| |
Tulsa TV Memories GroupBlog 224 TTM main | What's new on TTM? | GB Archive
Mr Bjorklund, As a kid, the ride up from Muskogee seemed to take eternity, but the payoff of finally arriving at Bell's was worth it. The flashing lights, the clicking sound of Zingo climbing the first hill, the smell of corn dogs etc... it would be a great loss for this family tradition to end after a 55 year run. Walking into Bell's is like entering a time capsule and witnessing the way amusement parks used to be, family-owned without the involvement and greed of big companies. There are future generations that should be allowed to have this experience. Bell's has such a great history in the city of Tulsa, it would be a shame to see it go. I do hope there is something that can be worked out that can keep Bell's at the fairgrounds and keep this part Tulsa's landscape from changing . Thanks for your time,
Marc Hall
Rick Bjorklund President/CEO
rbjorklund@exposquare.com
Stevo In Yr Stereo, Saturdays 6:00 pm - 10:00 pm on WARP Radio Network, featuring an eclectic blend of alternative, ambient, art rock, avant garde, classic rock, dance, electronic, electronica, experimental, fusion, glam, gothic, house, improvisational, industrial, jazz, kosmische, krautrock, new age, new wave, pop, progressive, psychedelic, punk, rock, space, techno...
I know there was a rumor a while back that Bell's was moving to Jenks. Do you think this might be their only option now?
I think it could be a good move for them, but it would be sad to see their 50-some year history at the Fairgrounds come to an end. I found a story on KOTV's site. It's all about money.
I noticed a strange phenomenon the past few years, though: It was closed on weekends, but open the rest of the week. Now where can one go to get good shakes? The chains have taken over, destroying the mom 'n' pop places that used to dot the nation's highways.
The Dairy Queen seen in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Outsiders" was really a redressed Tastee-Freez at 3242 N. Peoria here in Tulsa.
The T. Roy Barnes Drugry was mentioned on the Erling page.
Someone once said - "Vote Early and Vote Often!"
Mike Miller on the KVOO-TV election set, 1964 1958 KVOO set with J. Howard Edmondson
Former Governor David
Hall today
If anyone has pictures of the old Lakeview Amusement Park that was near Mohawk Park, it would be wonderful to see them posted on the site. I remember taking my kids there probably during the late 60s or early 70s. I don't know for sure when it closed.
I think someone out there has pix of Lakeview. I'll post them when I get them. I haven't had any luck on eBay to date. But I did find one at Tulsa County OK.
I stumbled upon your site while I was researching info about the Italian Inn Restaurant. Back in February (near the top of GB 205), there were a number of folks who were chatting about the old place, and I wanted to let you know that my aunt, Betty Funston Collins (the owner) has just released a cookbook (Once Upon a Table; see Tulsa World story, Former Italian Inn owner reveals dip recipe) with all of the recipes from the restaurant. She will be on Channel 6, Monday, Nov. 6th, cooking and speaking with Glenda Silvey on the noon show. I also wondered if you have any other tidbits on this blog regarding the restaurant.
The Italian Inn is the setting for a couple of pix on the Johnny Martin page (note the latticework behind him).
Quite a one-day wonder movie. If nothing else, the sound track could be leased
out to all the candidates for background music in their negative ads.
Shotgun Sam's was on 51st just west of Yale. Going on Friday nights after the football games was also mandatory, but it was the "all you can eat" pizza lunch buffet that made us go crazy. As you can imagaine when you get 5 or 6 ravenous teenage guys together and offer them "all you can eat", it's no small wonder that they went out of business. The pizza wasn't anything to brag about, but what we lacked for in quality, we more than made for in quantity.
Other pizza favorites were Mondo's on 61st between Peoria and Riverside,
Godfather's (both 46th & Peoria and the one on Sheridan or Memorial about
41st), and the Mazzio's at 51st and Sheridan. And who can forget satisfying
the late night beer munchies with a visit to the Taco Mayo on 71st for super
cheap bean burritos?
More about this line on the
The Polynesian Trade Winds
Items page.
So if my name was Griffin or I ran 6 - I would bring back Dr. Woodward and the THE KING as special correspondents or ratings draws for "sweeps".
You have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor (since we are conferring honorifics so generously).
I'm a transplanted Tulsan, now living in Houston, TX. I'm wanting to get an official okie dokey to use a tiny piece of Sartain art on T shirts. I want to use the art from a MAZEPPA FAN CLUB membership card. I was indeed a member. My membership card is dated 8/23/70. I'd attach its image if this site were set up for it. Oh well. Can you point me in the right direction?
You should check with Mazeppa.com to get the OK.
sandra barnett-food chain
or basically any of the old school new wave punk bands that started the whole
tulsa scene.
