I found my answer in the May 1, 1971 issue of the Tulsa Tribune, in which transportation writer Larry Levy wrote about riding the last train out of Tulsa on Friday, April 30, 1971. Levy wrote:

"The Santa Fe's last train consisted of six 48- seat passenger cars and a baggage coach. Ordinarily it had been a short train, two passenger coaches and the baggage car but with some 304 people reserving space for the last-chance trip, two passenger coaches would have made it very cramped, indeed."

Stops along the line included Collinsville, Bartlesville, Caney, Independence, Cherryvale, Chanute, Humboldt, Iola, Garnett, Ottawa and Olathe before finally arriving in Kansas City. The train line was called "The Tulsan" (much nicer than the cold airline designations such as "Flight 703").

The final passenger train out of Tulsa did not leave from the once-magnificent old Tulsa Union Depot, though. The station, finished in May 1931, and which had once served as many as 36 passenger trains a day, closed on May 12, 1967 (a Frisco train called "The Oklahoman" from St. Louis to Oklahoma City).

The final passengers out of Tulsa in 1971 left from the old Santa Fe depot at Second and Elgin. Anyone driving by the area today would wonder how they did it -- all the tracks leading to the depot were ripped up years ago.

The DC/NYC crowd thought he was a rube because he talked slow and was from Texas. Was a spiffy but conservative broker looking guy. Last I heard - his kids ran the company with a whole new regime.

Wish I had their stock now....

I noticed Tunnel Vision features Philip Proctor, one of the founders of Firesign Theatre. I've been going back to comedy albums from the early 1970s: I just bought a CD copy of Cheech & Chong's first self-titled album - and Dave's STILL not here. It's a lost art, especially with the music DVD boom (we used to be able to enjoy comedy without a picture, now we have to have video in order to enjoy music - we're spoiled).

Proctor has done a lot of voice over work in animation, but I just watched the complete second season of ALL IN THE FAMILY, and there he was again, as Edith's nephew whose company cancelled Archie's insurance. There are quite a few future stars in the series. Everyone knows the episode where Cleavon Little (BLAZING SADDLES)and Demond Wilson (SANFORD AND SON) breaks into the house, but I never realized the Greek painter who paints Gloria nude is none other than David Soul of Starsky and Hutch and one of my favorite bad ABC Made-For-TV movies of questionable taste LITTLE LADIES OF THE NIGHT (co-staring Linda Purl).

Yes, this is pointless information, but someone has to keep track of such things.

The other 70s TV spoof was Tunnel Vision.

http://www.citymuseum.org

Caught Brave Combo in KC...fantastic as always. Look for the new cd out now.

It's interesting to hear that you know of other dinosaurs still running out there in Jurassic Park.

From friends at their TV stations in different markets - sometimes it seems their TV stations have 1 agenda and radio stations another.

Like the 5-6 outlets that they own in Tulsa - they own 5 radio stations here and now a former civic arena that the city sold off.

Tune in shortwave station WWV at 10 mHz to get the exact time, but you can also get it by clicking the 3rd link from the top at their web site.

She wondered why I left the theater pretending I did not know her. (Ha! Just kidding.)

Before they bought a character generator at Tulsa Public Schools (1977), we used the old-time drum to roll the credits. I bet all of those ended up on the scrap heap years ago.

The NAB Code is long gone - declared illegal. I think Don Lundy or the late Jim Back spoke of why it went away earlier here. It was one of the few industry based standards for stations could/couldn't air and still be NAB members.

In the heart of the Bible belt (East Coast division) here - now EVERY station except Belo's WCNC-6 (though it is on channel 36 off air but on 6 on Time Warner Cable) and the PBS non-comm's have shown "Girls Gone Wild" - the sleazy infomercial late night with take-outs from that master of taste + DV auteur, Snoop Doggy Dog. I think this came as a rip-off of an idea from the folks in Europe who gave us "Just Kidding" - a previous euro t&a/flatulence-filled ha ha infomercial. Didn't really make much sense for American humor but showed a lot of nudity blocked out in the TV infomercial. But since Jerry Stringer, Jenny Jones, COPS and now Blind Date have "what you couldn't see on TV" raw versions being huckstered as :30/:60/:90 spots in and around those same shows - I guess us 'Mericans are just as bad for taking the low road to get mo $$ out of a TV broadcast after it has aired....

