Per Jim Ruddle - how about:

"Film Chain" - usually an RCA or GE color or B&W camera attached to a "multiplexer" with 1-2 16mm film projectors and a slide projector. Used for airing slides or film. Newsfilm was shot on mag (edge) film for recording audio - thus called mag -which was very confusing because some places recording double system sound recorded on Full Coat 16mm mag film on a separate recorder. Sil or silent film was called MOS or "mitt out sound". Which lead to more confusion because in some news shops = MOS was "man on the street" comments -soooo you had better careful instructing a new photog to a station what you wanted! All of the projectors at 2,6, 8 had mag/opt switches on them for sound. Opt for optical sound or what you had on commercial prints and movies. At WBBM and WGN in Chicago I saw my first 35mm motion picture projectors on a "chain". 16mm was the standard film format. In Europe and now at post production houses these are Telecine. In Amarillo at KVII we had a color film chain but also a B&W "super camera" on the 3 headed monster so over a color film, we could superimpose a B&W logo or address or phone number live.

"Matte Camera" - usually a b&w camera aimed at a preset area for shooting title cards in the days before character generators or CG's. aka a "super cam" - generally not color and of lower resolution than a color camera.

"Title Cards" - pre-produced white type on black cards for "name keying" or dropping in names of folks you saw on the TV screen for identification purposes.

"Art Cards"- once heard a director from the East call them "Hard Cards". Graphics, logos or whatever shot full screen in live spots rather than slide spots. Often later these art cards were shot to slide for easier playback on air.

"Balops" I think came from a Bausch and Lomb (help on the spelling!) title card gizmo. In early Tulsa cable tv days - you had the "wheel". Cheapest way to buy TV time on cable with a wheel full of art cards of businesses revolving with a music background and shot by a low resolution color camera. Always thought this was the grandson of a Balop.

"Carts" or TC's for tape cartridges - look like an 8 track but were stereo or mono continuous loop tapes of various lengths. You had to be able to "read" a cart and record after the tape splice of the loop. They could be demagnetized to be re-used. Mostly now replaced by DAT (digital audio tape) or Digi-cart - digital machines OR even audio cache type devices.

"STV" or subscription TV. KAUT in OKC fed many stations via satellite with this but there were other program suppliers. In areas without cable but plenty of broadcast stations - this was a way to deliver HBO or clones of it via an over the air method of scrambling. You had a descrambler box at home to receive this. T.H.E. - That's Home Entertainment in OKC preceded this but you needed a special little antenna aimed/tuned at the First National Bank building. Tulsa had something like this for a while. Cable killed it off and as UPN, Fox and WB came along we had more at-home choices.

How about some more, folks!

Just for the hell of it, and to preserve part of broadcasting history, can you remember terms used in TV that are now completely obsolete? I immediately think of things like "balop," "telop," "B-wind film," etc. Even actions such as "racking over" lenses are probably unheard of today. There must be dozens of words that will be lost unless we record them.

Some may have been local coinages that never made it outside Tulsa. For example, (and not a TV term, as far as I know) Greg Chancellor and Ken Klein, at KOME radio called the hair-like cuttings from disc recordings "Goon Fuzz." I never heard the term anywhere else, but I can't think of a better one.

Incidentally, they used to take the stuff and toss it out the side window where it would adhere to the spike-created splinters on a nearby telephone pole. The pole sometimes looked like a great hairy growth jutting up from the sidewalk.

"Goon fuzz"...possibly derived from the Popeye cartoon where he disguises himself as a goon on Goon Island by stretching his face and putting foliage on his forearms in order to resemble the inhabitants.

KOTV dads & sons: The Willits' - Neil was a seemingly life-long part of KOTV and as I recall a great contributor to last Fall's KOTV celebration. When we worked with him - he was constantly buzzing our transmitter/studio direct phone line. More often to complain (rightfully) about video and blanking levels on news tapes that were outgoing. 3/4" tape of the 70's was a format that made video but often was "illegal" by then accepted FCC standards on playbacks - you folks at home almost never saw this though. A lot has changed since then - including use now of "newsfinders" - amateurs shooting with VHS camcorders of events. Also FCC standards have been denigrated or ignored in many cases as SOP. I am sure if Neil was still at the tranmitter these days that hotline would be buzzing more.

