Erick - 05/24/99 15:23:39 My Email:ericktul@webtv.net Location: Tulsa
Comments:
Mike Bruchas - 05/24/99 12:04:34 My Email:bruchasm@atlanticvideo.net Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Definitely Z E B!
Comments: I don't know - last time I heard and saw him on an ABC affiliates' promo reel feed - he was at KGUN in Tucson anchoring. Guy is another Sapulpa "guy" made good. He went to TU with me and his cackling laugh I'll always remember. He started in radio at KFMJ - may have worked at KXOJ in Sapulpa but I don't remember. I think he did news at KAKC but then again my mind is murky. Tried several times to get on at 8 as reporter then produce before he was hired. He started writing, producing and doing a great job then reporting. He has a SW delivery a touch similar to Dan Rather's. No he is NOT mimicking Rather - he has more of that serious Baptist preacher/cop tone when speaking formally. With groups - he lets his hair down. I guess he did some anchoring at 8 but went on as both reporter and often anchor in bigger markets - I don't remember all. Miami - which he loved for the diversity of life. He talked about the rituals of working with his camera crew - hitting the Cuban bakeries and bodegas for food but also that it was a "good news town". Next he went to Minneapolis or Milwaukee - where he anchored but the station he was at - had a revolving door for anchors. I think Ben Boyett who worked in Amarillo and OKC may have hit the same station with "the anchor of the month" club. He came back home to Tulsa with wife and kids to a house in Kiefer. All the moving around and work was putting a strain on his marriage and family and they are the most important things in his life. Got a job at 8 in the 80's as talent and producer but got axed in what sounds like a set-up by news mgmt there. I got this second-hand from some ex-8 folks working in OKC. He was to run a news story on drugs and kids I think (maybe it was drinking) and the cover video the editor used (which they say Guy should have looked at) showed clear shots of faces of Tulsa teens but not really in relation to the story. News mgmt said they could be sued or maybe someone threatened to sue 8 for showing video of kids with problems - who DIDN'T have a drug or alcohol addiction. So Guy got canned. The deal smelled. Guy got a job working in OKC at KWTV 9 doing early morning and Noon news. It was too much to drive up from Kiefer every day and they were throwing some prime time anchor fill-in work his way plus some reporting. He got a hotel room in OKC - I saw him on the air, called him and we split an apartment in Edmond for about a year. Never saw each other except Sundays and Fridays or at midnight - I worked at 5 on the night shift - he went to work at 2 or 3 a.m. at 9. I might be coming in late after late news on KOCO following Monday Night Football (where I was a director) and he would be getting up to start the "dawn watch" at KWTV. All was going well till "the Harm factor" got in the way. Guy was filling in for Roger Cooper but Duane Harm - former KOTV mgr. then KWTV GM/President stepped in. The story is Harm's daughter was married to a guy who wanted to anchor - so they axed Guy for Harm's husband - whatever his name was. Tried to get him hired at 5 but our then dysfunctional (and other problem-linked) upper mgmt kept hiring bozos from Little Rock (they came from there and proclaimed it the epicenter of ALL creative news production and hated Okies I guess...). I guess through an agent - Guy got the job at KGUN fairly quickly and the "gypsy" life of a reporter/producer/anchor took another turn.
If any of you know where he is working now - let me know! Erick - 05/24/99 01:06:59 My Email:ericktul@webtv.net Location: Tulsa
Comments:
Speaking of Gary Shore, I didn't quite get the reason that he left. He
seemed to be in the catbird seat at 2. Mike Bruchas - 05/23/99 21:22:18 Location: Trapped in the 70's in TulseyTown Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Steve Pickle + Jeannie Tripplehorn on KOKI Stupidest local commercial: Reeves Boys
Comments: I think she was Susan Silver's room-mate when Susan was co-anchoring at 8, too.
Someone said at one time she and former KTUL ace reporter Ed Poston were
"an item"... M. Ransom - 05/23/99 18:41:43
Comments: "I say we need to start a petition to bring him back. Despite what Channel 6 says, he was cancelled because of his politics. Channel 6 is owned by the A.H. Belo Corporation, a conservative company that also owns the Dallas Morning News. Sam was just too liberal for them - and they couldn't dump him immediately, due to his contract. Belo handcuffed his show and let him die in the ratings to a point that they could kill the show and justify it."
