The KRMG Newsmobile had a two-way system whereby the driver/reporter could converse with someone in the control room. This conversation could be put on the air or used simply as an intercom between the truck and the studios.

I had just completed an interview with a man who had written a book about arthritis and how it could be cured or at least made less severe by a combination of herbs and vitamins. Although this would not raise many eyebrows today, such an approach to the disease was startling in the 1950s. The interview went well and was quite informative.

After the interview was completed, the KRMG Program Director, Keith Bretz (a heck of a nice guy and great to work for), came on the intercom and said, “Frank, has that quack gone yet?”

I replied calmly, “He’s sitting here beside me. Would you like to talk with him?”

Keith sputtered and stammered, finally saying, “No. I’ll call you later.”

I turned to the man with an embarrassed and apologetic look on my face. Before I could say anything he gently said, “That’s okay. I’m used to it.”

The theme song from "The King Lionel Show" was a small interlude from the play,"Camelot"...it was not used in the movie but was used in the Broadway version....I wish they would televise some of the old shows...I believe they were on kinescope..I would also like to see some of the old newscasts with Cy Tuma.

Hi, Theresa, thanks for the info about the King Lionel's Court music. Here is the original Broadway cast soundtrack. I'm guessing it must be the Act I March (Parade).

The Camelot Inn was built during Lionel's reign. It's still there, but in extreme disrepair. The last owner was the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

A bit from those old kinescopes can be seen right here...the KJRH "Oklahoma Memories" segment that featured this web site. Lionel came out of retirement for the KOTV 50th anniversary program, which featured footage of Cy Tuma as well.

I remember all those country music shows that came on Saturdays on channel 6. Grand Old Opry, The Billy Walker Show, The Buck Owens Ranch House, Wilburn Bros. Show, and of course, your friend and mine, PORTER WAGONER!!

"But remember folks, you can't buy 'em, you can only get them in boxes of Breeze detergent". My mom got a ton of drinking glasses and bath towels from Breeze. The other day I was cleaning the old family house, and I ran across one of those old printed floral bath towels. It reminded me of sitting around watching Porter, Dolly, Speck Rhodes, and all the wagon masters.

Keep them cards and letters comin' in!

We discussed those old patent medicines ,Cardui and Black Draught, sold on the Porter Wagoner Show, in Guestbooks 33 and 34.

Wasn't Porter on Channel 8?

I oughta go pick up (ouch) one of Mike's RCA two-inchers as a planter! These things were beauties from the days when it was all-American technology, no billion-transistor silicon chips, just steel and electric motors and a lot of 'em. And vaccum pumps.

I always liked the RCAs over the Ampexes, just because of the sound and the tactile feel of the controls. But my favorite was the RCA TC-100, the first tape cartridge machine. It used two-inch cartridges and multiple playback units to (sorta) automate breaks. But what sounds! The drum holding the carts would roll, mechanical arms would pluck the cart into the gizzards of the machines, motors would whirr as tapes were played and rewound, and air pressure would blow the things back out into the carousel. All that was missing was the mechanical music from the Warner Bros. Cartoons. Put your hands in the same county as this baby, and you'd come back fingerless at the best.

Now, arrays of nine gig hard drives do the same work. Silently. Efficiently.

Sigh. They don't make 'em like they used to. Or as Tulsa's own Roy Clark would say, yesterday, when I was young....

Well, I posted recent TV cameras for sale the other day, now I am in a quandary on 2 RCA TR-70C 2" format videotape machines here at work in DC. Hey they playback in color!

Have to remodel the building here - each weighs about 1 ton+ and is up on an 18" high computer floor. may have to blow out a wall to get them out of a room.

KTUL lived and died by machines like this for years till pitching them out. We used to do PBS/US Archives 2" to other format tape transfers here but they have been "off-line" for 3-4 years and we semi-walled them behind shelves when our 2" room (no not 2" tall!) was drafted as an overflow library. Before that - they were used for NCAA football remotes, "Firing Line" original episodes, and the blurtations of Lyndon LaRouche doing his response to the President's state of the union address.

If anyone can find a use for 'em - come to DC and get them, pronto! Will throw in spare heads and test gear but you have to help us move 'em!

