I was just looking around the web for stuff on old TV shows and found TV Party, and then couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the link to this site! My family moved to Tulsa when I was 4 and my sister was 1, and we lived in the area (Broken Arrow, and later Glenpool) until I was almost 16. I have very fond memories of living in that area (and would move back if I ever had the chance!), and I remember a lot of the stuff your site shows, especially Uncle Zeb, Lee Woodward and King Lionel, and Don Woods and Gusty! My sister and I were on Uncle Zeb in 1978 (or maybe 1979 - I was in the 3rd grade, at any rate), and I remember being so excited when my mom came to pick me up from school early one day (Southside Elementary in Broken Arrow) and said that we were going to Channel 8 to be on Uncle Zeb. I remember sitting on those bleachers and watching Uncle Zeb's assistant (I think his name was Zeke) do magic, and one of those close-ups where they used to zoom in on a kid while playing a quote from an old movie or show before cutting to a commercial or cartoon was done on me. I sure wish I could get a videotape of that particular show, because my husband would die laughing to see a younger me walk across the bridge and say "I wanna say hello to my momma, my daddy, my teacher at school, and everybody else I know!" in an Okie accent.

Anyway, I am really enjoying your site - thanks for the walk down memory lane!

You're welcome, Lisa. I wish videos from all those old shows were still around, but to my knowledge, none were kept. There probably are some home movies out there, but I haven't heard of any so far.

Added your comments to the Zeb page!

Merry Christmas!

Patrick! I remember da Moose. He was a big selling point for all of the remotes, right? Or am I thinking of the Moose in Denver?

possibly confused with all the cold weather,

pda

Geno is here!

first of all - Gene - It's wonderful to see you here, and know that you are doing okay. Gene was the guy that taught me more about tape and camera operations in 5 years than most people get to learn in a lifetime.

He and Huck would let me go where no other switcher guy had gone before, Making dub reels, editing, and actually setting up them dang PE-250/350's. Very few people ever get the chances I did to learn all this stuff, while still only being a po po pitiful projectionist. No, I didn't get paid, No, I didn't get extra credit. Yes, I stuck around for many hours past signoff to have the opportunity to play with the big toys. And I have Eugene Tincher to thank for that.

He let me do all the things I wanted to. Touch the 22's. And the 70C too. Load the things up. Edit with'm.

When I was kicked upstairs to Director, It was the same. I could always count on Gene to have the tapes there when I needed them, and when the show was goin down the toilet, He was the guy that helped me fix it.

Practically speaking, I'da never got to be the high priced taxi driver I am now, were it not for Mr. Tincher and other folks like him. As Betty would say, God Bless.

Regards and thanks,

P. Dawson Abrams,

Senior Systems Engineer,

SeaChange International.

Nice to hear from Dweezil and I am proud to share his dad's birthday.

I worked with Chris Lewis and his wife Linda a couple of times in the eighties; they were developing a new syndicated TV show, as I recall.

In the 1970s at Channel 4 in OKC, the champ of all VTR operators was Gene Shouse (known as "Moose" due to his imposing 6'8" height). Back then, we would record countdowns onto the cue tracks of all 2" tape programs to help the air switchers get in and out of segments. We used an old audio cart machine with the recorded voice of Gene Shouse saying "10...9...8..." as the standard countdown. Late one evening, an air operator named Dick Leonard slipped out of Master Ctl to raid the vending machines in the break room. Gene, seeing what Dick was doing, went to a phone, dialed up "building-wide page", and shouted into the receiver, "10...9...8...7...6...".

We'd never seen Dick run so fast before. Fortunately, he realized he'd been "had" before he rolled any commercials.

Merry!

Patrick, be sure to try the search engine on this site with Ho Ho, Danny Williams, Foreman Scotty, Ronnie Kaye, etc., because there has been a good bit of OKC-TV discussion here!

I was just thinking about all the fine folks I worked with, plus some celebrities we encountered.

Sonny Hollingshead had been our Engineering Supervisor the last several years I worked, and I suspect he went to bat for me and kept me from getting fired several times. I noticed that he was very understanding of several others who had various problems, and was a very tolerant yet firm boss.