Told him that KTUL had 3 and a TR-70 when I started - KTUL was often an all-RCA house for 2" though 6 and 2 had a variety of Ampex gear.

I had a surplus 2" copy from ABC News when I was in DC - of Peter Jennings doing a half-hour ABC special on the Nixon resignation. At a former workplace - we had dumped it to 1" and 3/4" for ABC and as ABC had 3-4 copies - and 2" was past its twilight years as a format - they said via a formal fax to junk it. I had it for years but our 2" machines gave up the ghost and I never did my personal dub of it and as was noted here almost 2 years ago - we disemboweled the American hand assembled carcasses of our 2 TR-70's to a dumpster per higher management of that company. I can remember seeing the broadcast live when it first aired and years later making dubs for others from it, but it ended up its life as a doorstop for my office and I finally pitched it when I came to NC. Somewhere in my junk are still (on 2"!) ABC's tribute to Chet Huntley on his death and an of-air recording of KTEW's broadcast of John Chancellor doing the same thing for NBC. I also had a lot of Fulbright for Senate spots that KTUL ran. May go to SCETV some day in Columbia, SC and see if my friend there in Master Control can string them up on their 2 remaining Ampex 2" decks for viewing.

The question for Sonny, Edwin Fincher and Jim Ruddle is - did YOU ever dump off any of your best work from 2" to other formats, when you had a chance?

Looking at the Sherman Oaks clip reminded me of some details about Channel 41.

We went on-air with a used film/slide chain that we could never get to look right. The colors were all over the spectrum. We migrated to projecting the 16 millimeter films on a wall (I think) and shooting the wall with a camera connected to a 3/4" tape recorder.

We played all shows on 3/4" except for Richard Simmons. For that we had an old RCA TR-70 with no TEP Editor.

All of the films were public domain. We continued to use the film chain for slides, which we also put on 3/4" tape for playback.

The slide shown on the page was definitely from the early 80s. We used the same artwork for everything. The character generator was a Quanta Font. It had two fonts. I think the one shown on the Sherman Oaks clip was "Bold". Original name for a font! The other one was "Helvetica".

Character Generator storage was only a few pages. I don't believe it had a disk drive. Doing CG for news, even in scaled-down fashion, was a challenge.

From late '81 through part of '82 we taped a weekly program for young people from Ziegfield's near 71st and Sheridan, hosted by Steve Cassidy of FM-96 KRAV. During one week in late '81 we aired a full week of the KRAV morning show with Johnny Rivers live from the Mansion House at 16th & Carson.

I'll add more as my brain kicks in.

Oh yeah...I did see the "Groove Tube" at the Will Rogers. First night as I recall. Strange film.

Added your remarks to the KGCT page.

I must give credit where it is due. The Sherman Oaks film clip came from my good friend David Maker who died tragically young, a decade ago. Those of you who have worked on films locally in the 1980s probably remember him and his brother Jay Bullbear (Bullbear is now having serious health issues, I'm told). Maker was a rabid film fan. One of the major events of his life was when he saw MUNSTER GO HOME! at the Williams Cinema. People laughed when he brought it up, but he would just give them a look like he was above it all and remark "The print was beautiful." If Maker has internet access in the afterlife, I'm sure he's already watched the clip ten times tonight.

David Kimball was manager of the Williams Cinema in the mid to late 80s. He now works in Denver as a manager for Landmark Theatres.

I also forgot to mention that the only movie I saw at the Williams Center Cinema was one of many International Animation Festival reels. Saw some local guy play a concert there once but can't remember his name. It closed down not long after. Shame since it was a nice venue.

Off to see Elton John/Billy Joel in St. Louis and for those interested: Brave Combo will be playing a CD release party next Saturday in Kansas City.

I also remember going to see Monty Python and the Holy Grail at the Circle.

The Circle Theatre was named to the National Register of Historic Places this week.

