TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from KTBS/Shreveport, LA (1975)

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 'Spufferama321'

From KTBS-TV, an ABC affiliate in Shreveport, Louisiana, this station sign-off includes a couple of elements not always seen in sign-offs: First, there is a National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Television Code seal, which simply meant that the station subscribed (as almost all stations did) to the NAB code, which was a common-sense list of practices for broadcasting. Many, if not most, stations included this seal in their sign-off segment, although it's not always included in the sign-off clips that surface on YouTube.

Secondly, and more rare, is the use here of "Dixieland" rather than "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the sign-off song. Stations would sometimes include in a sign-off segment a second song in addition to the national anthem, but rarely in place of it. (I don't believe that there was any requirement by stations to use "The Star-Spangled Banner" when signing off.) Having the voiceover technical and ownership information over the end part of the sign-off film, as done here, is also less common; usually it was done over a slide of some kind (often the station's call letters).

TFTP Game Shows: "The Price is Right" from CBS (Jul. 19, 1973)

Posted to YouTube by user 'PTR'

Here is a great example of a typical early episode of the 1970s version of "The Price is Right" from when the show was still only half-hour in length. The Bob Barker-hosted revival of "TPiR" had been on for less than a year (premiering in fall 1972) when this episode aired in mid-summer of '73.

The half-hour version is in most respects similar to the later hour-long version (which started in 1975 and is still on the air of course today), except there are only three pricing games and no bonus wheel to determine who got into the showcase. (The top two moneymakers of the three pricing game contestants were simply automatically advanced to the showcase.)

The three pricing games featured in this episode are a classic group that includes the True/False Game, the Grocery Game, and the Clock Game. The quality of the video in this episode is also especially good (far better than many of the blurry taped-off-of-GSN vintage "TPiR" episodes that pop up on YouTube). The upload seems to come directly from a master tape of the episode, although this means that there are long slugs of black where commercials would have been dropped in by the network or local station.

TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from ABC (Dec. 30, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user '80sCommercialVault'

Rundown of the commercials and promos in this block, by the original YouTube poster:
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1. Station ID
2. Promo for "The Saturday Night Movie: Help!"
3. Kentucky Fried Chicken
4. Promo for "AM" (With Regis Philbin. I posted this same promo in an earlier volume, amazing that I found another copy of it floating around out there)
5. Promo for "The Hollywood Squares"
6. "The Saturday Night Movie" Intro 
7. TV Spot for "Force 10 From Navarone"
8. Hills Bros. Coffee (With Steve Allen and Jayne Meadows)
9. Alpha Beta
10. Victoria Station
11. NAACP
12. "The Saturday Night Movie" Commercial Bumpers
13. Thomas' English Muffins (I detect creepy robotic children)
14. Milk (So good)
15. NyQuil
16. C.W. Post
17. "The Saturday Night Movie" Commercial Bumpers
18. Reunite (On ice, that's nice)
19. Olivia Newton John "Totally Hot" (Hawt)
20. Irish Mocha Mint from General Foods International Coffees (With Carol Lawrence)
21. Maxim Freeze Dried Coffee
22. "The Saturday Night Movie" Commercial Bumpers
23. TV Spot for "The Bermuda Triangle" (I think I now have to watch this, if only because it reminds me of "In Search Of...")
24. Yuban (LOL)
25. Vicks Inhaler
26. Cycle 1
27. "The Saturday Night Movie" Commercial Bumpers
28. Birds Eye Vegetables
29. TV Spot for "Force 10 From Navarone" (I've heard this movie is pretty bad, but it involves a bunch of famous people blowing up stuff during WWII. Think I'll have to watch it sometime)
30. Promo for "The Long Ships"
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TFTP News: "58 After... News" (newsbreak) from KSCH/Stockton, CA (Oct. 20, 1986)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Chuck's New Classic TV Clubhouse'

Here's a classic "newsbreak" of the kind that used to appear constantly in the afternoon and evening hours on local stations and networks alike. This mid-1980s example--from independent station KSCH (now KQCA) in Stockton, California--is an especially pedestrian one in that it doesn't even include any reported material or over-the-shoulder graphics (other than the station logo)--just the newsreader reading the news. Apparently, KSCH (channel 58) did such a newsbreak on a regular basis at 58 minutes after the hour (or 2 minutes before the top of the hour), thus the title "58 After... News".

This kind of newsbreak, while still used occasionally, is one of the features of television from the past that has been made obsolete by newer forms of learning about the news. Now, online headlines, Facebook feeds, and 24-hour cable news have taken the place of such TV news summaries. But in 1986 (and more so in the years prior to that) this was one of the only ways to get a quick update of what was happening locally, nationally, or internationally.

TFTP Kids: "Howdy Doody" from NBC (Jul. 2, 1948)

Kids' shows like "Howdy Doody" that aired daily on weekdays often had a structure similar to soap operas in which a continuing storyline would carry over from one day to the next. Many such storylines on "Howdy Doody" involved villain Phineas T. Bluster, as in this episode where Bluster has an ongoing threat to take over Doodyville unless Howdy and Buffalo Bob give him 500 marbles a day. Here, they offer to provide 500 marbles worth of entertainment per day instead, with Bluster willing to give that scheme a tryout. (Sometimes, the logic of these ongoing storylines made about as much sense as in soap operas.)

"Howdy Doody" was the iconic children's program of early television, starting on NBC in the fall of 1947 and continuing until 1960. Each day's half-hour episode included a few short scenes advancing the current storyline as well as some musical numbers--always kicked off by the "peanut gallery" (the audience of kids in the studio) singing "It's Howdy Doody Time". Later this same year, Howdy Doody "ran" for president for the first of several times--a canny storyline that both played on current events and helped propel the "Howdy Doody" show's popularity.