Someone had mentioned that I was a speedy operator on the 2" tape machines. It must have been due to the practice we got on them since they were very busy, and we never had more than four of them. Each machine had its own personality and I did love them all. There was one operator who taught me all he could about the 2" tape machines, and that was Findlay (Huck) West, now deceased, and he was actually faster than I on loading and running those machines. Many times we had to reload one and cue it in less than 30 seconds.

At one time we had sons of famous movie stars working in news and production, namely Vic Montalban(son of Ricardo) and Christopher Lewis, son of Loretta Young. Both were nice gentlemen and not the least spoiled by their famous heritage. I will always remember that I once got bitten on the hand by a dog that belonged to Loretta Young's son, and I try to remember to tell all my great-grandchildren about that. Things like that just do not happen to everybody.

Someone was wondering about my email address, which uses K5NYT as the name. That is the FCC assigned callsign for my amateur radio operator license. Lewis Brown was our chief engineer for many years before he retired and his call sign is W5MAH and he now resides in Arkansas City, KS. I catch him on rare occasions on ham radio on the 40 meter band. I just checked to see if he has his email address listed in the ham callsign web site, but no luck. His mailing address is there and you can find any ham if you know his call sign, and sometimes can do a search by name at http://www.qrz.com/ and if you want to learn more about ham radio there is a web site for the American Radio Relay League at http://www.arrl.org/.

I saw Lewis Brown at the KTUL re-union that Nancy Sevenoaks hosted and he looked fit as a fiddle and just the same as always. Bob Sullivan, my first supervisor was also there. And I got to see Bob Hower and many others. Jack Maynard and Leon Holland, two very good fellow engineers while at KTUL. Jack Maynard was working for the division of Seismograph Service with me when we were doing tests at the Atomic Energy Department Test Site in Nevada in the early sixties. Leon Holland was the head maintenance engineer when I joined KTUL, and he later became supervisor. Leon was, and probably still is, a real magician when it came to handling video. He had an uncanny ability to sort out the problems in video and other equipment and fix them. Happy Holidays.

Reminded me of a story he told me about traveling through once and heard a James Brown public service announcement on a local station about staying off drugs or some such. He got such a laugh out of the DJ saying thanks to James for doing such a great thing to try and help our young people, but had to admit that he really couldn't understand anything he said.

As dad would have said about this time of year, "watch out where the Huskies go and don't you eat that yellow snow!"

Dweezil Zappa, ladies and gentlemen! (possibly)

On another note, I found a bug in the search engine reindexing for the Guestbook Archives that the folks at PicoSearch just fixed. So if you have done any scans lately, you might pick up more hits today.

Just wanted to thank Mike for his support and 3 cheers, a huzzah and the Satellite 6 Salute for having the only site on the net that I look at multiple times every single day. Thanks for your tireless efforts and Happy Festivus...(not to be confused with Festus Hagen's Fest or Uncle Fester Fest).

David has released two new CD's, Translator and Ephemeron, which you can read about on this site. You're welcome, David!

Just got my Lost Tapes of Mazeppa Volume 3. Fantastic! Especially the Channel 6 footage with a very early Mazeppa hamming it up with Lee Woodward, and then the grand return of Mazeppa to the Uncanny Film Festival and Camp Meeting. Besides Johnny Donut and Benny the Crusher doing some odd bits, Sherman and Teddy Jack have their moments, too.

Hook up the sled, come on over and we'll pop some corn and we can watch it together. My teenagers laughed and laughed. You will, too. It is so weird.

Yes, I did win the comic contest and won a really good book. Really strange book, but really good. Thanks for the tip, Webmeister.

Yow! Today is my birthday too and I really didn't need to find out that I share it with Andy Dick! ;)

The late rocker Frank Zappa and tennis legend Chris Evert have a b-day today as well. It bites to have to settle for one of my Xmas gifts, opened early, for my birthday present, but it's good to know that I am loved, anyway.

Hope everyone who reads this has a big happy holiday!