Interesting. Is this true? Mike Smith - 05/23/99 17:53:01 My Email:mjsmith@kskc.net Location: Tonkawa, Oklahoma Favorite Tulsa TV show: The Uncanny Film Festival And Camp Meeting Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Mazeppa How did you find TTM?: A link from TV Horror Hosts Gallery
Comments: I do remembered an magician they have on Uncle Zeb on Fridays back in the KTUL days around the mid-1970's, named Uncle Zak. What I do like it most, sometimes, is the big illusions they have from time to time, with Diane Elliot (The KTUL weathergirl) as an sometime assistant. I wish there is more about it. I do love magic a lot, and this is one I like a lot from my memories.
I do enjoy the site, and, I have bookmarked it for safekeeping. Hope you
find more memories. M. Ransom - 05/23/99 17:08:03 Location: Tulsa Favorite Tulsa TV show: The Bozo Show on Channel 8
Comments: http://www.geocities.com/Pipeline/7612
It has RealPlayer versions of news themes from all over the country. I
have occasionally heard themes out of Tulsa's past on stations in other cities
while visiting. Maybe some of those are on the site. Mike Bruchas - 05/23/99 16:43:03 Location: Way Back East in Delmarvaland
Comments: I got lost one night - while visiting a friend working there - trying to find the control room - went the wrong way 'round inside it. I hear it has been torn down. Wasn't KELI "20/20 News"? With news NOT on the hour but 20 minutes past and 50 minutes past? Or do you remember the late 60's KELI mobile "newsroom" - a big ole green 4 door Chevy Caprice with a big orange Mars light on top. Looked like a taxi trying to pass for a police car! KRMG and KVOO always had the better and newer news cars! From friends at KVOO News - KRMG was the one they tried to beat. That was instilled in them by management. I remember KVOO - in the 70's - spending mega-bucks to put a 2 way radio repeater network all over Green Country - to call in stories from the field rom anywhere, especially during bad weather. Amazing now this is all done the ole cel phone.
From KVOO's Demi Rosenthal - I remember seeing her "road kit" - the trusty
Sony cassette recorder and in the days of of screw-off mouthpieces on phones
- a special adaptor that she would clip onto the contacts of a phone that
had a "broadcast" quality mic and a jack on the unit to feed back audiotape
from her Sony with. High tech for the 70's! Mike Bruchas - 05/23/99 14:38:12 My Email:bruchasm@atlanticvideo.net Location: Alexandria Media Center, Alexandria, VA Favorite Tulsa TV show: KTUL LIVE at the TULSA STATE FAIR! Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Don Woods
Comments: He was an anchor not a reporter - his polio slowed him down a bit but not much. He overcame a lot in his life to get where he did. Considering KTUL was not then and probably not now ADA compliant - Cy would hoist himself up/down the stairs twice a day. An elevator was on the building plans but never built to run between floors. In the 70's - Jimmy Leake bought him a high-powered/high-priced electric wheelchair (for mis-guided reasons I guess) that Cy fell in love with. Normally he used a walker to get around. After hours and with Cy out of the building - some of the staff would steal Cy's chair and race around the second floor in it. Cy would come in the next morning and say, "All right - who is the $%#@#$# that left me with a chair with a dead battery!!!" We'd plug the chair in, get Cy a cuppa coffee and he'd be a happy boy again! Cy started as a clarinetist in a band. He came from Grand Island, NE so always had mixed loyalties when OU and Nebraska played football. I think he started playing on radio stations up there. Don't know if that is how he first came to KTUL but he told me one time that his band played at the Hotel Tulsa (as seen in the movie, "Tulsa") and he lived there. Unlike Wayne Johnson at KOTV who still practiced and played from time to time - Cy loved good jazz but I think once he stopped doing music - never went back to it. I think he said he met his wife Monte at the Hotel Tulsa and she may have worked there, too. (yeah - we used to kid him about life in "the halls of Monte Tuma"). We met his niece once - think she is in advertising or TV somewhere now.
Definitely an interesting character! I lost track of him in the 80's - former
KTUL announcer then projectionist Matt Bunyan used to see him in the neighborhood
by the old Delman Theatre and report back on how he was doing. Beverly - 05/22/99 21:50:47 My Email:lmnadelucy@aol.com Location: South Tulsa Favorite Tulsa TV show: Mr. Zing and Tuffy Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Betty Boyd Stupidest local commercial: I'll have to think about that one. How did you find TTM?: a friend told me about it.