His son Larry was both a KOTV studio cameraman and later in the same role at KTUL with me and a good hand.

Gordon McLaughlin was another long-time KOTV studio and transmitter engineer.

His son Brad was another KOTV studio engineer and had almost as dry a wit as John Hillis. Brad made life bearable for Stuart Odell and I when working with him.

Noting Jim Ruddle's remark on the T-town skyline, in the 70's I recall TU's Fred Graves or Beaumont Bruestle on several occasions in classes citing some famous person's sarcastic remark about having stopped in Tulsa, "If they dropped an atomic bomb on New York City - they wouldn't feel it in Tulsa for at least 25 years!".

I think that sometimes that IS a nice thang to say about T-town!

Mike asked for a Tony Randall story: when I was at 6, Randall appeared on Carson or somewhere and said his greatest disappointment in the theatre was that he lost the lead in the class play in Tulsa to Arthur Ford. So I asked Art Ford, a salesman at KOTV, if he was the thespian in question, he blushed red and admitted it was so, though even under interrogation, he wouldn't admit being able to recall the name of the play.

About radars--KOTV's SpectraScan 6, which went in up at the tower in '77, was the first color radar in town. It was memorable in that it did not have a visible sweep arm, but people (or maybe it was station brass) wouldn't accept the radar without the sweep hand, so Chan Allen arranged to get an ersatz sweep built in. We must have left it up a lot, because I remember Fred, our kitten, would sit patiently through the news waiting for Woody to come on, so he could bat his paw at the radar sweep.

Harking to KTUL's radar - Mike Ransom needs to post again a shot of the phallic radome atop 8's new thin watertower.

The 70's era radar I was told by Lew Brown or Leon Holland - was a remanufactured airplane radar. 8 evidently had had one earlier that burnt out and wasn't replaced. Funny how stations spend hundreds of thousands on them now. Bet that rebuilt one cost under $30k with a radome then! But in the 70's that was big money in Tulsa.

When at 6 - we microwaved in radar signals from the KOTV tower in Sand Springs and it seemed light years more advanced than 8's.

OK, per your request...

My favorite John Trotter story occurred during the floods of 1957 when I was driving the KRMG Newsmobile. It was a very exciting time, because the floods were accompanied by tornadoes. Trotter was at KAKC, the main competitor of KRMG, particularly for news reporting.

KAKC also had a newsmobile, but it was quite limited. KRMG’s had a transmitter in the Volkswagen van which would send a signal to the National Bank of Tulsa building, the tallest in town. (Now, this once majestic structure looks like a rather ratty, headless, pygmy chicken amid its taller, [and personality-challenged] mutant progeny.) This signal was relayed to the studios, allowing us to go on the air immediately with a superb signal. The van also had a built-in tape recorder and an extremely long cord which could be unwound for extended coverage where necessary.

KAKC’s station wagon, however, only had a mobile telephone which connected to an operator who manually patched in the connection so that the announcer could go on the air. The main problem was that, because there were many other customers using this service, the KAKC announcer frequently had to wait until a connection became available. It must have been frustrating. Finally, the newsmobile did not have a person who was dedicated only to operating the vehicle. (I’m sure that Dick Schmitz could verify if all this is correct.)

KRMG was having a field day with the weather reporting. Additionally, during the flood Bob Parkhurst and one other person had a mobile telephone put into their cars, giving us four mobile news units. The fourth was a car with a phone which was always kept at the transmitter. That is why the painting on the side of the VW Microbus said, “KRMG Newsmobile #2”---a real stretch of the truth, because “#1” was never used.

The reporting coup de grace occurred when Larry Strain took a tape recorder up in an airplane which was piloted by a friend of his. Although the engine noise was quite strong, Larry’s reporting of the flood scene down below was very impressive.

The next day I heard a report by John Trotter on KAKC. He, too, was in an airplane, reporting on the situation below. I asked Larry Strain about it. He told me that a KAKC employee, (perhaps Trotter, himself) had informed him that Trotter had found a recording of an airplane engine, and had played the noise in the background while he faked an in-air report. Like an ostrich, KAKC’s “Airmobile” never left the ground.

