I am & do not understand why all these odd & unknowing "young" persons speak to us of the "old" times. I consider (sp) myself "new" in the thought of TV. And I came in to it at about '65. Am I being rude? This is why I must do educational tv at this time. Com. tv is a bust & has no purpose 'cept to "sell it". I am poor yet with a reason. TV can be god.

Help me - I thought Ernie Schultz also did some time later with RTNDA - the TV - radio News Directors national organization either regionally or in DC.

No - Darrell Barton WAS the best of the best news shooters in OKC for many years and is one of the best shooters in the US still. He set a high bar for shooters at WKY-TV/KTVY.....

...

Check out www.ccrane.com - XM Radio receivers are on their webpage - *by Sony*, too but at $299 for a home receiver I may wait to buy one. Oh yeah - $10 a month to subscribe for the XM service.....

When I called myself an old man I may have left the impression that I was already in the rocking chair. I'm still shooting. Mostly for "48 Hours" and 60 Minutes. Schultz fired Adams for refusing to re-edit a film piece after the noon show. Schultz's policy was that everybody did everything. Everyone hired had to know how to shoot, write, voice, process film, and sweep the floors. It was a system that worked until the newsroom outgrew it.

Way back in the late 60's, I had an English teacher at Nathan Hale H.S. named Gwen Taylor. She was very easy on the eye (like I was picky back then, or now). She was very interesting to say the least. Most days in class she dressed in solid black and played the part of a witch. To my surprise she started appearing on Mazeppa's Uncanny Film Festival, playing a witch. After school was out, she disappeared. I've heard that one of her characters on Mazeppa was Little Dar-ling. Does anyone know what became of her?

Thank you for that bit of Uncanny Film Festival lore, sir. Mr. Lowell Burch sent this photo from the 1968 Hale HS yearbook. Ms. Taylor's stated interests: art, music and drama.

I attended an exhibition of Mr. Sartain's art work this evening at the Alexandre Hogue Gallery in Phillips Hall at TU. It is a joint show with Glenn Godsey, who has been experimenting with digital imaging (like our friend Stevo Wolfson). The show is open to the public through December 8. It was a lot of fun, and well worth checking out.

Oh, Darrell Barton, he's the guy who was considered one of the premiere news shooters in the country during the '70s and '80s. I can't remember what year(s) he won NPPA news photog of the year, but - oh, well. I remember a clip that made it onto a lot of "goodie reels" during the seventies. We (ch.4) were televising an OSU football game and Barton was there too with his CP16 film camera on the sideline. At the end of a play, a player runs out of bounds - BAM! - right into Barton. Sends him sprawling onto the turf. After a couple of seconds, Barton sits up, goes into a crouch, looks around, finds the cigarette he was smoking and puts it back into his mouth.

I don't know why Ernie Schultz fired Jerry Adams 'cause I wasn't there yet (though he came back later).

The turnpike shuttle was a going thing for a long time. Once a Channel 4 engineer named Willard Hines did a propagation study and determined that it was possible to set up a single microwave hop between Ch. 4 and Tulsa's Channel 2 (I think) but it was never tried. Then satellite feeds became all the rage :)

I tried to explain news film shootin' 2 days ago to a good linear editor here and also listed all of the switchers I had worked on as a TD/Director - 75% he had never heard of before! I AM a dinosaur.

If you see "Totally NASCAR" on FOX or SppedVision - it is done here weekdays Feb-Nov. I am getting a learning experience on racin'....

When I worked at KTUL-TV in the 70s, we were trading 2-inch tapes (of film stories) with Channel 9 in Oklahoma City. I remember one was dropped and flattened beneath the wheels of a semi-trailer truck.

For a first-time news director, the turnpike exchange was frequently a source of major stress. The awaited tape from Oklahoma City might well be a four-alarm fire or plane crash and would be subject to factors beyond our control. Like if the motorist transporting the timely video would stop for a leisurely meal along the way. To reduce this possibility, we started asking motorists if they were planning to drive straight through before trusting them with a potential lead story.

Darrell Barton may be the "old man" he labels himself below, but FILM exchanges via the turnpike occurred before videotape came in. That's the story of the 1950s or so.

For the members of the "congregation" who missed it, A & E cable net (Cox 28) will repeat the "Biography" on Muskogeean Robert Reitz (Reed) at EIGHT P.M. and midnight tonight. The hour-later schedule is to accommodate Florence Henderson at 7 and 11 p.m. Friday night we get "Okie From Muskogee" Merle Haggard at the regular times, 7 and 11 p.m.

Thanks for that info, "Brother" Norton.

