Memories.... watercolor memories.... I lived in the Tulsa area from 1978 to 1987... I think I'm still "Living on Tulsa Time" and Eight's STILL the Place...

I'm trying to revive the name of a sportscaster, baseball, in particular, who worked in the late thirties and early forties. The name was "Franz Laucks," "France Loucks," or some permutation of these. He was considered one of the best in the business at the time and I recall seeing his picture in the window of a downtown Tulsa store which acknowledged that he had won some broadcaster's award. What the hell was his name? It was pronounced like "Lox."

As for Frank Morrow, I'll leave him down by the sea wall with Claudia, Nicky, and Jack as Father Barbour turns to his wife and says, as he does in every episode, "Now, now, Fanny."

Jump ahead to October 29, 2001 in Guestbook 95 for more about France Laux.

YOU MIGHT BE OLD, IF:

You remember the words to the “Cream of Wheat” song on “Let’s Pretend.”
You can sing the “Buster Brown” Song.
You can imitate the voice of “Froggie the Gremlin.”
You remember who did “Sing Along Time” on KRMG.
You know what radio program Handly Stafford was on.
You know which two personalities were played by one actor on “Amos ‘n Andy.”
You can quote any of the opening of “Grand Central Station.”
You remember the subtitle to “Eggs at Eight.”
You remember what special, audio prop John Henry used in his KVOO sportscasts.V You can identify the theme music from “I Love a Mystery.”
You remember the name of the family on “One Man’s Family.”
You can identify the man who played different characters on “Glamour Manor.”
You can hum the theme song of Leon McAuliffe.
You can sing the theme song of Johnny Lee Wills.
You remember who closed each newscast with “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
You remember the first name of the man whose intro ended with “Good Evening, anybody, here’s Morgan.”
(And are really sharp) if you remember the theme song for Morgan’s program.
You can pronounce correctly the title of “Young ______ Brown.”
You remember what “Portia” faced.
You remember what other soap opera the woman who played Portia performed on.
You remember the slogan of the El Wino commercials on KAKC.
You can sing the Rainbow Bread commercials.
You can complete the following sentence from a commercial: “So, if your head scratches….”
You remember who almost always said, “There’s good news tonight.”
You remember George Hicks’ description of D-Day.
You remember hearing a program written by Norman Corwin.
You remember hearing “Uncle Willy” on KRMG.
You can imitate the bird on “The Worry Bird Club” on KVOO.

-------------This is for starters-------------

I've always been interested in broadcast history, so when I found this site I took to it. My ties to Tulsa are very minimal. In fact, my most prolonged exposure to Tulsa radio/TV came during the several months (May 1979 to March 1980) I spent in Fayetteville, Ark. At the time, the local cable system carried channels 2, 6, 8 and 11. I do recognize some names from those stations during that period on this site. I didn't know about the history of Lee Woodward and Lionel, but I figured he had to go a ways back. I especially liked ch. 6's Gloria Strickland, but haven't been able to find much on her thus far here.

Some time ago, when I found her old colleague Bob Losure had a website, I e-mailed him asking about Gloria. He said the last he'd heard, she was doing PR for some Tulsa hospital, but that was all he knew.

My favorite station was KRMG. I especially liked John Erling (who I understand is still there, and I've heard him via KRMG's webcasts) and the late David Stanford. I remember John did a series of prime-time specials for ch. 2, "Studio 2 Live", which was basically a Phil Donahue-type show. I thought he was pretty good. I also liked their "Oklahoma Weekend" show, which reminded me somewhat of the old NBC "Monitor", with its mix of music and features.

Johnny Martin was before my time. I have heard the clip of his final sign-off. What were the circumstances surrounding it? I read that he was on the air right up to his death--did he know at the time of that last broadcast that he was going to die? And how long was he on the air overall? This may be a no-brainer to most of you, but this is someone about which I've heard, but know very little about. Thanks for a great website.

Way back in the 70s I was the first woman disc jockey in Tulsa - at KAKC. I loved the city and only left when offered a gig in San Francisco. I'm glad to find the site and see others' memories. I'll check back to see if anyone is old enough to remember me!!!!