Ralph told us of one time when they spent all day sweating bullets working with a very amateur group of local musicians, all mechanics from the aircraft plant. He said it was tough but they finally got ready for the evening concert. That night as the curtain went up, Ralph was ready to start the first number. He looked at the band to give the down beat when he realized that he did not recognize even one face in the group. "Where is the band?" he asked, "You know, the guys that were here at rehearsal today?" One of the musicians answered, "Oh, those guys work the night shift. We work the day shift so we came to play in their place."
Troopers that they were, The Modernaires sang anyway, despite it all.
But also surprisingly many old Tommy Dorsey or other retired players now
living in the more bucolic areas of VA get these gigs and it CAN be a great
show. Ya takes yer chances - he says...
When I needed a job in college, a friend of mine reminded me of William Holden's closing remark in the movie "Picnic". Holden said he was going to Tulsa because he could "always get a job at the Mayo". I checked it out, got a job there and worked part-time for a semester in their celebrity-frequented coffee shop.
I won free tickets to one of those fests in 1984. An incarnation of the Glenn Miller Orchestra was featured, but at that time, at least, they lacked the verve I was expecting. I believe the outfit plays Branson regularly now.
In response to Brother Bruchas, I'm reminded of the Neewollah celebration that occurs in William Inge's play, "Picnic." It allowed us to see (in the film) Kim Novak (in her pretty, pink, lowcut dress) seductively dancing and putting the moves on William Holden at a Neewollah bash. That scene was shot in a park in Halstead, KS, which is just a bit north and slightly west of Wichita. Other scenes in that great 50s movie were shot near the big, tall grain elevators east of Hutchinson, and the house where Kim lives with her mom and little sister, was in a neighborhood in Nickerson, KS. To make this post more relevant, everyone who holds strong memories of this film will recall that the place Holden is going, as he hops a freight headed south and east, is called Tulsa...and he is getting a job a hotel called The Mayo. One more bit of Kansas Halloween trivia: Arkansas City, where I went to elementary, junior and one year of high school, has a celebration at the end of October called Arkalahlah. Unfortunately, we were never able to get Kim Novak to come and dance for us while I lived there.
Delmeaux de Gillette du Coffeyville
I take sick for a few days and the talk turns to beer. Dang. Well, better late than never? Coors sponsored the Thursday night 10 o'clock news on KOTV. I remember in my growing up, observing that Coors did that on a lot of local newses where they were distributed, as this was long before Coors went national. I don't remember any other beer sponsors of newscasts--maybe Budweiser occasionally for a sportscast. Having grown up in New Orleans, home of Jax, the Nichols-May cartoon spots were legendary. Nash Roberts, the weatherman of whom it's said is better at hurricanes with a piece of paper and a marker than a roomful of SuperDuper Doppler6000s, always did his break toss, "and let's see what the message from Jax is tonight."
 Nash Roberts, courtesy of John Hillis
Ultimately, the brewery gave up, sold out to Pearl in San Antonio, and the brewery building became one of those turista-malls. I still remember Regal Premium, Dixie 45, and Falstaff, all brewed locally, and the pocketbook candidate, Hanley, which sold at fine filling stations everywhere for something like 89 cents a six-pack. For less than a five, you could fill the tank and pick up enough brew for the party, especially since it tasted so awful that nobody drank much more than one. I also remember getting a taste of Oly in my Oklahoma days, perhaps as a result of one of Bruchas's runs to Kansas. It was superior, and my favorite until I had my first Anchor Steam some years later. Number One Son now lives in Japan, but is a fan of Guinness, so all the Kirin and Sapporo is lost on him. His sister was amused when we visited to see the beer vending machines on the streets.
The beer vending machines caught my eye, too, as you can see above.
Can Dr. Chew or anyone talk a about Neewollah up in Kansas here? Wasn't it
part of the movie, "Picnic"? Folks from KOCO who grew up in that part of
KS used to go up every year for it!
Randi has seen it all, and nobody has ever been able to prove any kind of psychic powers to him in spite of a $1 million prize he offers.
I'm a big fan of Randi, too. If PITT has the evidence, maybe they should go for the dough, as Gary Chew might say.
Please DO t.p. Jim Inhofe's home or Grand Lake place for me!