We may have further info on "Li'l Darling" from the Mazeppa show shortly...

Or, like me, you were there and gone before videotaped news.

You are just a kid if you worked in the Tulsa/OKC markets and don't remember shuttling video tapes back and forth between the cities by handing them to random drivers at the turnpike gates.

I knew a lot of folks who worked in Tulsa but since one of my lesser character flaws is a rotten memory for names I can't list them all.

Carlos Hernandez worked for me for all of a month once. Wrecked every news car at Channel 4. Including mine. He is chief photog at Fox in DC. Brian Sweet came to 4 out of channel nine..before that he worked in Tulsa. We lost Brian to a brain tumor a few years back. A great loss. His wife, Holly, is in Tulsa doing freelance audio.

Joanne McDonough was a shooter in Tulsa back in the early 80s. She then worked as an editor for CBS Sunday Morning and "48 Hours". Now she is married to a good friend of mine and giving boat tours in Alabama.

If you really go back a ways, Pat O'Dell was a news director for KOTV in the early sixties. (that's where George Tomek started.) Pat is now..and has been for years..a staff cameraman for CBS in Dallas.

There was a beautiful blonde lady who anchored at Channel 8 in the middle 80s. Before that she worked at 4 in OKC for a while. I can't remember her name but I do remember that, like the Marty Robbins song goes.... "I was in love.. but in vain I could tell". Who was she...where is she?

I'm like a lot of old men. Got a thousand stories ...but I promise to mete them out slowly. Next up...."Why did Ernie Schultz fire Jerry Adams?"

Later

KTVX was a Chris Craft station in Salt Lake City for years - can't remember what net affiliation though...think it is no more.....

It is still around as an ABC affiliate...here is KTVX' web site.

At 8 pm CST this evening, you can listen live on the internet to Stevo Wolfson's audio program, Nightmare City Halloween. He grew up listening to KWGS' "Subterrania" underground music program, and worked at “Scream In The Dark!”, the "Ma-Hu" mansion haunted house in 1973 and 1974. His program is inspired by those experiences. Check it out if you are able.

Jim Ruddle's recollections of the broadcasts of the All-star games brought back memories for me. I heard both broadcasts.

Holy Rabbit Ears! The folks here at the Oklahoma Historical Society have been doing broadcasting research (radio and TV) for 10 years. Tulsa is represented in our collections but we need more. This site is great! Thanks for your efforts.

Rodger added via email:

We are looking for old tapes, discs, transcriptions, and films from any Oklahoma broadcasting. We'll transfer to a usable format in exchange for the recording.

This would be a good way to save those old tapes moldering in the closet!

10/31: Speaking of moldering, it's Halloween. Here is a bit of related trivia...In Hitchcock's "Psycho", the news truck covering the arrest of Norman Bates was emblazoned "KTVX". These are the call letters of the Muskogee station that became KTUL. I believe they were reassigned to a station in Salt Lake City.

2/17/2005: Another coincidence...Tulsa used to have its own Bates Motel out on east Garnett. Do you suppose that "Psycho" cut into their business, as it were?

In my move to NC - found the b&w contact sheet of G.Ailard at KTUL doing his show - will see now if I can find the original almost 30 year old negs to post here - if not will scan the contact sheet and send any images to brother Ransom.

Welcome back, Mike.

Just got a new, easy to remember URL for this site: http://tulsaTVmemories.com...with or without "www." in front of it, and case does not matter. The site hasn't moved; the new URL forwards you directly to tulsatv.tripod.com.

In reply to Jim Ruddle's "Hoot News" about the Baseball Announcer. Are you sure his name wasn't "Hal Laux?"

Jim Ruddle responded: "Yep, I'm sure."

New picture of Bob Scofield, aka Connie Chanowski, near the bottom of this page, courtesy of David Chanowski.

This is so damned trivial that I hesitate to bring it up, except that I brought it up once before and didn't know what I was talking about.

In a previous post, I mentioned a baseball broadcaster who was popular in Tulsa in the way-back-when days, but I wasn't sure about his name or his affiliation. I thought it was Franz Loucks, which is what it sounded like, but it turns out he was France Laux, and he broadcast out of St. Louis in the '30s and '40s.

An outfit called "Holley Music" has some tapes of a couple of games he broadcast: the 1940 All Star Game, from St. Louis, with Laux and Mel Allen handling the play-by-play; and the 1948 All Star Game, again in St. Louis, with Laux, Allen, and a fellow named Jim Britt. There! I feel better and you probably don't give two hoots in hell.