Speaking of OKC/Tulsa radio pairings, well...kind of, when KOFM in OKC changed formats and calls and became KMGL Magic 104, KQMJ here in T-Town shortly followed suit. In fact, suits were filed, as KMGL sued the owners of KQMJ over the name Magic 99. I believe it was settled, because KQMJ was still Magic 99 when I spent Christmas here in '89.

Oooo! Tulsa TV neuron just fired...anyone remember something about a KOTV reporter being given a bag of cocaine at some telethon? I barely remember hearing something about that probably late 80s or early 90s.

Dear Yahootie:

I beg to correct you, but didn't it go like this: It was In-Nevadada-NoHalvah-NoGila.

I'll see you at rehearsal: don't be late!

Your closest personal friend next to Lazlo Mimne,

Mazeppa

Didn't SWANCO own KKNG and KWEN in Tulsa at one time? The "king and queen" of OK? Jim Back can tell us more, I bet!

So many changes! Remember when KOMA and WKY were the only 2 OKC stations you needed to listen to????

The old Mercy Hospital in OKC has been sitting in disrepair since it was abandoned in the early 80s. The city has owned it all this time, and has decided to finally do something with it. I think they were talking about making it a low-income apartment building. However, I'm sure that's not the safest structure, so they'll probably raze it.

When KEBC (Keepin' Every Body Country) at 94.7FM was country, it was located in south OKC near SE High School. After it was purchased by Clear Channel, the facilities were moved to "Clear Channel Central" at 50 Penn Place, which is the old Penn Square Bank building. It had been country for probably 30 years when Clear Channel changed its calls to KMRX and flipped it to alternative, 95X. This lasted probably a year or less, when it went to soft rock and became KQSR. It has been at that state for nearly 3 years now. The KEBC calls now belong to the old KXXY/KOCY-AM freq at 1340. Most of the old KEBC staff now works at 93.3FM, which is the home of some more old OKC calls, KKNG. The former home for KKNG, 92.5FM, belongs to yet another old station, KOMA.

The world is a ball, that keeps spinnin' 'round....

I know we're remembering the days of yore, but I love this new ad with Lance Armstrong (this years Tour de France winner for those who aren't familiar) giving the elephant mouth to schnozz resuscitation.

So, I'm sure many of you will recall Chick Norton's 'Chick Don't Care' commercials. Does anyone know if the story about a vandal smashing windows out of several new Buicks and leaving behind a sign exclaiming 'Chick Don't Care' is true?

Remember-gravity: Not just a good idea, it's the law!

Various notes here...

I haven't been back to OKC in 15 years but have been back to Tulsa about 8-9 times, but I remember when Mercy moved way North by Edmond, OK and no one could figure out why in the 80's. Now it is surrounded by homes - they had a good in=house video team when I was in OKC and was one of the first to start videoing all operations in the O.R.

Demi Rosenthal left KVOO News to go to KOCY to do news and get a Master's in City Planning in the '70's at OU - KOCY was MOR and I think a 5000 watter on Lincoln - even then not a great neighborhood. I think KEBC was their FM but country FM was then not big in OKC.

Mike Campbell aka Wimpy was a friend that was an Engineer at 34 with me but had worked at 4 and free-lanced as Chief Engineer at 4-5 small radio stations in OKC back when the FCC mandated that you needed an Engineer's name with a "First Class FCC ticket" on a station's license. Then you had numerous single owner stations in OKC.....I think he got $100 a month from stations as a retainer unless actually needed to work on a transmitter....

I did an news article on KORU one time. One dj, Bruce McFadden, had a fantastic voice and the girls were crazy about him. Don't ever let the voice deceive you. He looked like a pubescent, roly-poly Roy Orbison. I had noticed at public appearances, many dj's with best voices don't always have the best looks. (By the way, my voice isn't all that good.)

Yes, I remember Hemi's and My Pi and one of the first "natural" food resturants, Middle of the Road. Great places.

You guys that are big on OKC radio are right, there has been some good radio down there. One thing is true, you have the most radio towers in one place than any other city that I remember seeing! Always impressive.

P.S. OKC is my birthplace. Mercy Hospital. Great city.

Hmm...the only radio stations I can recall near 5 was WKY, but that was on the other side of 4. That building is KMGL (formerly KOFM) now.