Do you remember when - if you got to a show late and missed the first 10-20 min. you could stay behind in the theatre to catch the next run that day and no usher/cleaner types shagged you out?

Growing up in Chicagoland when I was in 8th grade and my bro. in 5th or 6th - we went downtown to see "Flight of the Phoenix" first-run at a theatre in the Loop. Mom was shopping at Field's and we were deemed old enough to see it and join her later for lunch at Marshall Field's. It was on a school holiday in my home twon but NOT in Chicago. Because it was at a 11am show, originally they did not want to sell us tickets because they thought we were truants! That's funny today with parents dragging pre-teens to R and NC-17 shows with no challenge at the box office!

BTW the Circle was still a "legit house" when I went to TU - saw a lot of Woody Allen movies there in the '70's....

The Golden Turkey Awards notes that in "Dondi", Patti Page was required to perform this emetic description in song of the title character:

His smile can chase the clouds
And brighten skies above
And every empty heart
Will fill up with love

Read a scathing review and see a clip from "Dondi" here.

I remember seeing "Snoopy Come Home," and "Dondi" (I thought that movie really sucked when I was seven years old) with a 25 cent coupon out of the World (remember when mainstream media had stuff you could use in it?) I saw some hippy porn film cut to a PG-rating when it was closing down as a porn palace (early 1980s). I remember they showed a film about riding horses (like you would see in school when the teacher needed a break) between the two "features," but a guy on the back row kept moaning through the documentary. If you want to know what really sucks, I remember catching the last few minutes of the first film, saw all of the short on horses, and only caught about five minutes of the second film before I got disgusted with the amount of noise coming from the audience (to coin a phrase). I don't remember ever seeing a "real" film there. The "good stuff" was at the Olde Tyme Twin on (17th? &) Sheridan.

Around the same time I was asked to apply for the Subversive Film Festival (by the English department - this was back when the English Department took over the College of Arts & Science in a bloody coup and ran TU like a "Banana Republic," to quote the great Dr. Germaine Greer). The director had just left (there was a falling out over showing "Debbie Does Dallas" - the police threatened to arrest the patrons if it played). I was never went to the festival because it was just too trendy. This was at the same time that my first love, the "psychotronic" B-Movies were making a comeback - many still blow people's minds! (and I'm still writing about them!)

I put a list together, such as Warhol's 12 hour "Empire" (one shot of the Empire State Building), Hitler: A Film from Germany (which was 12 hours of surrealism) and the works of Muhl (I think that's the correct spelling) who was a German anarchist who mixed food, sex, and political satire (I think they call that "Splooging" on Real Sex now). My philosophy was that if the audience could sit through it, it wasn't really subversive (GOD I HATED - AND STILL HATE - POSERS!)

I never heard anything and the next semester it was announced that films like "Easy Rider" and "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" would be in the festival, which were pretty mainstream by that point. Of course, I was dating a writer at the time (Suzanne, my second love) who wrote a long essay in the Collegian how non-subversive the festival had become. It died with a whimper rather than a bang. In retrospect, it's too bad they didn't show "Debbie Does Dallas" and get everyone arrested (like that would have happened at TU!) It would have been a much better final chapter.

I love film, and I am happy that there are still people attempting revival houses, but it seems like a nostalgic blast from the past (like independent record stores). With video, we have a pretty intense revival house going on in our front room. Back in the day when people thought of European films they thought of Fellini, Bergman, Godard, et al. Now we know that they make just as many bad movies overseas as we do, so it's not as unique. I'm going to get off the web now and check out my new video of "The Man Who Fell To Earth."

Piece (O'Pie) to you all...

You may have missed out on some of the more subversive previous years of the festival. Some of the features: Andy Warhol's "Women in Revolt", Bunuel's "Viridiana", John Waters' "Multiple Maniacs", "The Best of the New York Erotic Film Festival", David Lynch's "Eraserhead", Russ Meyer's "Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill", among the better-known pictures...