Hi, John. I guess burying that particular car made it even more of a true time capsule, since Plymouth is now no more. I am wondering what shape that car is going to be in after 50 years in the ground. Hard to shrink wrap a whole car, ain't it?

My family had a '64 Chrysler Newport with that funny pushbutton transmission, which drove my dad crazy by jumping out of gear on numerous occasions. I think that was the last year they made it.

Having actually had one, the glories of a '57 Plymouth are vastly under- appreciated. The push-button transmission, for instance. Or the rectangular steering wheel.

But probably the best thing about the buried '57 Plymouth is that they saved a classic by _not_ burying a '57 Chevy.

We had perfect weather for the Tulsa Run yesterday morning. Here is the webmaster doing a Curly shuffle near Channel 2 while the rest of the pack moves forward:

At 3 p.m., Brookside put on its "BooHaHa" Parade.
Wigged-out Steve Smith and Cindy Bear (92.9 KBEZ morning
personalities) officiated--that is not Cindy in the llama
suit. Click on the link to see their normal appearance.

Speaking of time capsules, aren't they due to dig up the car (1957 Plymouth, I think) in front of the library in another 6 years? I was told that they put it there when the state turned 50, with the plan to dig it up during the centennial celebration. Beats me why they picked such an ugly car to bury, though. Was only a Plymouth dealer willing to sacrifice a car? Perhaps someone here could enlighten me a bit, as I was not yet on the scene when this occurred.

Bob (Scofield) was an audio man. He presented himself as such.

Loved his do. I do not care that he didn't care. In 1968 during the last Xmission of the poor man's job, he made a big BURP....I invited him to come to my place....& teased him.

Great site. Will continue to read from OKC. Miss you......

Good to hear from you, Kathy. I heard from Donna that you are doing well.

Kathy is a former co-worker who was in on the beginnings of this site. She has contributed several artifacts, including a letter from Foreman Scotty to Circle 4 ranchhands.

Well, well...we just caught up with the time machine setting seen in the Prologue. Apropos of that, here is a TV schedule for the year 1965.

A bit less apropos, but still interesting, the World today printed a Tulsa time capsule for Nov. 25, 1971 (anniversary of a big OU/Nebraska game). Here are some of the items:

At Shopper's Fair (21st & Sheridan), "anchor" of the shopping center that is still home to Casa Bonita, new LPs from Led Zeppelin, Roberta Flack, James Taylor, Aretha Franklin and the Bee Gees were marked down as low as $2.69! (p.s., remember Gulf Mart at that same intersection?)

At Horn Bros. Furniture Fair on Admiral & 129th, a queen-size bed with a nine drawer dresser and mirror sold for $159 (is that the fabled "Zamora Home Pack"?) A TV listing for their "Longhorn Wingding" can be seen in the schedule linked above.

Borden's Cafeteria offered a Thanksgiving lunch for $1.09, or a catfish dinner for .69. Other restaurants of the period can be seen in the Photo Briefcase.

The Circle Theater (1st & Lewis) was playing "Summer of '42", starring Jennifer O'Neill...pant, puff! Can you believe that 1942 was less distant from 1971 than 1971 is from 2001?

Speaking of our current year, "2001: A Space Odyssey" was three years old in 1971, but the dulcet strains of "The Blue Danube" were being strained through the tinny speakers at the 11th Street Drive-In.

The Capri Drive-In apparently hadn't gotten down and dirty yet; a John Wayne double-bill of "Big Jake" and "The Undefeated" was playing.

The Will Rogers featured Clint Eastwood as a jazz DJ and Jessica Walter as a psycho-fan in "Play Misty For Me".

On a tangent from Mr. John Hillis' comments on cable television news screens: I assume everyone has seen CNN Headline News lately. If you add "closed captions" to that mess you can really get confused.

And on the economics of the business: Tulsa television stations have shared in two political bonanzas in the past twelve months, the "right to work" scuffle ending in September and the dirty 2nd district congressional race last November. The Tulsa World reported SQ 695 (the "right to work" proposal) was second only to the 1990 gubernatorial race--more than $6 million dollars for "advertising and media" expenses. The second district race found at least one and a half million dollars for advertising. In both cases opposing spots ran almost back-to-back all day long on the three biggest stations.

On the "other side of the coin," you might say, the Dallas Morning News reported Monday, October 15 that nearly every Houston radio station was refusing to sell spots in the current mayor-council races.

Any station selling political spots is required to apply its lowest rate for the time specified. But while stations are required to sell to federal candidates (count on Congress to look out for itself), they are NOT required to accept local hopefuls, who usually have much less money to spend, provided they refuse everyone. And "drive time" is important to these "shoestring" candidates--especially in Houston.