There was a website out there - now missing called "Dinosaurs of Technology" that I can't find. Good Christian/survivalist/rural market tv engineers that had these old beasts in their homes in SD and ID that were also ham radio operators and transmitted audio/video over ham radio wavelengths from beasties of similar ilk.

Can you imagine your bill from the REC or whatever rural electric co-op each time one of these machines switched on? "220 only, ma'am, and don't plug in that toaster again while yer husband is broadcastin' or you'll shut down the nursing home, 3 schools, the Peabody library and half the county power grid again..."

Though I bet OETA is the only TV facility still in OK with ones of similar ilk.

Sorry - if I find a taker, I get to keep my office souvenir of a 2" reel long forgotten here BY ABC from "08 Sept. 74" of "The Presidential Pardon" of that darned Nixon guy....

Wonder if Jim Ruddle could use one on his boat (would make a great anchor OR dock in shallow water) or John Hillis could park it behind his desk at work? Need to get RL Bullock up here from CBN in Virginia Beach to do some test recordin' on them with old Pat Robertson tapes! Back when it was less than the 700 Club! If Mike Denney would sign on again and offer to take them all the way to Californey - would throw in some "Tony Orlando and Dawn" 2" shows where he showed up running camera on cutaway shots at CBS "Telebision" City!

Ah, the technology of all of OUR youth - now passe!

Here is a link to the new location of "Dinosaurs of Technology".

I grew up in Tulsa and went to the University of Tulsa in the late sixties and early seventies. My fraternity brothers and I would come home early on Saturday nights to watch Mazeppa. Also, I spent just about every summer night when I was small glued to my radio, listening to Mack Creager and Hugh Finnerty broadcast the Tulsa Oilers games. Incidentally, do you remember when Mazeppa was a cameraman and caught Mack Creager giving him the finger and put a camera on him?

We have it on good authority (Gailard Sartain himself!) that he was home watching Mannix when the unfortunate incident occurred.

5/10/2005: Gary Chew just told the full story here!

Speaking of KTUL off the air - in the '70's - can remember seeing KNOE-TV in Monroe, LA and some engineers at 8 saw WFAA-TV in Dallas on really good nights on 8 from the wonderful old Conrac digital TV tuner at KTUL when 8 was off the air on Sunday nights. Both are on channel 8 and were then ABC affiliates too!

Lookout Mtn. was a great place to DX TV from! Unfortunately the Conrac went only to channel 13!

Pausing now for a commercial message - my employer - Atlantic Video, Inc. is selling 9 - count 'em friends! - 9 Ikegami 322 studio TV cameras.

Originally worth about $110,000 a piece. Same cameras in our studios that shot Ted Koppel specials, Jack Anderson, Colin Powell, Jimmy Carter, Al Haig, Caspar Weinberger, Firing Line with Mr. Buckley, Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Dole, George "Big Daddy not Dubya" Bush, McGruff the Crime Dog, David Bowie, the sometime zzzzz PBS Millenium show, Puff Daddy, **Jim Hartz when at Nostalgia TV**, half the stars/now non-stars on BET when based here, Politically Correct on HBO (then), Larry King, a bunch of Arabic reporters when we ran ArabNet, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, too damned many political and car commercials, medical teleconferences (is that his spleen or are you happy to see us?), a lot of GoodLife TV musical shows, and a host of other famous/infamous in our DC and VA studios over the last 10-11 years.

Have new digital cameras in DC - these are tube but were re-tubed last Fall (at about $10,000 a camera!)before doing the studio bits for the Nightline series with Robert Krulwich. Originally had 12 but cannabalized the others over the years. Of the 9 - one or 2 may be ready for parts pile.

Company won't donate them (wish they would!) but will sell them as a batch or singly to any bidders. May post them on eBay. No - I can't put a stamp on one and mail it to you!

Probably starting at $2,000 each. WILL TAKE BEST OFFER!

You'll need to buy/scrounge a $10,000 tripod or $25,000 pedastal for them probably AND pick them up in VA. Have some triax cable, and camera CCU's/set-up panels - is this Greek or Geek to you?

Need Lynn Hickey to plug these I guess.

And NO not due the Mexican Market (thank you Alan Merrill!) demand we will not take your 1960 pick-em-up truck in trade!