WKY lost it's 70 year old tower during a tornado in '98. Same storm that caused a waterspout on Lake Hefner, and eventually grazed Frontier City. It's sad to see what Clear Channel has done to such a great old station. Now it's a mix of Christian music and talk.

I was able to tour KOCO in grade school, and was astonished to see Jack Bowen and Ron Stahl fishing in the lake they have in their backyard! I always knew the lake was there, you can kind of see it from Britton, but I never thought there would be fish in it! That convinced me I wanted to work at KOCO.

To Erick - that reader board must have gone up in latter years.

I can't remember the FM that was next to KOCO! Had been there forever and we shared the transmitter shack with them for something. Was it KOFM? Formerly in a bank building in OKC KOFM sounded a tad like KMOD - played good jazz for a while...Guy Gannett Broadcasting of Miane owned the station next to Gannett Broadcasting's KOCO. I am still confused except Guy Gannett had a lot of small market stations that made money.Maybe Jim Back can tell us something about the this...

Howard Lane who also worked as Dave Duquesne worked there at the radio station for a stretch. Howard and I went to TU, he of a squeaky but rock n roll sounding voice originally. Fred Graves and others at TU taught Howard er Dave a lot in voice/breathing control and he could sound "deeper" in time and post-puberty.

I had to roll on the floor one day at 5 when someone mentioned "this boss jock" they listened to at the station and wondered what he looked like. It was Howard they were talking about. I think on good day - Howard weighed 100lbs, at one time was plagued with a bad complexion and was about 5'4". Shows you the power of a good voice, I guess!

I worked at KOCO at the new building - only visited the old place once when KOCO was there and once when KTBO had an open house after buying it out.

At the Frank Rees-designed "palace" on Britton Road, they had planted trees all over. The duck pond out back was really a pond for our own mini-sewage plant. Geese descended on us till they were a hazard to helichomper navigation at times - they would not move!

The land used to belong to Gaylord Farms Dairy (according to Jim Rankin)- as did the land then KGMC now KOCB stands, so the Gaylord family profited by other owner TV stations on the North side of town.

One Thanksgiving weekend, a man pulled in by a stand of trees by the foot of the driveway by Britton Road. We were inhaling fresh air//cigarette smoke on the porch adjacent to the "break room" and thought he was the spouse of a Traffic dept. gal - at least from a distance, maybe he drove a pick-up like hers. We saw him walking around in the trees and we went back in from the side porch to work and an hour or so later saw one of the biggest evergreen trees was gone! Found out the next Monday she was out of town with HER family and spouse.

KOCO had been struck by a Xmas tree poacher! I guess 5 "was on his side" for free Xmas trimmings.....

So, Mr. Bruchas, were car fires a common occurance in the KOCO parking lot? I know it seems like every time I've been down that stretch of Britton, there was a car in the ditch. KOCO is possibly the only TV station in the world to one time have a readerboard on the front sign. They took it down years ago. I'm not sure why it was there, maybe they used it to let folks know of upcoming shows of interest, but it always just said "5Alive" anytime I saw it. I thought it would've been hilarious for someone to put "Burger, fries, drink - $1.99" on it.

Re Bill Howard in OKC - Bill had a baaaad toupee that he would shock folks with - by removing it at the wrong times. Bill also had FD connections - maybe a son-in-law or something or was just a buff - KOCO had all the unlisted numbers of all OKC FD stations and several times for car fires in the lot at 5 - we "dialed direct" to the station on Britton Road for help rather than call 911.

Bill IS worse than HoHo was at snagging food -would grab anything off your plate if you didn't eat it. Bill had hepatitis bad in the '80's but recovered - after that NO ONE let him near a plate! Probably got it from some evil chicken fried he snagged off a plate!

He is corny, funny and made the Pokey thing work!

Yes Yahootie, let's talk food - - does anyone else miss that corn/potato chowder from the Middle Path Cafe and those chooches from Hemi's Pizza?

Adios mi amigos

The Middle Path building at 11th & Yale was formerly occupied by a decidedly less natural forebear: The Golden Drumstick, owned by Bob Latting, who hosted the Kids Karnival on KOTV in the mid-1950s.