Hug somebody - it makes both of you feel better:)

Must be a media-magnate birthdate or somethin' - besides Bob Hower's birthday - it is also those of:

Actor Kiefer Sutherland is 34. Not his Dad, but...

Actor-comedian Andy Dick is 35. yuck!

Actor-comedian Ray Romano is 43. Yes!

Country singer Lee Roy Parnell is 44. Yeah, buddy!

Actor Samuel L. Jackson is 52. Yes!!

Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas is 56. Yes!!

Actress Jane Fonda is 63. Hmmm. Doesn't look at a day over 54 - hope she got a good deal in the divorce from Ted Turner...

Movie director John Avildsen is 65. Go rent one of his movies today!

Talk show host Phil Donahue is 65. Will take him over Mr. Springer any day!

Actor Ed Nelson is 72. Will catch him on Quinn-Martin cop show re-runs.

Ventriloquist Paul Winchell is 78. An icon of my youth!

And happy birthday to you, too, Mike!

Jim Ruddle mentioned Doc Hull on KVOO. One of the things Doc did on “Sleepwalkers’ Serenade” was a humorous bit achieved by recording his voice, speeding up the tape, and having a dialog with "Terri the Termite." He could say things as "Terri" that he couldn't say as Doc.

This was very high tech for the early '50s. That and the echo/reverberation for the KVOO call letters during Doc's station breaks.

By the way, I still have the script for "Terri" that Doc, Shirley Barbour, Wally Renegar and I used for "Central Day" on KVOO on May 9, 1951.

TTM contributor Lowell Burch was a winner last week in the Suspended Animation - kotv.com Comic Trivia Contest. This is easy pickin's for TTM's well-informed readers -- try it out this week!

I have not worked in radio or television (unless you count repair training at the old Central Vo-Tech in Drumright!) but I truly enjoy reading the stories that are posted by those of you who are/were in TV and radio. I get a kick out of seeing articles (with PICTURES!!) of the shows I used to watch as a kid. Mr. Zing, Uncle Zeb, The John Chick Show, Betty Boyd's Show, Lee and King Lionel....and of course...G.Ailard S.Artain as Mazeppa.

My folks wouldn't let me watch Mazeppa much, for one my dad thought he was some sort of "Hippie Subversive" and also because he came on so late at night. But, at the risk of sweeping but imaginative changes to my posterior, I'd sneak downstairs and watch after the folks had gone to bed. The weirdness and the insanity were very refreshing to a country kid from the sticks of Kellyville. I'm proud to say that Mazeppa made me the man I am today: Warped!:)

As a side note, I had the opportunity to become acquainted with Gailard's niece and nephew. I can say with definite certainty that Gailard's insanity is hereditary, as evidenced by his nephew. Great guy. Nothing wrong with him that years of intense therapy wont fix!:)

In closing, I'd just like to say I really enjoy your site and am very glad to have found it.

By the way...where is Scooter Segraves these days? Haven't heard from or about him in ages!!

John, welcome, and thanks for posting. Scooter is in Lafayette, Louisiana these days. You can still listen to him from 3-7 p.m. on the internet: visit the KAKC page on this site!

Why does it seem like Tulsa TV was so much more fun than OKC TV? Oh, well. I grew up watching OKC TV so what can I say? My first job in broadcasting was at WKY-TV, from 1974 to 1986 so I got to work with Danny Williams and Count Gregore and Don Wallace and Ronnie Kaye and Mary Hart and Kerry Robertson and the McCain Bros. and all those people. Then I helped run a commercial production house in OKC from 1986 - 1994 and worked on many TV spots. Then I went to LA, and I wish't I had'nt'a had ta, but you gotta go where the opportunities are.

Anyway, I thought I'd post here; maybe somebody here remembers li'l ol' me and I can get back in touch with some people, or make some new friends. Cheers!

Gene Tincher mentioned his car "collection" - I best remember a rust/primer gray early '50s Chevy he had - twasn't beautiful but it ran well and never seemed to have any body damage for a car of it's vintage. I think Gene also have a newer big Chrysler from the '60's but think he liked the Chevy best - basic transportation!