KTRH manager Brian Purdy is quoted saying revenue is a major concern. His news-leading station ran for three days after September 11 with no ads and no revenue ("make-goods" weren't mentioned). Purdy said, however, that his station is stepping up coverage of the local races.

KTRH and KPRC, a talk-show giant, are both owned by Clear Channel Communications of San Antonio, also a major operator in Tulsa. Tulsa's contests for mayor and city council come up early next year; it'll be interesting to see how much revenue local stations accept.

Darrell! Glad you dropped by!

For anyone unfamiliar with DB's work, let me just say he is an AWESOME shooter who has done work for, um, just about everybody.

(Keeping it seasonal...)

I still remember a news feature he shot at 4, where he carved up a pumpkin. It was shot filmstyle and edited only to sinister music, and scared the cr@p outta me.

Welcome!

Here is Greg and his brother Lance with Foreman Scotty.
Scotty (Steve Powell) also appeared in Tulsa as Don Scott.

What a great site! It will take hours to wander all of the archives but I look forward to doing that. I came to Oklahoma City in '69 and spent 15 years at Channel 4.

Thank you, sir...you will find lots of OKC references here; try the TTM search engine with HoHo, Foreman Scotty, etc.

People, especially PBS-types, put down local TV news. There's a lot that ought to be complained about, but there's also something to be said that a town like Tulsa can support 3 (and soon 4) solid contenders. Remember, there's only one local daily newspaper.

Alas, in general--I don't know how it is in T-Town--the economics of broadcasting are tougher than ever after September 11, and I've been saying for a while that we'll start to see the weakest local newscast dropping out. That happened recently in St. Louis, for one.

I've worked with all the consultant firms, and found they range from the old adage of "stealing your watch to tell you what time it is" to being pretty good at helping you be better than you believe you can be. Sometimes a view from outside _is_ helpful.

With the criticism of local television news, note that the great excesses now aren't coming from local newscasts--they're happening in the scare-mongering of the national cable nets afraid to let go of a story that isn't moving for the moment.

When I and others much smarter than me were conceiving this 24-hour thing way back when, our idea was that you could put a running story in a DVE box in the corner of the screen, and go on with other news in the main. Now, they take the box, a line of (generally hours-sometimes-days-old) headlines crawling at the bottom, and still they can't provide a sense of proportion on the story.

The old Pennsylvania Dutch adage, we grow too soon old and too late smart.

John Hillis is founder and president of Newschannel 8 in D.C.

I just caught an episode of "Local News" on PBS. It is a five-part documentary shot over a ten month period behind the scenes at WCNC in Charlotte. A. H. Belo Corp. (former owner of KOTV) acquired the station in 1999, and set out to remake local coverage to reflect media consultants' vision of TV news. This episode focused on 22 year veteran African American reporter Beatrice Thompson, who was forced out in the process. TV is both big business and a public trust, but where is the balance between them today? Check out the web site for more about this series.

I am just so very thrilled to "hear" that people still remember my dad, Bob Scofield. It's been so long since he was on the air in Wichita (1978) and even longer since he was on in Tulsa (1969).

Now to see that Mike Denney (on the right; Don Lundy to the left) is directing The Young and the Restless. Mike changed my life. When he did a drum solo on the Zing and Tuffy show as Shaggy Dog I was mesmerized.

I took drum lessons from Mike at his home in Tulsa. My mother finally had to buy me a practice pad for my drum because I was practicing my lessons on the refrigerator. I'll never forget Mike. He gave me a 45 rpm record of his band, the Sammy Pagna Quintet. I listened to that record over and over again and swore that if I were ever that good I would surely have made it in the music business. Well I can play drums like that and I still have the record. Unfortunately I never "made it" in the music business but I still play on weekends. Thanks for the inspiration Mike.

I too remember the tapes that Dad made of the Saturday morning cartoons. I really enjoyed those days watching him edit the tapes and making carts out of each phrase to use on Zing and Tuffy or during any number of inappropriate moments on the air. That was when television was really fun. I'd really love to hear from any of you about things you remember obout Dad. The other guys like Wayne taught me all about VTRs and the electronics in engineering and I was fascinated. Sometimes I used to get to load and run the VTRs at sign off. That was a kick.

I've been trying to capture my life in written form for my kids to have something of me and I'd like to include as much of what I can capture about Bob Scofield, my dad, as is possible.

Feel free to contact me directly at hotmail. I'd love to hear from Mike or any of you that remember Dad and me at KTUL. .