Back in the 70’s, Tulsa’s TV weather radar was a far cry from the high-tech version we see today.

When I worked at KTUL-TV, the radar may have been World War II vintage. My son Greg used to hang around Mike Bruchas and the technical types when I was anchoring on weekends, and he says he poked around and located the unit (not the monitor on set), upstairs in engineering. He says it looked like it was lifted from a bomber from the early 40’s. Maybe Mike Bruchas can confirm the age.

I know when I was news director at KTHV in Little Rock a few years later, we actually did install a radar unit from an old military plane. It always seemed to pick up passing aircraft better than severe weather fronts. But hey, it was better than nothing!

Having a Friday brain dump.

Weather, ex-Tulsans done good AND OK movies again....

For us in DC - all of the Doppler or whatever radar systems have "names" like Super Doppler 9000 (for ch.9). Usually a mouthful for any weathercaster to burble out.

What are the Tulsa stations calling their radar apparati??

Back to Central High famous alumni - we never hear of (is it?) A. Leonard Rosenberg though he pops up on Letterman and all over the place in his mid-70's.

He also had his first child ("a miracle baby") a few short years back. You say who???

Tony Randall - one of the biggest stars to escape Tulsey Town!

Anyone have any stories on him??

Last but not least - let's talk OK movies. Again on my contracted cable network (GoodLife TV - somebody please watch it!) and elsewhere this week are popping up showings of "Tulsa" - the 30's or 40's color movie about T-town with Chill Wills, Robert Preston and some female lead I forget, maybe Susan Hayward. Watch it and try to figure out what of it WAS shot in OK.

"Oklahoma Crude" had it's world premiere at Southroads Cinema in the 70's but was shot in CA.

"JW Coop" which starred Cliff Robertson also had a premiere about the same time in Tulsa at Southroads - about rodeoing and part of it was shot in OK.

Can anyone think of any other 40's,50's or 60's movies shot in Tulsa??? Sorry no SE Hinton/troubled youth/FF Coppola films requested yet!

I must admit I can't think of any movies not already mentioned. Anyone else?

OK, here they are: Pinpoint Doppler (2), AdvanceDoppler 6, First Alert Live Doppler 8000 (8), and Doppelgänger 309 Radar (19).

Did any TV station in Tulsa play with weather pictures via cel phone technology? I know a couple of stations in OKC tried it 4-6 years ago but I think it all died because it took minutes to transmit 1 weather still via cel phones. I guess they were shooting for "a weather picture is worth a thousand words"...

Re 8's radar of the '70's - am not sure if Gil Adams/Monte Toon worked with Woodsy to fashion the "grid" for it. I said previously it was very unscientific and we inserted the map/grid over it with a b&w camera. Same kind of technology they adapted for our early weather "bugs".

In telecine aka "the film chain room" - we had a b&w camera and a box of warning/watch bugs on cardboard. There also was a downstream keyer. We would pull a weather warning bug, slide it into a card slot custom-built by Al Clauser, turn on 2 lights and hit the keyer to super-impose a warning. This was all long before having a still store or Chyron there for this. When we ran a 2 part Ironside or Adam-12 episodes - we had a "To be continued" matte that I had made - to insert. Of course at 8 often part 2 of an episode aired 6 weeks later!

We also realized the bugs cluttered news graphics during a cast but 8's management screamed leave a bug in - so we worked a deal with news to move the bug to upper right hand corner for newscasts to prevent graphics clutter but keep the subliminal message in.

Other stations in markets I have lived in, used to run obnoxious sound effects like beepers or screechers when they inserted a bug or ran a weather crawl. Now with technology most places on the East Coast squeeze back program video to run weather messages.

How times have changed!

Great picture from Frank Morrow. This must have been taken just before the neutron bomb went off, leaving the buildings, but erasing all the people from downtown.

Back in the Dark Ages of Tulsa radio there was no coverage of severe weather. One reason was that in the 1950s there were very few tornadoes compared with what Tulsa has now. The only notification of bad weather we had was the occasional bulletin on the wire services.