If your local station, PBS affiliate, school or church is desparate for TV cameras - contact me at my e-mail address above. Or if you want your own TeeVee show in your living room and are wealthy - e-mail me! They are tube type cameras and you need a real life video engineer to tweak 'em up or a refresher course from DeVry Tech on-line.

We'd pass on a NABET/IATSE card carrying cameraman/woman for them - but see your local union steward if applicable in your jurisdiction.

As these weigh about 120 lbs just camera head and Canon zoom lens (at one time - lens worth more than my car new!), you CAIN'T use them as webcams above your computers!!!! You'd smash your 'puter monitor with 'em. But they'd look GREAT picture-wise!Let's face it from lenshood to tip of viewfinder (manly black and white!) it IS about 4.5 feet!

Commercial grade power needed and not sold in stores NOR at Froug's, GulfMart, Oertle's, OTASCO or WoolCo! (read that tag in :05,please!)

WILL ONLY BE POSTED TILL 4-28-2000 as we are shutting down my facility here in May and moving all staff and gear to DC....

E-mail now! E-mail now! E-mail now! May try to get webmaster Ransom a picture of them to post!

Just a comment to make something clear - the Jim Peters who posted in Guestbook 36 is not the Jim Peters who was on KAKC in the late 60s. The "Leader of the Now Children" Jim Peters of circa '67-'68 KAKC, thereabouts, is now in Dallas. If Steve Suttle will contact me, I'll be glad to give you contact info for him. I don't have current contact info for Rob Walker but Jim will. He'll probably also know where Tom Gordon is.

Is that so?...Further info, please!

2/11/2006: "Now Children" Jim Peters, the original, is now the only Jim Peters referred to on this site.

May 27, 2005 in Los Angeles: Robert W. Walker at left; Jim Peters at right

For the record, Jim Peters (real middle name of Coldren, never used on the air) was one of the 10 people fired from KAKC in a controversial event around '69 or '70. Jim and Robert W. Walker produced and managed legendary band Cargoe in the early 70s (Jim did some writing for them as well). He was back in Tulsa by October 1974, and worked for KELi in the mid-70s. He moved away again, and, after stints in Kansas City and Miami, returned to Tulsa in the late 70s. Some time after that, he worked for KTFX. He is also the author of this piece about KAKC DJ Tom Gordon.

Thanks, Don. The only times I saw A. L. (or "Al") was before we actually owned a television set. And what did I know of reverse polarity in those days? As far as--as Bob Thomas used to say--weatherbirds, all meteorologists were so dubbed when we had to turn our North Atlantic Ocean Station Vessels into the wind so they could send up their radiosonde balloons.

Speaking of the more glorified honorific, there was a guy down in South Carolina who nightly introduced the local weatherbird by saying, in his own particular form of English "...and now here's media-urologist...." He wasn't making a joke, just doin' his thang.

Per Jim Ruddle's inquiry "above" (that is to say, "below", here in the Guestbook):

I don't remember a "weatherbird" with a transparent screen, but A. L. McCUISTION. a great meteorologist, worked behind a transparent map of the U. S., right-side to him. Just before he went on the air, the engineers REVERSED POLARITY on the cameras so that he APPEARED to be writing backwards, but really wasn't. It came out great! (The tip-off was that the handkerchief pocket in his coat appeared to be on the wrong side! This was REVERSE SCANNING.

A still picture of McCuistion was used on last October's anniversary show, but since everybody now at KOTV is too young to remember him, his name was mispronounced and he was referred to as "Al," not A. L., his initials. (For you youngsters, it was Mc-KWIST-ion)

I'm not actually "on line" (YET) (Thank you, Tulsa Public Library!), but I'm in both Tulsa 'phone books (it's Donald H.)

Don, I met you at the KOTV reunion (I was the extremely tall guy).

I spent a very enjoyable afternoon at Driller Stadium on my day off. The Drillers lost, but it was still a lot of fun. Here is their web site.

Okay, somebody, help me out. Who was weatherbird on KOTV who stood behind a sheet of clear plastic, or glass, and who had to write backwards on it so we could read it?

Decided to thumb through my bookmarks, and found TTM again! I guess the last time I visited this place was around the first of the year. In any case, I'm proud to announce that I got my old Gusty book signed by Don Woods recently, so that made me quite happy. Off to sleep for me, and at some point, I'll catch up in the guestbooks.