"Buffalo" Bob Smith, once a radio DJ before coming to Doodyville, hosted the proceedings, joined by a mute Clarabell the Clown (played in the early years by Bob Keeshan, soon to become another iconic kids' show host, Captain Kangaroo) and an assortment of other human sidekicks. A variety of marionette puppets led by the vaguely Western-themed Howdy Doody filled out the non-human cast of the show.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from WCPX/Orlando (March 1986)

Posted to YouTube by user 'WREYtube'

TV stations used to sign-off at night (usually at sometime between midnight and 1:00 am) and remain dark in the overnight hours until signing on again the following morning (usually sometime in the 5:00 am hour). Each Friday afternoon here at TFTP, we feature a station sign-off to mark the end of our blogging and posting for the week.

This mid-1980s sign-off from Orlando CBS affiliate WCPX (now WKMG) has as its centerpiece the main element of almost all station sign-offs: a film of the U.S. national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner". This is follwed (again, as most station sign-offs were) by a voiceover announcer stating the call letters, frequency (channel number), transmitting power and transmitter location, and mailing address of the station. Once this is completed, the signal changes to static--until morning!

TFTP Variety: "The Jack Paar Program" with Bob Newhart from NBC (May 28, 1965)

Posted to YouTube by user 'StandApartComedy'

Bob Newhart, before becoming an icon of 1970s and 1980s sitcoms, was a stand-up comic best known for his mock telephone conversations. Jack Paar, after his stint as the host of "The Tonight Show" ended in 1962, hosted a prime-time variety show for a few years on Friday nights on NBC.

This clip is a stand-up appearance by Newhart on one of the final episodes of Paar's prime-time show, which ended in June of 1965. In his introduction, Paar exclaims his appreciation of Newhart's comedy, and Newhart provides a bit that was another of his signature types: assuming the identity of a particular kind of character (here a flight attendant) and mining the character's situation for comedy.

TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Block from CBS (Jan. 27, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user '80s Commercial Vault'

Rundown of the commercials in this block (just under 9 minutes in length), by the original YouTube poster:
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1. L'eggs
2. Excedrin (The first guy must have received all of his fashion advice from Carl Sagan)
3. 7-11 (Mr. Hyde drives a Volkswagen Convertible?)
4. Promo for "The Jeffersons", "Maude" and "Kojak"
5. Aim (Note to self: never start an argument with this lady over toothpaste)
6. Wisk (Oh god! Those dirty rings!)
7. Lowenbrau (With Paul Gleason from "The Breakfast Club")
8. "The World Beyond" Commercial Bumper
9. Promo for "The Bob Newhart Show" and "The Tony Randall Show" (Tony Randall had his own sitcom?)
10. Fred Montesi Supermarket (Amazing elevator music here)
11. Dobbs Ford
12. Promo for "Miss Arkansas Universe Pageant" ("Arkansas Universe" is a pretty strange phrase...)
13. Bayer ("It has relieved more aches, pain and fever than any medication in history." Well ok then...)
14. Western Electric Telephones
15. Dial (Oh yeah!)
16. Gallo Red Rosé (This reminds me of one of those product placements on "The Price Is Right")
17. Pam (Money - Calories - Time = Pam)
18. Sucrets
19. "The World Beyond" End Credits
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TFTP Game Shows: "What's My Line?" w/ debut of Fred Allen as panelist, from CBS (Aug. 15, 1954)

Posted to YouTube by user 'What's My Line?'

"What's My Line?" was one of the most durable and popular prime-time game shows of the 1950s and 1960s (it ran from 1950-67, with a syndicated version then continuing until 1975). The four-person panel (which from early in the show's run included Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, and Bennett Cerf) guessed the profession/vocation of contestants, with one celebrity mystery guest (for which the panelists were blindfolded, so as not to recognize the person) thrown into each episode.

The show was thought to have hit its stride only around the time of this episode, the first with fourth panelist Fred Allen, the great radio comedian. Allen had a legendary wit that is evident in his exchanges here, and although he never really adapted well to television, his run as a "What's My Line?" panelist may be his TV high-point.

This episode's mystery guest, "Buffalo" Bob Smith, host of the iconic "Howdy Doody" kids show (that was in the heart of its 1947-60 TV run at this time), has some fun with Allen, too, at one point doing a Fred Allen impression as one of his voice-disguising gambits. (Mystery guests usually disguised their voices as well, so panelists wouldn't be able to ID them that way.) Overall, in addition to being a landmark episode with Allen's debut, it's a good example of a typical mid-1950s "What's My Line?" episode.

TFTP Signs-On for May: Station Sign-On (w/ "A.M. Weather") from WTTW (Chicago) (Oct. 18, 1983)

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

Television from the past was not 24/7 like it is now, and stations usually signed-off for the night at around midnight or 1:00 am; this, of course, meant that they had to sign-on again the following morning each day.

This is a station sign-on for Tuesday, October 18, 1983, from Chicago PBS station WTTW, which starts with the color bars used by TV engineers to adjust the transmitted picture, followed by the customary voiceover info about the station's frequency and ownership (as required by FCC rules). This is followed by the day's segment of "A.M. Weather", a national round-up of weather information produced by Maryland Public TV with the support of several aviation-based organizations.

Station sign-ons usually took place around 5:00 or 5:30 am each morning (sometimes a little later), depending on when the station's first scheduled program for the day was. TFTP will feature one of these station sign-ons each month on the first of the month (or the first Monday if the 1st is on a weekend).