I was running the cable channels in my flat here in Sacramento last night and came up on a program on the WE Original Channel, I think it's called. The show was titled "Ghost Moms." The program chronicled the efforts of P.I.T.T., which stands for Paranormal Investigation Team of Tulsa. You may want to re-read the preceding sentence a couple of times. Since Tulsa was where the video was shot (in October 2005), I watched. Obviously, I didn't have a whole lot on my social calendar for last night. There were about 7 or 8 people, none of whom I knew, from Tulsa and, I think, Broken Arrow, who go into buildings and houses in the middle of the night with all kinds of electronic equipment and monitor various things to see if the places are haunted. You may want to read THIS sentence a couple of times, as well. I don't want to take up too much space with this, but the kicker is that the group is shown doing their ghost checking of an old building up in Pawhuska and, now get this, the Thomas Gilcrease home. They say more than once that the ghost of old Tom roams the mansion. It sounds like something Jim Millaway (as Mr. Mystery) would be talking about on the Mazeppa Show. Of course, Mr. Mystery would be having a big laugh about it all ... just like I was last night. Anybody who surfs here heard of, or a member of P.I.T.T.? Delmeaux de Gillette du Coffeyville
PITT previously investigated the Cain's Ballroom with the FOX23 News Team, mentioned on the 1st Club Card page.
In the late 60s and early 70s, there was a Taco Hut on Brookside. The tacos were five for a dollar and the beer pitchers were 75-cents. Well, for us poor schmucks with only $2 in our pocket, that was a great lunch! We would get the five tacos and a pitcher, each. Sure, we were under age, but they didn't care.
Ah...the days of bikers, hippies, free concerts and cheap beer.
I recently saw this web site. Noticed my father's picture on the Other kiddie shows area. I have that same picture as well as others with George Reeves. My mother was LoRene Washburn Marvin, she was Miss Oklahoma 1954, I believe. She went to school at Tulsa U with John Chick, always talked about him, being in school plays and such. My parents met at Channel Six in the fifties, my father told me about his kids show, being announcer, salesman, whatever, meeting my mom at Channel Six. My mother's father was Sheldon Washburn, started first Dr. Pepper bottling plant in Tulsa, north of downtown. Thank you for paying respect to my father, also great web site.
Thanks, Darren, and it's our pleasure. Frank Morrow mentioned your mom in GB 23.
In the 60s, I was introduced to "Home Brew" by a friend (Duvall Webster) who was a biggy in accounting with Sunray DX Oil Company. He had a great and simple recipe for a beer that tested out at about five or six percent alcohol. One of these beers would usually satisfy and two would be my max! He warned me not to use the throw-away bottles for bottling. I ignored his admonitions and suffered the consequences as the contents of two cases exploded and ran down the stairs of my constant seventy degree basement staircase. The only thing I didn't like about home brew was being careful not to let the sediment into your glass (beer is not beer...until poured) when pouring. Like anything that is consumed by humans, beer taste is in the eye and the background of the besotted. I think for me, some of the best beer I ever drank was from the brewery-restaurant that used to be out past 71st Street and Memorial. In our upcoming election, we may now be able to vote out the ridiculous law that keeps Oklahomans from being drunked-up by scheming politicians for their vote on election day. Why we have not been able to void the insanity of 3.2 beer (except in liquor stores) is beyond me. As to grocery store beer? I have found to my liking, a new brew out of Fort Worth, Texas. It is called a High Gravity Lager, brewed a minimum of twenty eight days. Made by the Steel Brewing Company. (hdqtrs: Milwaukee, WI.) It's called STEEL Reserve. Its logo is the medieval mark for Steel...211.
By the way...the old Colony Club on South Harvard has been reopened, cleaned
up and back in bidnezz. It now has a big British flag logo out front. I have
not been in to check it out...but will.
We just held a retro-beerfest: Jim Ruddle shared a lot of good info about 1930s/40s/50s beers in Tulsa. We saw an hour-long online film of 50s/60s TV beer commercials, and a 1970 beer-selling training film for convenience store workers. And don't forget that case of Schlitz in a Plymouth, buried in downtown Tulsa in 1957, due to be unearthed next year. Other new video linked from GB 223: 50s/60s intermission trailers and movie previews, plus one new preview of a non-existent movie. Judy McCurdy of Broken Arrow won $90,000 for submitting the Golden Driller as the Cottonelle Puppy's 10th quirky destination---and we helped! Biopsy Playhouse, a Tulsa-based TV/web production, got a national deal. James C. Leake III paid us a visit, as did former KRAV DJ Michael Hardeman.
There are other interesting topics awaiting your discovery in
GroupBlog 223.
|
||||
Jax
jumped on TV early, and did a lot of innovative marketing, including sponsoring
the first black disc jockey in N.O., Dr. Daddy-O with a program named "Jivin'
with Jax." In the late 60s, the brewery's commercials took note of the beer's
founding family, the Fabachers, and its namesake, Andrew Jackson, whose statue
lived across the street from the brewery in Jackson Square, with a clever
series featuring an "Andrew Fabacher," who bore a resemblance to the guy
on the $20 bill. If only the beer had been as good as the marketing.
Just In
Time for Halloween
Beer