This changed when the KRMG Newsmobile came to town. I was the first operator of the VW Microbus---well, actually the second, because originally Johnny Chick was assigned to it, but, because the job was giving him ulcers, I was selected to replace him after only two weeks. One weekend when I was off, Larry Strain was hanging around the station when he received word that severe weather was lurking. Always full of enthusiasm and brimming with initiative, he jumped into the Newsmobile, scurried to the airport, parked the van next to the back door, ingratiated himself to the meteorologists, ran a cable with a mike inside, sat down in front of the tiny, ice-age radar set, and, after a quick orientation by the weathermen as to what he should look for on the screen, proceeded to broadcast.

After Larry told me what he did, I just continued the operation, reporting the location and direction of movement of ominous hooks or doughnut-hole blips which appeared on the radar. This was supplemented by information which the meteorologists had from their resources, including visual reports from spotters and law enforcement agencies. The meteorologists were very nice and helpful, and were more than happy to go on the air whenever we asked them to do so. It helped that I could speak their language a bit, because I had had a couple of courses at TU in which meteorology was taught.

On one occasion when a tornado supposedly was in the area, a man ran in and said that a funnel actually was going across the airport. The chief meteorologist rushed outside with me, microphone in hand. Before us was a very small tornado merrily dancing its way from west to east across the runways. I was on the air, but all I could say was, “Golly. Gee Whiz. That’s a real tornado.” The meteorologist noticed my buck fever, grabbed the mike, described the situation, and advised the listeners as to what to do.

Suddenly, there was a light from beyond the low cloudbank and rain. As the light got closer we could see the headlights of an approaching car. It was heading right toward the tornado. Fortunately for the driver, the twister went past just in front of him as he sped toward us. He roared up, got out of his car, ran toward us, and said with wide, excited eyes, “I heard on the radio that there is a tornado somewhere in the vicinity!”

“Yep,” I said. “And you missed it by about ten feet.”

The audience response to our reporting was very positive except for one man who called KRMG and said, “Get that man off the air! He’s scaring me to death!”

There was a problem, though. Because KRMG was at 740KCs, there was a lot of static and interference during bad weather. The stations at the other end of the dial had better reception. My old friend Harry Wilson recognized this, and began re-broadcasting our reports during his evening shifts at KTUL on 1430KCs.

The managers of the other stations suddenly realized that they were way behind the power-curve, and that KRMG was getting entirely too much positive attention. They asked the KRMG general manager, Frank Lane, to set up a network so that they could also have the reports. Lane growled, “Get your own damned newsmobile.”

This just in fron Noel Confer:

Sorry to report that one of the world's all time great guys has been lost from my worlds of Tulsa, San Diego and broadcasting. Jim Harmon passed away this Monday last. Services will be Saturday in San Diego county. I do not know the cause of death. He was 72. Jim had been a director at Ch. 6 Tulsa & Ch. 8. San Diego. He'd been an owner and founder of "The mighty 690" radio in Southern Calif. and had owned TV Ch. 51 in San Diego.

The weather bug. You hate it.

Eric Nelson - now deceased - adopted it at 8. Said all the Little Rock stations had done it for years. Of course we heard that all the time at 8 (and later at KOCO) that Little Rock was THE market of TV sophisteekation in the nation for news (not really).

It kinda caught on in Tornado Alley though one time stations tried putting a teeny tiny live radar pic in there and looked awful.

At 8 we were told to match NOAA announcements coming off the wire, plus we had that damned NOAA phone link that always had false alarms going off about ant storms in Bug Tussle and many times on the air we were told to interupt Don Woods for a breaking update. More often it was something for Sayre not local and that would tick Don/producers off because NOAA never pre-announced what was being sent on the line. But on late nights when no one was in for weather I guess we were glad to have it. Now I guess a lot of this is done by the son of the EBS system via radio.

As for Gary England - yes - by default of outlasting all the other weather men in OKC and being very lucky at guessing and reading storms - I would say he is the best arbiter of what are Tornados in OK. Didn't say I liked him or his *EGO*, but he has an uncanny 6th sense plus a good network of spotters. If he declared a tornado before NOAA - I would accept it.

25 years ago Don Woods would have been very shy about doing so unless he had a bona fide witness to do this.

I would guess stations do have better gear now than NOAA for storm watching/predicting. Here in DC stations can read precip and wind down to neighborhoods accurately and it amazes me!