Hey Mazeppa,

I had the craziest dream last night. Iron Butterfly and Itzahk Perlman showed up at my Bar Mitzvah and played In-A-Gadda-Da-Hava-Nagila!

But I feel fine and am looking forward to a turkey leg and some deeeelicious dippin dots at the fantastic Tulsa State Fair.

Folks, this is indeed THE Yahootie Menu from the Mazeppa show! We hope to hear more from Mr. Menu soon. In the mean time (which is a groovy time, as Jimi Hendrix once said), you can hear a sound clip of Yahootie on the 1st Mazeppa page!

Just read the obit on Rocky Stegman. Whoever wrote it obviously had an appreciation for him as well as good writing skills. More obits should have this kind of upbeat, chatty content. This was not written by the usual funeral home hack.

P.S. By the way, this also shows how out of touch I am. I thought he was still married to Susan Bunn.

I know this does not have much to do with local Tulsa TV, but it does have something to do with Channel 6 and channel 8. "The Edge of Night" (1956-1984), which was on daytime TV in that period and shown on 6 at 1:30 pm and 8 at 9:30am, now has a homepage. (Well, its been on the internet for 2 years.)

On the "EDGE" homepage, it has background history, soundbites for the opening and closing themes, and much more.

"The Edge Of Night" address is .... http://lavender.fortunecity.com//casino/403.

To Webmaster:

You may have discovered this by now (if so, just delete), but Rocky Stegman did die Saturday at 54 (always note it when someone's younger'n me!); a scanty mention was in the Tulsa World's death notices Monday (Bill Hyden pointed it out to me), and there is a THREE-COLUMN obituary in the World this morning back behind the classified ads where the World puts its paid obituaries.

As I've noted before, the circle is getting smaller!

Thanks, Don. Here is the obituary. It is well-written and conveys a strong sense of who he was. I enjoyed the programs he shot for All Souls Unitarian Church which played often on cable TV here in the 80s. Some months ago, I left a message on Rocky's answering machine about this site. I am sorry he never made his way into the Guestbook; he would have had a lot to say.

I recall there being some talk in the early '90s of naming a childrens-only library after Ed Birchall. It was to be a joint venture between KOCO and the OKC Library System. Somewhere early on money became an issue, and the idea was dropped. Too bad, because as Michael said, Ho Ho was a major influence on 2 generations of children. It's very unfortunate that likely none of today's generation would have any clue who he was. For all they know, Ho Ho is a junk food snack. I'll never forget the crawl on the bottom of the screen giving the news that Ho Ho had died. Even though it had been years since I had watched the show, it was still such a shock. You feel like people like that should be invincible. In fact, I don't even think I knew then that he had been fighting cancer. They don't make 'em like him anymore.

Just to clear up some previous comments: Ed Birchall, aka HO HO the Clown, came down with cancer in early 1988. He was in and out of the hospital. His last show was taped in June, 1988. He was in the hospital for treatment when he suffered a heart attack and died on July 3,1988. His sidekick Pokey the puppet, aka Bill Howard, left KOCO/TV in October of 1990 after 30 years there. He worked at the OKC PBS station OETA until 1997. He is now retired, spends much time taking care of his yard, and is very happy. It's too bad there are no memorials to HO HO of any kind in OKC. Someday a school or street should be named after him. Those of us who grew up watching him and the other great kid shows owe a lot to these heroes of the small screen........

There is some discussion of Ed Birchall in Guestbook 16.

When last I heard, Karen Miller was in LA with syndicator WorldVision Enterprises, though this was some years ago. Perhaps when NATPE rolls around in January, she'll emerge. Karen was a) a great director, b) a good people person, and c) a Tarheel. Not in that order, necessarily. One day Charles Kuralt came by KOTV, and autographed a photo for Karen with the first line of the UNC school song. She walked on air for about two weeks.

I, too, remember the Speedway race. Her victory was not a dumb luck or by inches kind of thing...she could flat out drive. I kidded her after that by singing the theme to "Thunder Road" when she got on headsets. The determination is one of the things that got her into management at a time when station managers were not predisposed to see it as the most likely track for women.