Comments: When I was in kindergarten, I got to be on the Betty Boyd show modeling for Clarke's. (Remember the commercials..Madge Clarke Wright would say "Clarke's GOOD Clothes...downtown, Southland and Utica Square.") I'm not sure if those were on TV though...I mainly remember them on the radio. Oh well, still a good old memory.
As other writers have mentioned I also loved the Cathey's
commericals......."Cathey's, eighth to ninth on Main...."
Do you remember Pepper Martin, the old Cardinals infielder who did color
commentary on the Oiler broadcasts with Len Morton? I got an autographed
sour dough biscuit recipe from Pepper...it will soon appear on this
site. Mike Bruchas - 05/22/99 07:23:53 Location: 3:22am and still on the night shift Favorite Tulsa TV show: "Oil in Oklahoma"
Comments: What station took over the KTUL frequency way back when - when it was sold? Uncle Zeke of Zeb's show aka Al Clauser of The Oklahoma Outlaws - which was a C&W band NOT a football team may have also worked at KTUL radio. In fact I think his WAS the C&W band there. At his home in scenic New Prue (old Prue is still under water), Al also had a home recording studio for cutting demos. His record label I think was Alovera - for Al and Vera (?) his wife. Seems like someone told me both KTUL radio and KVOO both had studio "orchestras" if you can call it that plus C&W bands in the old days. Don't know if this was a way to beat BMI/ASCAP fees for recorded music, too - but this jogs the "little gray cells in my head.
Maybe Ed Dumit or Jim Back might know something on the last note.....
Thanks to Mike, we'll be seeing Roy Pickett's picture on the site soon.
I'll try to get some more stories from him, too. Mike Bruchas - 05/22/99 05:17:35 My Email:bruchasm@atlanticvideo.net Location: Alexandria, VA Favorite Tulsa TV show: Teen Town Topics Favorite Tulsa TV personality: His majesty, King Lionel Stupidest local commercial: 70's era KTEW promos
Comments: To the layman - you think of Williams's pipeline business - to the TV folks, Vyvx is the non-satellite way to move broadcasts around the US via fibre optic cable stuffed in the old pipelines Williams once owned. They also own 4-5 satellite teleports across the country and do scads of ISDN-based videoconferencing in the corporate sector. Where Rex fits in here, I am not sure. He was happy in his job though my e-mail link to him doesn't seem to connect anymore - or I would post it here. Don't forget Rex also worked at OETA when they finally opened the Tulsa studios on N. Sheridan.
Williams Center side-bar - how many of you remember when it opened? How many
of you went down during the open house days and took the elevator to the
top for the BEST view of Tulsa? Demi Rosenthal of KVOO News and I went down
with hundreds of media and just plain folks to see the place. It IS/WAS the
best view of Tulsa for not being up in a chopper or plane of the city! For
a non-Williams employee - it will be a lifetime memory for me. Mark - 05/22/99 03:00:01 Location: Jenks,OK Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Beth Rengel
Comments: Ray L. Rivera - 05/21/99 19:46:43 My Email:rlrivera@worldnet.att.net Location: Louisville, KY Favorite Tulsa TV show: any Jack Morris diatribe Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Mazeppa Stupidest local commercial: Now that you mention it...
Comments: Erick - 05/20/99 08:23:43 My Email:ericktul@webtv.net Location: Tulsa
Comments: Erick - 05/20/99 04:38:08 My Email:ericktul@webtv.net Location: Tulsa
Comments: Tim Stafford - 05/19/99 18:46:45 My URL:http://www.webzone.net/mei/das My Email:tlstafford@webzone.net Location: Okmulgee Favorite Tulsa TV show: Uncle Zeb or John Chick Favorite Tulsa TV personality: too many
Comments: I DO remember that monster over on Admiral! My folks say I really got a kick when they drove by it. Does anybody remember the commercials that use to play real late on some of the 'old movie shows' I don't even know what they sold but I do remember a man with an accent saying 'Sefco' Keep up the good, no make that excellent work!
Tim S. We learned in Guestbook 3 from Mike Gleason that the guy who owned SEVCO was Joe Pierre, and his accent was French. He said a daughter of Joe's was a friend of his. "Try it, you'll like it, SEVCO". SEVCO sold stereo equipment; I'm still using the stuff I bought there in 1977. Quite a testimonial...either to SEVCO, or my cheapness.