I wondered where you had gotten off to.

To the webmaster MIKE RANSOM: Thank you ever so much for the Chris Lane Memory Book and (now) Memorial Page. Your thoughtfulness is beyond incredible. I so appreciate it.

-Lorna

Lorna, you are very welcome.

So many great memories on this site. Does anyone remember "Jimmy Giant?" We grew up under his shadow on 11th street. He's probably the reason I'm driving a pick up truck today.

Drive Friendly!

Hi, Steve.

Would you believe that you and your brother played on the same bill as I did, once? I was cleaning out my closet today, and came across a program from the Halebaloo back in something like '78. You and your brother performed under the name, "The Hosejobs". I was way out of high school by that time, but the Goumaz brothers asked me to play guitar in their act. So, there I am on the program (with name misspelled, of course).

Your brother David reminded me about Jimmy Giant. I had almost forgotten.

Folks, Steve is an excellent guitar player who can be heard on the CDs "The Tulsa Project" and "Jethro Tulsa".

4/21/03: David Bagsby sent along Jimmy's photo with these comments:

Here's the only pic of Jimmy Giant I could find. It's Crager GMC's giant billboard on 11th Street. This came from an early '70's phonebook. Always wondered who win the fight: Jimmy or the Driller.

Shrinkage.

Channel 6 had a bad problem with things "disappearing" when I worked there.

Always an innovator, 6 tried shooting with a Wilcam modified Minolta or Bolex Super 8 sound camera in the early 70's. I guess the experiment did not work well. The Super 8 sound projector - a Bolex - sat on one arm of the film chain long after the Super 8 camera mysteriously disappeared. When I was there - the Bolex projector also mysteriously disappeared. Neither were ever seen again. No one raised a hue and cry either.

When I was the part-time production photog there I inherited a beautiful old Arri 16 camera but the power supplying belt was burnt out. We ordered a high tech small power pod battery from Arri and an engineer wired it up for the camera, unfortunately he mis-wired a pin on the charger and the first time we charged the battery, it "melted down". Duane Harm never came thru with money to replace it. One of the prime wide-angle lenses had been already "liberated" by news and whenever we saw weird semi-fish-eye video, we knew who had the lens and that they had unscrewed their zoom for use of that Arri lense. Someone said a while after I had left - the Arri disappeared.

We had a Bronica still camera for use for promotions - someone borrowed that unofficially and returned it to me broken - "that's the way I got it - by the way you weren't here and I needed it". It never got fixed. They were shooting picks of a girl friend and I guess dropped it - 6 never made them pay for repairs.

I remember seeing Teddy Jack Eddy perform at Whiskers in Tulsa...anyone else??? That was way back when you could purchase beer at 18 and the place was always packed! Whiskers was located in the strip center at the edge of Oertle's parking lot. This whole website brings back a lot of memories of days gone by...

An old Whiskers club card can be seen on the liquor-by-the wink club cards pages.

Could Teddy Jack's band have been Beau Velvet and the Desert Snakes?

Not to be rude, but your internet host...is it via-grafix.net, or viagra-fix.net? (cheap joke, but one that would not have been out of place at Whiskers)

Just saw Billy Parker and Bill Haynes on KOTV's morning show. Check out the Bill Haynes web site...there is a page about Billy, and a page for Don Woods. You can even order a Gusty and/or Gusty merchandise.

Has anybody ever mentioned a local show (circa late 70's) called "The Bible Bowl" on this site? It was taped (or filmed) at Channel 2, I remember being on the show with a friend of mine around 1978. There was a host, a robot and two teams ....the "Bible Boys" and "Gospel Girls". I believe the show aired Sunday mornings (of course). Just curious if it has ever been mentioned or anyone has heard of it...

I used to know what "B-wind" film was - now I am brain dead on it. I forgot about double sprock film making that awful noise going over optical sounds heads, too! Amazing what you can learn on this site!