How about a brief change of subject here, especially since we're coming into tornado season: Do you think the TV weathercasters -- especially in Oklahoma City and Tulsa -- overplay storm coverage to the point of unnecessarily alarming viewers?

The reason I ask is that a producer for OETA called me yesterday to say he is working on a documentary about weather coverage in Oklahoma and it is his feeling that for a variety of reasons, primarily competition for ratings, weathercasters make too big a deal out of even minor storms. He said he has heard from several people who find the little maps in the corner of the screen irritating and the number of interruptions for storm coverage in other parts of the state distracting. He said he had learned that I used to be News Director at KRMG and wanted my take on today's approach to weather.

I suspect what prompted this is an incident a couple of weeks ago in OKC, in which Mike Morgan at ch. 4 (who worked as an Assistant Meteorologist at ch. 2 during the Gary Shore era) had made a big deal one night when one of his spotters saw a "gustnado" which is basically a big wind gust that has a little bit of swirling to it and is not even close to being a tornado. Morgan essentially issued his own tornado warning and told people to take cover. No one else, not the Weather Bureau and not the other major OKC weathercaster -- Gary England -- issued any warnings for this area. The next night England took the unusual step of criticizing - on the air - the weathercasters "at another TV station" who are irresponsible and who exaggerate the weather. For its part Ch. 4 kept repeatedly showing wind damage from the storm and showed viewers prasing Mike Morgan for "saving my life."

This OETA producer wanted to know what I think. I told him I think the weathercasters generally do a good job and generally don't use inflammatory terms in their coverage. I added that while you have to be careful not to go too far, I am a firm believer in the concept of getting as much information out as possible so the viewers can make an informed decision about what's really happening. Perhaps Morgan went too far the other day, but I didn't actually see his coverage and only know the reaction from ch. 9 and the story in the newspaper about it.

"But," he said, "Do you realize the OKC weather guys are the only ones in the country who routinely issue their own tornado warnings without waiting for the National Weather Service? I pointed out that these guys have many years of experience and an extensive network of spotters and they know the risks to their reputation.

When we finished talking he told me he didn't think he'd need to do an on-camera interview with me because he's looking for people who feel the weathercasters go too far. Well, I thought to myself, that's this new generation of reporter for you. We were frequently ACCUSED of being one-sided in our time, but at least we weren't blatant about it like the "kids" today.

Anyway, he said he had been at KRMG recently to talk about this subject for his documentary and they gave him a tape of Don Cummins describing a tornado back in 1975. The guy wanted to know the story behind it.

"Ah, yes," I thought to myself as I started stoking my chin and getting a faraway look in my eyes, while dream music swelled in the background, "It seems like only yesterday . . ."

It was about 5:30 on the afternoon of Dec. 5, 1975; Geez, 25 years ago! I was anchoring the "Five O'clock Report" and there were no weather warnings issued at the time. In fact I don't think it was even raining, at least not downtown where our studios were (15th and Boulder). While one of the news segments was playing, the DJ in the next room came on the Intercom and said he had had about three calls in the past couple of minutes from people claiming to be seeing a tornado in East Tulsa. I looked outside again and saw nothing unusual but said I'd call the Weather Service to see what's up. I got the guy on the phone and he said he would check the radar but wasn't aware of anything unusual. Meanwhile, the DJ got a few more calls and we were debating whether to put them on the air or not, when I got a call on our news hotline from Don Cummins, a veteran reporter for KRMG. He told me to put him on the air immediately, that he could see a tornado headed towards his house. We put him on and he described it dramatically and accurately. He knew that it was on the ground because he could see debris swirling around inside it. In the background you could hear his kids hollering at him to get away from the window and to come join them in the center bathroom. Only after the storm got about a quarter mile away from him, did Don say he needed to get off the phone and take cover.

Meanwhile the guy at the Weather Service came back on the line and said -- on the air -- that, well, yes he could see a cloud near 21st and Mingo with a hook echo in it, and that if it developed further he would issue a tornado warning. I told him what Cummins had just reported and that Don had already told listeners to take cover NOW. The forecaster said, "Oh," and within seconds issued a warning.