Late night commercials...how about Buffalo Fine Jewelry or Oz (the head
shop)? Of course, we've mentioned the Popeil/Ronco commercials..any other
ideas out there? David Bagsby - 05/19/99 17:24:33 My Email:dcb@utulsa.edu Location: Tulsa
Comments: Mike (that's Zelbisco) Bruchas - 05/19/99 14:52:27 My Email:bruchasm@atlanticvideo.net Location: Atlantic Media Center + GoodLife TV
Comments: Mis-said names on movie tags and spots cut out of house were a riot. KTUL often had Cy Tuma or John Chick re-cut these with the key-rect names of towns - which of course we could bill the ad agencies a talent fee for. We often would try to throw Tuma or Chick when reading 10 seconds of copy tag scripted for a :05 hole. Frougs was often in these "co-op" tags for things - so Cy or John would read, "Available at Gibsons, Howards, Kmart, Reasor's, participating Rite Aid, and Eckerd Drugstores...". And on headset I or another projectionist/slash break director would say to Cy or John - "And at all Froug's Stores". Several times they would parrot us and say this on the air thinking they read the wrong tag copy - throwing the tape engineer and myself or whomever on the floor with laughter. Cy caught on to this and often after his mic was off - would say to us on headset - "And (long pause) at all Froug's stores!". Chick would go crazy with panic - he never kept up turning his copy pages in "the book" - then would realize he had been had and laugh! Announcer later tape op and now Chief Engineer at Bell's - Bill Certain had it in for us on 1 spot. Some women's clothing store ran slide spots where they mentioned Butte Knits. Bill always read it BUTT Knits and rolled on the floor afterward. The client never called and complained....
Slide spots were cheaper to buy than videotaped spots, but sometimes the
$#@% salesman were more concerned with their commissions than if we could
do promised "effects" live. Effects such as flashing supers from 1 slide
chain over slides on the other chain involving a fast change-out to live
read copy. Or back to back spots with these effects were nightmares if you
got 1 slide out of sequence. The RCA slide projectors were notorious for
hanging up on 1 side of the drum if you pushed the "change" button too fast.
Sometimes we convenience taped them because they were too impractical and
should never have been NOT put on tape to begin with.... Mike (Zelbisco) Bruchas - 05/18/99 23:09:47 My Email:jmbruchas@juno.com
Comments:
Do you remember the "siding telethon" movies? We ran them at 8 and 6 on weekends,
also in OKC. A company from Little Rock did these all over the Midwest and
Southwest. They would buy time on a weekend or a weeknight during Summer
rerun season and the station would show a local movie. In all of the breaks
were plugs for this siding/door/aluminum replacement window company. Originally
they flew in talent - usually Tom (somebody) who was a biggie Little Rock
weatherman and a pretty female co-host. And we had a phonebank of operators
- usually station staff wanting o.t. Sometimes it was funny when they murdered
local name pronounciations! Later - to save money - they just sent "bit"
reels with fake phone ops, which we rolled into breaks in movies. Part of
life in Tulsey/OKC TV! Siding Telethons...kind of like Bill Haynes windows with Billy Parker? Did you ever work with Billy on those?
Popular mispronunciations were Tuh-LEE-qwuh and MUSK-uh-gee. David Bagsby - 05/18/99 19:44:11 My Email:dcb@utulsa.edu Location: Tulsa Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Little Luther Stupidest local commercial: Doug's Boutique
Comments: M. Ransom - 05/18/99 18:12:01 Location: Tulsa
Comments: David Bagsby added re The Wolfman of Lawton:
Indeed, I vividly remember the Wolfman of Lawton. It was all the rage for
about a week on the news. A man with a distorted face peering into windows.
Some think it was some kook from a nearby army base. The reason I remember
this was that at the end of the week, some reporter (KOTV?) was wrapping
up the story with one of those "who know where it will end" type of atmosphere's
when they panned over to a boarded up store front where someone had spray
painted in giant letters "BEWARE OF GIANT FROGS". Wasn't this story around
Halloween? John Hillis - 05/18/99 13:54:47 Location: Way East of S. Frankfort Favorite Tulsa TV show: Buddy & Leon behind the cameras Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Mahcoe Van Dyke Stupidest local commercial: "We're TEW Country"
Comments: One of my favorite Lionel raps came during the debate over the City of Faith hospital permit. It went something like: "I'm not sure about all of this religion stuff. One time I was up in the Cessna at 5,000 feet, and the motor quit. I tried to get it going again, but the plane kept falling, 4,000 feet, 3,000 feet, 2,000 feet. Finally, it got to 1,000 feet, and I s id, 'God, you take it!' And He crashed the darn thing!" I've repeated that line for 20 years now to church groups and Sunday School classes. From anybody's else's mouth, the phone lines would have burned up, but out of Lionel, it was a gentle, if pointed, observation.