Fellow engineer Jack Maynard - now retired from OETA - had a yellow Borgward for years - we thought it a communist German car but found out it wasn't - many never saw these shores and Jack had one from somewhere.

Gene (and I think Jack), like Chief Engineer Lew Brown, was a HAM radio op - we had several at 8, I think also at 6. I wonder if his aol address is his ham "handle"?

As mentioned in previous blurbs here, a lot of TV engineers "inherited" old 2 inch tape machines and out West is a growing bunch of ham operators transmitting video originating off 2" machines. Gene told us way back when - that some day hams could put out video over the airways, too!

BTW - if you watch Discovery Channel's SCIENCE LIVE broadcast - it has its last live airing tonight at 8pm EST. They will be talking about Santa + physics of flight amongst other topics. It may repeat Thursday at other times. The webcast of it ended about 4-5 weeks ago....

Just imagine my surprise at seeing the old KRMG Newsmobile with Frank Morrow at Utica Square. I probably put more miles on that machine than any one person. Started as a DJ at KRMG, thence to news and then News Director before moving over to KRAV as Program Director then back to KRMG in sales. Joined American Airlines from there in P.R., moved to New York in 1968 and worked my way up in the operations dept. and flight dept. to retire last year as Managing Director-Flight. Good to read some of the old stories of times long ago when the world was less complicated and we all worried about having fun instead of counting ballots.

Hi to all my ole buddies. E-mail if you get a chance.

Larry

Welcome, Larry!

Mike, since you mentioned the Norad Santa tracking thing, I thought you might enjoy this site. It begins "tracking" on Christmas Eve and is available in six languages. http://www.noradsanta.org/

Merry Christmas to all y'all livin' on Tulsa time!

And to you up there, significantly closer to the North Pole!

Season's Greetings to All!

Attn: Mike Ransom and Lee Woodward

Thanks so much for the Santa Claws picture of King Lionel! I've been smiling all day with fond memories.

Don Cook (former D.J. at KTBA, KELI, KAKC, KMOD, KRAV, KTOW, and KTHK)

You're welcome, Don. Lee sent the perfect picture. Glad you are having a good holiday season.

Yea! Gene Tincher is amongst us and the humor is still there!

Good to hear from you!

To paraphrase an old 8 saying, "Roll 'em, when you get 'em!".

When Gene was doing video tape at 8 - you got 'em fast - for recues or ABC late night feeds. He played the RCA TR-22 and TR-70 machines as a maestro! Fastest/funniest tape man at 8 for years!!!

And a good sage for us "kids", too.

Yeah our new Prez went back to Texas and DC got walloped with an ice storm. Last night was driving amongst the scaffolding going up for reviewing stands here in DC. Can't ever remember a Saturday Inaugeration Day!

Speaking of memories - do you remember the old "Santa Alerts" stations did in the 50's and 60's? I think NORAD tied in to this for a while with "radar reports". Don Woods did it a couple of times with 8's old b&w radar.

Actually, Sonny Hollingshead told me to look in here. I am very glad to see that many of my old friends from KTUL are still doing well.

It is strange to realize that I am a legend in my own time, and will return and read more. I still have five old automobiles, but finding it more difficult to keep all of them ready to roll. My doctor asked if I ever had cataracts, and I said no, I always like to drive chevrolets.

I joined KTUL in 1969 and was fortunate to get hired by Robert Snider and Lewis Brown. At that time I had a second class FCC license and engineers needed the first class license, so they hired me with the understanding that I would go take the test and get the license, which I did. I almost did not take the job since the starting wage was $3.00 per hour. I told them that I would have to go home and think about it, and they assured me that they allowed us to work at least 44 hours per week to get a bit of overtime. So I slept on it and went back the next morning and told them I would take the job. I think it must have been difficult for them to find engineers at that time. I did leave to go to work at KOED as transmitter engineer for a couple of years but returned to KTUL in 1981 and retired in 1993. Merry Christmas.

Welcome, Gene!

Frank Morrow brought back the story of the dude with the Oxbridge accent who wowed the Ladies of the Clubs. In Tulsa, a pig who oinked with a British accent would send shivers through that set.