I'm sorry to hear of the passing of Bob Scofield (Connie Chanowski). And I think I remember David running around the station when I worked with Bob back in the late 60s.

My favorite remembrance of Bob was the fun we had with the weekend movies. He'd record on audio cart the soundtrack from the Saturday morning cartoons on ABC, particularly Super Chicken. Then, during an appropriate moment during the afternoon movie, such as a Cavalry charge, he'd pop in the cart of Henry Cabot Henhouse III, aka Super Chicken, squawking the bugle charge.

Hi there. You may recognize my last name. I found your web site while I was searching the web for Chanowski. I do that occasionally just to see what's new on the web. I found a comment from someone indicating that their favorite personality was Bob Scofield aka Connie Chanowski.

First I'd like to thank that person, Don Lundy, for the comment. Bob was my dad and I spent considerable time at KTUL during the years that Dad was there doing weekend weather and studio audio.

I'd be most interested in any memorabilia that there might be with Dad's image or even a write up of some kind . Please let me know if there is anything left from that long ago. F Y I -- Dad passed away about 4 years ago from leukemia in Lincoln Neb. Thanks for anything that you might have and I'd be glad to answer questions or provide information, if I have any.

Thanks again.

Another KOTV father/son team was Gil Fallini and his son Bruce.

Jim Ruddle's recall of another Father/Son team at KOTV hastens me to add the Engineering Team of Gordon and Brad McLaughlin (Sp?) Speaking of Engineers; They used to get me cracked up when I could hear them reacting to something Lionel (we) came up with and I will say they were very much a part of our air time. Not all of them laughed. There was one who thought Zeppy and I were communists. Oh well, even that is better that being a member of the Tally Band! Not to be confused with the "Telly Band."

Now for the Old Folks...a trivia question; What early show biz lady's name rhymes with Tally Band?

As Jim says, you can see what kind of life I lead!

Now, I'm not that old, but she must be Sally Rand, the fan dancer.

Maybe this story was previously posted, but I haven't perused all the archives. Anyway, many years ago KOTV did a story on a pot bust, and for a "visual aid" got permission from police to take a large pot plant back to the newsroom. It turned out that several people would go by the plant, and snip off a few leaves. By the end of the day, the bushy marijuana plant looked like a stick!

I would have liked to see the officer's face when the plant was returned to the TPD. Nope, that's a new one, David.

The Southside Community World has two stories of interest this morning. Bob Losure and his wife, Jana, are opening Bellissima Salon & Spa at 61st & Yale Saturday afternoon at 4 pm. This grand opening benefits the American Cancer Society. Personalized copies of Bob's book, "Five Seconds to Air" will be available.

The Whistler is also featured. His "Puckerama 2001" kicks off at the Rib Crib at 69th & Lewis tomorrow evening at 6 pm. More at Robert Stemmons' web site: http://www.TheWhistler.com.

Was running through the archives (now you know what kind of a life I have) and came across a picture submitted by Lee Woodward which showed Betty Boyd and Perry Ward's son, Bill. Lee said he believed that Perry and Bill constituted the only father/son combo to work at KOTV.

Actually, when KOTV went on the air, two directors were father and son: Rick and Ronnie Oxford.

Thinking back, it's hard to believe how primitive television production was then. Anyone who had any experience with studio film was automatically granted credentials as an expert. And anyone who had been inside a television studio was considered an old hand.

Archived Guestbook 94, in which...

We heard from a Segment Producer on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She is looking for the unusual/human-interest type guest for the show. Let her or me know if you have any ideas.

A new Nelson's Buffeteria page was introduced at the request of Mike Bruchas. Lowell Burch sent in a banner from Leon Russell's old Shelter Church Studio. We learned that Lowell is related to Larry Fine of the Three Stooges.

Don Norton started a discussion of Rue McClanahan, who is a TU grad. We then saw pictures of her on a date with our own Frank Morrow!

The Tulsa State Fair concluded. Ken Broo told us how KOTV "really connected" with their audience at the fair back in the 70s: a giveaway of plain brown paper bags and books of matches. This reminded John Hillis of another prize: a 33 1/3 record of the "Take A Look" theme used by KOTV at the time. Lyrics:

Take a look at Tulsa,
From the Arkansas River to the Green Country Lakes.
Take a look at Tulsa,
Growing with pride with each day that breaks.
Take a look at Channel 6,
Take a look at Channel 6,
Take a look.

They don't write them like that any more, do they?

Kirk Demarais started it off with a "White Lightnin'" Bell's Amusement Park bumpersticker.