Another nice thing she did: when I was moving out, we had a disaster with the sale of our house--the buyer didn't show up for the closing. The moving van had already come and I had to drive to Raleigh immediately to get to work. Karen let my wife move in with her while she tried to get the real estate mash worked out.

Heard a Barbara Mandrell song this morning and it brought back a memory of a forgettable interview by Ken Ragsdale. As an ex-DJ, I had known who Barbara was for several years, that she'd entertained the troops in Vietnam as a teenager, etc. (This was long before she toplined an NBC variety show with her sisters.) Ken was not so burdened with this history, and it was an awkward sort of mismatched interview. Not embarassingly bad, but just no connection. At that time, she and I were the same age. She's gotten younger since.

I didn't see this in the newspaper, but I have been told that Rocky Stegman passed away last weekend. Does anyone know more?

Brother Bruchas jogs my memory again! Last heard that Karen Miller (what a terrific lady) was in LA. This info is about five years old. I believe she moved to "La La Land" when she became the PD for the CBS O&O's.

I vividly remember "Celebrity Night" at the Speedway. I was in the KTUL-TV car! That wasn't the bad news. The bad news was I could not, nor can I now, drive a stick shift.

Karen could. It was one of the things that impressed me about her.

Remember the "Come Home to Channel 6" promotion campaign. One of the spots - I don't think this was Jerry Muratore's work - was slugged something like "Kitty Come Home" - I was told first time it was on the log - it induced cat calls from the engineers....Someone said Kitty Gibbons was now in Denver in print or radio.

Chortles was actually the inspiration for the "Blue Dog" artist, who's now doing ads for a computer printer manufacturer. I have it on good authority that Chortles turned down the ads on the basis that it would pollute his art and wreck his chances for a starring role in an American Theatre Company production of "Arms and the Dog."

That's Haystacks (the plural is important) Calhoun. (Like Arthur "Two Sheds" Jackson.)

The morning show on 6 went live probably in late '77 or early '78. I can't remember who anchored, maybe Kitty Gibbons? with Doug Dodd? (ah, misfiring neurons!) but Jan'n'Judy (the twin psychologists) did Friday mornings, and Libby Willard, who came in when Mike left, directed. I think it was done from studio A, so it would have predated the Battlestar Corinthian set, which debuted in fall '78.

I think by that point Mike Flynn has departed for John Brown University in Siloam Springs. By then, I confess, I wasn't paying a lot of attention to much but hitting my licks and trying to find a new job.

There was a lot of turnover around then in Tulsa TV: Both Clayton and Bill left, Barbara Allen married Jeff Rosser and they moved to New York, Gary Gunter left for Buffalo, Doug Dodd went to law school, Ian Pearson came to 6 as News Director, Carl Twentier was at 8 as N.D. for about 15 minutes, Jim Hale and Melanie Roberts were the new team evenings at 6.

Julius LaRosa was fired by Godfrey, but that was earlier.

I caught that Monty Python reference.

Alright! There have been all of these fond memories about drive in movies. During WW 2, if we were lucky we went to the Cozy Theater, on Saturday afternoon, and found the old, usually drunk Osage Chief, Uncle Billy Brunner, passing out dimes for us to get into the "picture show"...That would depend, of course,on whether or not he was in jail. There are some wonderful Uncle Billy stories. I'll share some one day...

Just archived Guestbook 54...this is #55.

Hey, even I just had a problem with my entry getting duplicated in the Guestbook. I had gotten an error response about some temporary file being full. When I tried it again, the same error happened, but my entry went into the Guestbook again, as I discovered moments later. If this becomes a problem, I can switch to the backup Guestbook easily enough. I sent a problem report to htmlGEAR, who should take care of it shortly.

Anyway, we just discussed a number of people in Guestbook 54: Ken Reed, Betsy Horowitz...talked about the Ma-Hu Mansion, site of a popular spook house across from Oertles...remembered Shakey's Pizza and the "8's The Place" promotion (with pictures)...discussed Drive-In Theatres some more.

This just in...the whole Dee Lundy TV show with "Chortles The Dingo Dog" is nothing but a dadgum hoax! Your webmaster will be wiping egg from his face for some time. Next thing you know, I'll be finding out it wasn't Hanson who signed the Guestbook!

Leave YOUR hoaxes and other comments here!