The next day we received many accolades for being the first -- and in fact only -- station (TV or radio) to cover the tornado until after the Weather Service issued its warning.

It is flabbergasting, not so much that a reporter might look for testimony to support an already-cooked-up story line, but that he would see nothing wrong with doing it and admit it without shame.

I never had the pleasure of seeing "Oil in Oklahoma," but it's good to know that some of the documentaries are still in existence. Back in the 'fifties, a freelancer named Maury Ferguson--a terrific on-the-air personality--did a weekly program on KOTV, and on some other stations around the state, I think, certainly in Oklahoma City. He drove up to Tulsa to do the show--live, of course--which was about interesting places and people all around the state. It was an excellent and popular program, sponsored by Southwestern Bell, as I recall, and if any of the reels still linger somewhere, would be an excellent resource for anyone thinking about doing something about Oklahoma.

Herb Lightman, an early director at KOTV who had grown up in the Hollywood film business, made a film in Tulsa for the Petroleum Institute or some oil company called "The Story of Rudy Crude," which showed how oil went through the various processes to become gasoline and other products. It had an animated character "Rudy" who told the story.

One of the major scenes in the film was an oil field fire, and an elaborate (and expensive) table top model of an early oil field, with wooden derricks, etc. was constructed. On the appointed day, the camera was rolling and the model was torched. Something went wrong. Either the lenscap was still on or some other dire problem occurred, and the whole effort was wasted--along with the money. Herb managed to get outtakes of a similar fire from the Walter Wanger movie "Tulsa," so Rudy was able to complete his tale.

Herb's whereabouts are posted elsewhere in TTM.

(In Guestbook 23.)

Speaking of "Oil in Oklahoma" - I think at one time some video company in Tulsa was selling VHS copies - I have 3/4" copies of "The Osage" and another show. About 10 years ago when Don Lundy was visiting up here - I dragged out a BetaMax copy of the Osage show - we looked at it and marveled. As John Hillis said - for the technology of the 70's it IS a good show.

25 years ago in Barnsdall I got a copy of "The Osage Reign of Terror" or something like that. It was old and then a re-issue. Many of Bob Gregory's anecdotes are corroborated by it and always wondered if it was a research source for him. Last Aug. I bought at Steve's Sundries there in Tulsa a new tome by a newer author. Seemed like the author may have "borrowed" a lot from the original book but updated where all the victims and felons went. Some felons went straight, some victims went into "shady doin's" as Betty Boyd might say.

Anyway, Bob Gregory made history in OK fascinating for a lot of us. When I still lived in Tulsey, I used to cruise backroads of the always fascinating Osage County - looking for places Gregory had reported on...

One person who's said he's indebted to Bob Gregory is Texan Bob Schieffer, who was hired at CBS in Washington when Bob left to return to Tulsa. Schieffer once told Doug Dodd that he'd have been left in the "don't call us, we'll call you" pile at the CBS bureau had not Bob Gregory quit the day Schieffer interviewed.

Probably Bob's magnum opus was "Oil in Oklahoma," a local documentary series literally years in the making that was a prime example of what a local TV station could do even back in the technologically-challenged 70's. It was done the old-fashioned way...painstakingly researched, lovingly shot and written, and extravagantly produced.

I wonder if copies survived that got into libraries and archives, because it was some great work.

A copy of the book is in all the Tulsa libraries, but I didn't find the video.

Hi!

I just wanted to share some memories of my childhood and what I remember about Tulsa. I grew up as a child in Tulsa in the 1970's. What fun I had! I remember watching Lionel and Lee Woodward, Don Woods and "Woody", etc., etc. I can still remember going to places no longer around, sadly to say. I grew up in the Mingo Creek area that Mayor Terry Young bought out after the 1984 Memorial Day flood. My old neighborhood is no longer in existence due to the buyout.

I fondly remember going to the old Sears store on 21st and Yale, Frougs Clothing, Oertles department store, TG&Y, OTASCO, Woolco, Southland Shopping Center, Southroads Mall, The Annex Mall, and Crosstown Shopping Center.

