the "Barbara Mandrell Show" (Saturday nights at 10:30) and for a pre-scandalous Jimmy Swaggart's Sunday morning religious program. Finally, a PSAs for United Way and the US Dept. of Health and Human Services round out the flow sequence.

TFTP Will Be Back After These Messages: Commercial Block (ABC) (Nov. 7 & 14, 1981)

Posted to YouTube by user '80sCommercialVault'

This is another block of commercials, this time from ABC on Saturday mornings, November 7 and 14, 1981. There's a lot of great stuff here, including some toy commercials (Nerf basketball, Tonka trucks, couple Barbie products), junk food (Reese's peanut butter cups, SpaghettiO's, Burger King), public service announcements (including one starring Brooke Shields and another starring Ed Asner), and the piece-de-resistance, Underoos. There are also several bumpers (the brief, usually 5-second, bits leading into and out of the commercial breaks for Saturday morning shows) and the complete end credits for an episode of "Thundarr the Barbarian.