Early news sound cameras were Auricons though it sounded like a TV camera tube type. Ed DeGuilio at Cinema Products (on the West Coast) and (on the East Coast) Mr. Frezzolini at Frezzi looked at these hernia maker cameras. The old Auricon sound mixer was the size of a Die Hard battery - not portable, if hand holding the photogs used a Peter Lisand angle brace on the shoulder. Shooting sound off a tripod was a killer. If you shot double system (till crystal sync) came out - you were umbilicaled to a sound man with a Nagra or Uher recorder. Photogs wore big battery belts and if you had a "sun gun" - often took a grip along to wear yet another generally short-lived battery belt and hold the light. Both DiGiulio and Frezzolini designed lighter weight rechargable batteries, mini sun guns that mounted on cameras and later fiberglass or polyfiber film magazines. Still later both built their own 16mm cameras as spin-offs of the Auricons but their first work was in modifying these beasts. Auricon made 2 camera styles - a smaller body that no one bought but home movie types - think it had 100'or 200' film capacity (oops I think 2 had 1-2 of these). The larger had interchangable "mags", we jokingly called them mouse ears because they looked like something from M. Mouse.

Each day before going out to shoot, you would try to load 1-2 mags in the security of the newsroom. You could load them in the field but not fun.

When 8 had CP-16 cameras - having a mag and a spare was a luxury! To save money you had 2 choices in CP-16's - one with an outrigger reflex viewing - like off an Angenieux lens and often hard to see thru when shooting or the classy ones like WFAA had with real reflex viewing of what you shot.

Then dammnit portable color video appeared! More $$ to spend and Cinema Products actually sold a video cam for a while!

Them radio guys, like Jim Back - we envied! Someone said at one time KRMG had an editing cassette deck in Car 74. Need to ask Jim about this. Versus the KELI mobile newsroom Chevy - KRMG and KVOO news guys had real tools to work with in the field!

I always thought "goon fuzz" referred to Bob Losure's haircuts..shows how much I know...(just kidding, Bob, and anyone who's seen me lately knows how little room I have to make hair jokes)

Where I worked before coming to Tulsa and KOTV, I started as a film editor. Film would come out of the soup (processor) as mag stripe (an eighth of an inch oxide strip along the outer edge of the film that carried audio). If it didn't have mag stripe or optical stripe, it was double sprocket (the little holes that the projector mechanizm used to pull the film through the projector), which, if the projector was on optical, would make audio like an early chain saw buzz.

Playing the audio track underneath a reporter voice-over or other sound was called 'half-track' (no relation to the army vehicle of the same name), and if you shut up and let the film soundtrack come up all the way it was 'nats sof full' (for natural sound on film full).

When the network boys came to town to do a spot for Huntley-Brinkley, they'd use double-system, where the audio was on a separate 16mm magentic film called 'full-cote.' This eliminated 'lip flap,' the result of the audio head being 30 frames behind the spot where the film was exposed to light. As a consequence, you'd have a little over a second of mouth moving to get the end of the 'sound bite.' (the real derivation of this pernicious phrase comes from the edit room, where you literally tore the sound bite out of the film outtakes or 'trims.')

Pre-satellite, the AT&T folks who handled distribution for the networks had their own lingo that's gone by the wayside. Words like 'VANDA' - which meant a Video and Audio signal; 'Loop', the line from someplace outside of the telephone co. network to the network; and 'P-GAD', shorthand for "permission granted."

On Fridays, AT&T would feed a closed circuit briefing over CBS for all their technicians on the intricate switching that regional NFL games would require. These came from Long Lines Central in New Jersey, and the guys doing it were not tv personalities...they looked sort of what a cross between Bill Gates and Tony Soprano might look like. And the dialogue was as hilarious as it was impenetrable: "For da Bears game, we got a loop outta Soldier Field to Chicago Toll, den on the Round Robin to NR, with a VANDA at Cleveland to WJW to approx 4 with a switch to Detroit on da P-GAD."

When I worked in New York, I learned that the central telco switching center at NYC is still called NR, which meant "National Radio." I saw it once, and don't doubt that somewhere in there they still had patch panels for the Red and Blue Networks.

Re Frank Morrow: I don't know what happened to most of those guys. John Henry went to KOA, in Denver.

Does anyone remember that Curt Gowdy preceded Creager on Oklahoma A&M sports broadcasts? For several years he proclaimed that the aggies were set for the big time if Bob Fenimore's knee held out. It didn't.

Archived Guestbook 35. We talked about Argus Hamilton, Bob Gregory, Tulsa stores of the past, Tony Randall and John Trotter, among other things.