And I also remember the Target on 19th and Yale that used to have a supermarket attached to it in the 1970's. We used to go there all of the time. I can still picture all these places that we always visited,and what they looked like at that time. And I REALLY hated it when they destroyed the old Southland, Southroads, Annex,and the old Sears on 21st. Tulsa has taken on a totally new look in the past 20 years.

I remember in the mid seventies, we'd go to a little place in the Annex called The Townsend Top Shop, which was located a couple of doors down from the theatre entrance. We used to go in there and buy iron-ons for T-Shirts! My parents were always wanting to go look at furniture, so we frequented Frank Tutt's furniture, John F. Lawhon's, Evans, and of course Manhattan Furniture.

I LOVE reminiscing my childhood and visually seeing Tulsa the way it was back then. Remembering what each store we went in looked like. I still remember going to the old Sears store on Thanksgiving weekend,where Santa would fly down out of the sky in a Bell-47 helicopter, giving away those huge candy canes. Boy the crowd would stampede you if you weren't fast on your toes!

Shopping at the old Southland shopping center at Christmas time, and walking through the decorated courtyards is one of my best childhood memories. I loved going there. I vaguely remember a great big pair of Blue Jeans that used to hang out in front of one of the businesses at Southland. I can't remember the name of that business, but I DO remember one hot Saturday morning back in 1978, waiting to meet Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) outside the old "Penneys" store, before they tore it down and it then became JC Penney.

And all of the old eateries that have been long past: Burger Chef, Jack in the Box, Arthur Treacher's Fish & Chips, The Heritage House Smorgasboard, Shotgun Sam's Pizza Palace, Sambo's, Clancy's Pizza (a little pizza joint that was in the Rosewood Village shopping center on 11th and Mingo), Der Weinerschnitzel (remember those A-frame shaped houses that you could drive thru the middle and place your order?), Molly Murphy's (although I never went there...too many weirdos with costumes out by the street!) etc. All the good places are gone! :(

I used to go to the movie theatres while my parents used to go bowling every Friday night. Most of which are no longer in existence: The Boman Twin, The Forum Twin, The Continental, The Annex, Plaza 3, The Cinema at Southroads, and the Village Cinema. We lived right down the street from the 11th Street Drive-In. We spent many summer nights at that place. I have so many memories that I could yap all day about Old Tulsa. I wish at times that I could just jump in a time machine and go back to the good old days of growing up in the 1970's in Tulsa. If ANYONE out there has any pictures or news footage of any of the above mentioned places, I'd REALLY like to see it. Please e-mail me direct!

You said a mouthful!

Yours is the 1st mention of Frank Tutt's. How about "Pigskin" Manhattan Furniture?

Former Mayor and weatherman Terry Young has visited this site multiple times.

We had a visit here from J. Townsend of the Townsend Tops family in Guestbook 16. Do you remember that pro wrestler Irish Mike Clancy owned Clancy's Pizza? And that Der Wienerschnitzel was a Mazeppa sponsor?

Who can forget the Continental as a place to see 2001, Gone With The Wind, The Graduate, and later, "The Stewardesses" (in 3D!)?

I rode my bike on the foundations of the Village Theater as it was being built. One of my cohorts from high school was Joe Dickens, who appeared with me on the Mazeppa show. He was from your old neighborhood...you may know him.

Scott, thanks for your evocative post.

I think Bob Gregory a.k.a. “Daddy Deepthroat” is still living in Tulsa. DDT hired me at KTUL Radio in 1959 and again, to be news director at KTUL-TV in 1971. (He also fired me a couple of years later after we fought over photographers. It had nothing to do with starting the DDT nickname.)

There are many good Gregory stories, but I have never met a better reporter or news writer. While at KTUL Radio, he and Clayton Vaughn at KAKC engaged in a relentless news battle. Much of Gregory’s news philosophy involved outthinking the competition. And thinking “big.” For example, we got Senator John F. Kennedy to record a spot (via telephone) promoting KTUL Radio’s news coverage. As I recall, Gregory tracked down JFK at an airport during the presidential campaign in 1960.

We would also go to great lengths to beat the competition. During a big Tulsa County Grand Jury story, I sneaked into the judge’s chambers to take his secretary’s phone off the hook. This totally messed up KAKC’s Harry Wilson who planned to use the phone’s extension just outside the courtroom. While Harry was trying to get an outside line, I used a pay phone nearby.