Having said that, Tulsa always had a surprisingly healthy audience for music and art, even though it was tough mounting opera down on Brady Street, and Philbrook had (has) a thoroughly undistinguished collection of European paintings. Gilcrease, after some shaky years before the city purchased the collection, is the real artistic heart of the area. The Tulsa Symphony Orchestra steadily moved up in rankings, with sputters and halts, and is now well established.

The conductor in the early fifties was a fellow who parted his name on the left side, one H. Arthur Brown. Doc Hull, on his Sleepwalker's show, incurred the wrath of H. Arthur, and through him, the management of the station, by creating a character named "H. Arthur Canardly." Hull was ordered to cease and desist, which he did.

Skitch Henderson, who led the orchestra for a spell, had been a bomber pilot in World War Two and his co-pilot was Rod Jones, of the TU speech faculty.

Well, things seem kinda slow. Guess it's time for another Paleolithic story.

In about 1954, when the radio stations were scrambling around trying to find their new niche after TV had swooped down on them, KOME tried an all-classical music format. They imported an Englishmen with a beard (unheard of) and a very elegant accent to be the primary host. He was the darling of the ladies clubs.

One of the unique things they did was to tell everyone to place their portable radio on the opposite side of the room from their big radio, then tune both sets to KOME. Voila! Stereo!

Of course, there was no stereo equipment back then, and there was not any discussion of it. The closest thing to it was the Columbia 360, a small, monaural record player with a speaker on each side. Very impressive for those days. It cost about 250 dollars--a heck of a lot of money in those days. (I was making 275 a month at KTUL)

By the way, the KOME classical format didn't last long.

Uh, this editor doesn't like carriage returns, does it? (the Sign The Guestbook page tells you how to do paragraphs: put a "<p>" between them. You may also use "<br>" for line breaks...webmaster)

Fix it.

Yo Mikey! - Where's dem slides I sentya???

I'm overloaded, still. A lot of the names and stories were locked up in deep storage, I left T-Town in January '86. Things are slowly starting to move up forward, and wit a lot of private email, I'm beginning to get back to where I once belonged. Jim Downing has sent me a few emails, and I am remembering things from a long time ago. The folks up here can help me with my tv heritage, but folks like Jim and a few others are waking up the rest of those deeply ingrained Tulsa music experiences.

No. I ain't movin back. I like it here. But most of what I do musically is because of my 13 years in t-town. If you saw what I saw, heard what I heard, You'd be the same. God bless this/your town.

Oh. and God Bless Goldies. I've gotta passport fulla stamps, and I did miles and miles all over the US, but I never ever had a burger like that. I've tried.

Later,

pda

Was looking at the OK Tourism & Recreation Dept.page.

Former OKC anchor/Miss America Jane Jayroe is now Exec. Director & Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Dino Lalli - former OKC reporter runs the Film Office.

There IS life in OKC after workin' at stations!

Hey - we have added a new reader - Ron Stahl - long time KOCO newsman - who is now Dir. of Marketing for Oklahoma State Parks joins us.

He was searching for something else and got here! Welcome, Ron! Need to get some good OKC TV anecdotes from him!

Re Okies in the news - Ben/Martie Kretchmar - of OKC TV and livin' here in DC tell me that on 1/1/2001 you can see the new Fox/National Geographic Channel on DSS home satellite and coming soon to a cable channel near you. Take a gander at it - I have seen some studio rehearsals of the news show that will be done in Geo's Explorers Hall here.

Thursday is Bob Hower's ?? birthday? Also former KTUL Engineer Ed "MO" Morris' - wherever he is in MO. Ditto 5-0 for me - Bob first hired me so I remember his birthday easily!

I thought St. Mike's was mid-sixties but wasn't positive. I know I didn't go until '69 or so and thought it had started out as a beatnik kind of place.

Ricardo, that UHF was a great movie and Wheel of Fish is the one thing everyone mentions when the subject comes up. Good job.

Here is a real closeup of the Wheel of Fish.