Ran into the humble webmeister and Wilhelm Murg and got caught up on the Tulsa beat. Saw a thing about the reopening of the Circle Theater...hope that works out. I only saw one film there: "Frogs"--this was right before they turned it into a porno house. I wonder if the stuff they showed there was as racy as TU's Subversive Film Festival? Went to it once and saw 'The Opening of Misty Beethoven'--UNCUT! Oh, the humanities!

Good to see David and Wilhelm at the Cain's, and a special thanks to co-worker Lori Wilson (Tulsa's #1 TR fan) for upgrading us to a table right in front of the stage. She presented Mr. Rundgren with a dozen roses which resided on his piano for the rest of the great show. Here is a link to Wilhelm's interview with Todd Rundgren in this month's Outline Magazine.

The Todd Rundgren Connection has song lists, tour info, and reviews of the Tulsa show.

I plan to soon have a page about the Subversive Film Festival in the 70s and the Williams Cinema in the 80s. If you have any relevant comments or photos, please send them on! I happen to have the program from the Third SFF, which featured "Beethoven"...

Also, remember the Charlie Tuna commercials? "Ask any mermaid you happen to see..what's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea!"

Oh, yes, Shake 'N Bake is up there with "Oh, no, Mrs. Burke?! I thought you...you were Dale!". I know how that little Southern girl feels, since I recently helped Adam Burke make available the video of that famous commercial for his site, Burke Family Archives.

I just was watching the (new) Sherman Oaks Afternoon Movie clip, and I noticed a couple of things about it.

First, I don't believe 41 used that particular font after about 1982. (I know they used something different by '85...I used to watch them at that point when they were showing the network game shows that KJRH and KOTV pre-empted.)

Second, KMOD was definitely not going by 97½ FM in 1988 (they were using "97-5 KMOD" by the mid-80s), so I think this clip is from much earlier than that.

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for those observations...I had thought the new Sherman Oaks clip might be from 1988, but it sounds like David knows what he is talking about. I have removed "1988" references from the comments.

Moynihan oiled was head and shoulders above most pols sober as a judge and at their sharpest. A remarkable character.

I asked Moynihan several years ago:

"How is it that you were born in Bartlesville, Oklahoma?"

To which he replied, in what I consider his typical smart-ass style:

"That's where my mother was." With that he scurried off.

The question was legitimate for a supposedly dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker.

His father had been a publicist for some motion picture company, Paramount, I seem to recall, but that didn't explain why both Moynihan's father and mother would have been in Bartlesville (or Tulsa) at the time of his birth.

I find it interesting that apparently Moynihan didn't want it widely known.

Here is a bit more from http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/33/heilbrunn-j.html:

"Born on March 16, 1927, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Moynihan experienced poverty firsthand. Shortly after Daniel Patrick's birth, his father, John, moved the family to Ridgefield, New Jersey, where he squandered his wages on booze and gambling. By 1937, the family was in Manhattan's rugged Hell's Kitchen section, where Moynihan attended high school between shining shoes and delivering newspapers."

"Daniel Patrick Moynihan was born in Tulsa, Okla., on March 16, 1927, the son of an itinerant, hard-drinking newspaperman who moved the family to New York later that year to take a job writing advertising copy. They lived comfortably in the city and suburbs until 1937, when his father, John Moynihan, left the family and left it in poverty.

"Mr. Moynihan's childhood has been pseudoglamorized by references to an upbringing in Hell's Kitchen, which in fact he encountered after his mother bought a bar there when he was 20. But there was enough hardship and instability in his early life so that when he later wrote of 'social pathology,' he knew what he was talking about."

Would that be Guy Logsdon?

Let's watch for more of his TV interviews usually on CNN & FOX.

ON CHS '61

Dave Harmon

The paper is looking for comments from local people who were involved in any way with the production, or simply have a personal story related to the making of the movie (much like the "UHF" pages on this site).

You can contact them at 581-8464, or via email: living@tulsaworld.com. Please include your name and telephone number.

It has been cancelled. Rick Rutledge moved back to Georgia. Is Rachelle Renee still on KXOJ 100.9 FM, or has she moved on to KOFR-FM in Lubbock or Light 99 in Wichita?

Read this interview with her by Wilhelm Murg.

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