When we beat KAKC for the AP Monthly News Coverage Award, Bob asked Vaughn (who was president of the AP Broadcasters Association,) to record an on-air promo congratulating us. This was great! We had KAKC’s news director praising KTUL Radio’s news coverage!

DDT spent several years with CBS News in Washington and I covered a number of stories with him when I was at WTTG-TV Washington’s Channel 5, including a coal miners “black lung” protest in West Virginia. I’ve heard that Gregory was the only CBS newsman to ever quit the Washington Bureau. He resigned in the early 70’s, to became VP of News for Leake TV (KTUL-TV in Tulsa and (KATV) in Little Rock.

I worked with him again, at KTUL in the mid 1970’s and when I was news director at KATV. Too bad Bob isn’t into computers. When I first met him, he typed with two fingers. But boy, those fingers could write!

Of course, who would ever think of using that "trailing edge" resource, the phone book?

Looked up Argus J. Hamilton's webpage and column - sorry Will Rogers' second coming he ain't. Some of the stuff sounded like Jay Cronley reject material. Jay was also a favorite of Bob Gregory's to use to fill on KTUL-TV shows way back when. His (ex-)wife Connie Cronley worked at TU when I was an undergrad - think she also did TV for a while.

Maybe when Jimmy (aka Argus J.) was the "runner" at 8 he was more funny in the coffee shop with life stories as a Muskogee "escapee". Am sure he could contribute more Bob Gregory anecdotes here.

Hey - you have to give him credit - he went to L.A. and is still working there!

I thought his column was pretty good---I sure couldn't come up with new material every day.

Argus Hamilton has been writing a humor column for the Daily Oklahoman since about 1992. It appears daily (except Saturday). It used to be prominently placed on page 2, but now is buried inside, on first one page and then another. He is still a stand-up comic/writer in Hollywood. He appears at Jokers in OKC once or twice a year. For awhile he did a 9PM - 11PM call-in show on KTOK, but I think they stopped that a few months ago. He has spoken in his column from time to time about being a recovered alcoholic.

Just fixed the link to Argus Hamilton's site below.

Speaking of KTOK, I had a friend at OU named Martin Ryder. He worked at KTOK while a graduate student. I understand he was employed at KVOO later in the 70s. Anyone know what happened to him? He once made a prank call to KGOU that I still have on tape...here he is.

re: Argus Hamilton....still see his material used in the LA Times. His material is picked up and posted on Don Fitzpatrick's site, www.tvspy.com, periodically. And we didn't believe Jimmy, as he was known in the mid 70s, that he was going to make it in Hollywood. He could barely get commercial tape dubs from point A to point B. Guess his mind was elsewhere.

I was at OU at the same time as Jimmy Hamilton. He seemed to take the "male chauvinist" point of view in his writings for the Oklahoma Daily, so he was "politically incorrect" before it was a term.

Where is Argus J. Hamilton, now?

Muskogee boy recruited by Jimmy Leake as "runner" at KTUL-TV, drafted by Bob Gregory as a production assistant then off to Hollywood 20 years ago to try to make it as a comedian(he said "writer"). He appeared on Carson a few times then supposedly wrote gags for others. Has anyone heard from him?

Of course the real deal guy we need to find is "Daddy Deepthroat", Bob Gregory. Where is he now? Anyone have any leads??

How about trying www.argushamilton.com?

Tulsa TV Memories is a great looking site. I never knew these shows myself; but after seeing the site, I kind of wish I had.

However, we had a few legendary kids shows in my area; so, I've started a web site (listed above). Up until now, none of the info on these shows has been available on the web.

I've had an interest in TV history for quite some time. In 1993, I started another article, "Dr. Who: Lost and Found," which can be seen at:

http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Lot/8256/lost-and-found.html

And, my interest in local shows from my area was a spin-off of this. Anyway, great web site. Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Brian. Maybe I'll get that Local Television Ring going again one day.

Just archived Guestbook 34. We received a visit from Tom Ledbetter (Shaggy Dog), continued on patent medicines (like "Black Draught") and Porter Wagoner, discussed Alan Merrell, Fred Harris, Paul Harvey and KAKC in the 50s.