St. Mike's has been there since at least 1964 that I personally know of...it was one of Tulsa's first "coffee houses" in the sixties, and sported then, as now, a huge, brass, copper and silver espresso maker...boy, the crimes I would commit to have that machine...it did burn, once, and was subsequently rebuilt...they used to feature, also some of the finest music (live) that could be had in Tulsa, and that means some of the finest live music in the U.S. of A....anyone remember the Tomikeajimike Trio...hmmmmmm???

Oh, yeah, the big espresso maker!

Ahhhh, UHF...I worked on this movie, in the construction department...we built the interiors of the television station in the Kensington Galleria, at 71st and Lewis, on unoccupied space on the second floor...( a large piece of unoccupied space) the rest of the Galleria was, indeed occupied, and open for business, but the shooting that went on there only took the last week or so of filming...the rest of the time, everything was shot on locations in and around Tussa...

The infamous wheel of fish...our call the day we shot the wheel of fish was 6 am, and the producers had obtained from White River Fish Market, approx. 160# of fresh, whole, dead fishes of various types from mackerel to sea bass, and other large types...these were wired, or directly screwed onto a large "wheel of fortune" type contraption (that worked vertically, not horizontally) with great care by me, personally...(being in the art department has its perks) under great pressure from the producers and art director to get it done, they are going to be ready to shoot at any minute, (you know the drill)...well, it took a great deal of creativity to balance the wheel with the various types and sizes of fishes so the wheel would indeed, spin and stop in random spots, and not go back to the same damn fish every time...(this, as it turned out, was in actuality a moot point, but.....who knew???)

Anyway...after loading the wheel with ever slimier and ripening fish...(starting, once again at 6am) we actually shot the segment beginning at about 4:30 in the afternoon...well, we had to light it, and the crew was after all off at another location in the morning, and was running behind....it was the director's FIRST FEATURE (he had done only music videos previously) so he was still somewhat in the dark, and...well, you know...oh, did I mention that there was no air conditioning in the unoccupied part of the building, and it was, indeed late July (or August, I'm not sure which) and the fishes kept getting riper, and riper, and riper, and we added a studio audience of about 100, plus lots of 10k's, 5k's, and well, you know movie lighting...boy, oh boy, I could see why that uhf station didn't make it...

Others in the cast besides Weird Al...a genuinely nice guy, and really funny...included...Michael (Kramer) Richards, Victoria Jackson (from SNL), Fran (the Nanny) Drescher (yes, folks, that really is her voice) and some other relatively large talents in roles of various sizes...can't remember all right now, as I've only seen the flick once, and dont have a copy of it...I'll find it for sale somewhere one of these days when I have some money in my pocket, if I ever work again, that is...

One hilight from the shooting of the movie was the day they stopped production in the middle of the day, and the president of the record company (Atlantic, I think) came to the set and presented Weird with his very own, first gold record, for "Fat" he was genuinely moved, and after about four minutes of revelry, we all went back to work...and Stanley mopped up, once again...

"UHF" can be found on eBay with this search. It goes for a pretty penny!

St. Michael's is located on the east side of Ranch Acres Shopping Center. Great place to eat or drink and talk. Been there since the 70's, I think. Burnt once, but rebuilt. I have quit going there since they have started advertising in the Tulsa Family News. Not my crowd.

White River is still out by the airport. Same place since the 60's, I think. Great food.

Soitently!

Beer was served at St. Michael's in a mug with an olive. Dave Brubeck's "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo a la Turk" were on the jukebox in the early 70s. I just got out my copy of the record and am listening over coffee here at the keyboard.

Hear it at Amazon.com via RealPlayer!

This is Guestbook 66.

Just archived Guestbook 65. Tulsa eateries and shopping centers have been discussed today. We saw an animated Channel 8 pic of a house decorated for Christmas. Irish Mike Clancy was mentioned. There were some gift suggestions from Mike Bruchas. We saw a can of Cragmont Sparkling Punch and a bottle of Lilac Vegetal aftershave, apropos of a reader comment. We heard from (and saw) Richard "Ricardo" Wilson for the first time here. There is a link to a Ricardo/John Chick story on another site.

Much more to come...