And if somebody didn't remind you that Lee's brother Morgan Woodward was
one of the stars of "Dallas," well, you hadn't been around channel 6 for
more than 5 minutes. There are lots of pics at Morgan Woodward's web site: David Bagsby - 05/17/99 13:20:38 My Email:dcb@utulsa.edu Location: Tulsa, America Favorite Tulsa TV show: Plenty Scary Movie Favorite Tulsa TV personality: Poor Old Pappy
Comments:
I work at the TU library and we have that Nighthawks album here (I wonder
if this is the lp Sartain actually used) and the soundclip at the Sanders
site is the entire song. By the way, does anyone have the address to Sparky's
Graveyard? I've heard legends of this place for years but don't know where
it is. Take care. Mazeppa's closer, "Why Can't This Night Go On Forever?" is from 1933 and written by Isham Jones and Chas. Newman.
Thanks for that info, David. The search continues for the actual version
used, and the mysterious 2nd half of the opening theme. Mike Bruchas - 05/16/99 19:32:34 My Email:bruchasm@atlanticvideo.net Location: Alexandria, VA Favorite Tulsa TV show: Cartoon Circus - other than slides and music - straight cartoons! Stupidest local commercial: A lot of 70's KTEW news promos
Comments: Did any station in Tulsa ever run "The Big Picture"? It was produced by the Army and I can remember it as a wee kid - growing up in Chicago. That it was the first show on WBBM - the CBS O&O at 7am Saturday morning - before any cartoon programming. Sorry - no VD film references!
Though my Dad was an ILL. Nat. Guard guy in the Pacific in WWII - watching
"Victory at Sea" repeat showings with it's great footage and music was a
must on Sundays - though I am not old enough to remember the first runs.
My Dad felt it WAS the way the Pacific looked when he was there. Dick Hollands
- a former boss here in DC - ALMOST went to work on the show when fresh out
of college and working at NBC. He thought it sounded like it would be a boring
50's documentary and wanted to do exciting entertainment programming instead.
He recommended a college chum at NBC for the job instead. I think that friend
is still getting residuals from his work on it...Dick went on to other even
more boring mgmt jobs at NBC instead on the legal side including being their
rep in Argentina or Chile. The South American countries bought dubbed shows
from NBC or had NBC on retainer to "recommend" how to do programming... David Bagsby - 05/16/99 18:52:35 Location: Tulsa
Comments: Also, who did the closing theme? I found one site that referenced "Why Can't This Night Go On Forever?" (not the Journey version!), but the author didn't know about it.
Speaking of movie music, have you heard "Monstrous Movie Music", an album
of music from 50s sci-fi music performed by orchestra and recorded with modern
techniques? Erick - 05/15/99 18:58:29 My Email:ericktul@webtv.net Location: Tulsa
Comments: A nameless "angel" supplied the money to build the new stadium(I believe you are right, that it was "Tulsa County Stadium".) It was renamed to Sutton Stadium when the identity of the angel was learned. Sutton was later found to have acquired the money illegally, tarnishing the angel's halo enough to spur another rename to Driller Park. This story is told in the video "Things Not in Tulsa Anymore" by Jack Frank (see Links page).
Major league great Warren Spahn managed the Oilers 1966-70. A member of
the St. Louis Cardinals "Gashouse Gang", Pepper Martin, was a color announcer
for the Oilers in the 60s. I have an autographed Sour Dough Biscuit recipe
from him that I will be putting on the web site shortly. Mike Bruchas - 05/15/99 11:19:59
Comments: Margaret Radford started as receptionist, then assisted Betty Boyd, became a reporter - has been covering the news in San Diego for years at KGTV and I think also KFMB. She's a local girl made good. Gil Adams and Monte Toon were both artists and I think Art Directors at KTUL. Both still live in Tulsa. They had a lot to do in the design and look of KTUL.
We need more folks from 2 & 6 to drop in and share stories here! The webmaster - 05/15/99 08:11:21 Location: Tulsa
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