Memories? Sitting in front of our GE color console (K8 chassis?) from sunup to sundown, tuned to WTTG Washington, with all those cartoons, Deputy Dog, Flintstones morning & afternoon, Looney tunes w/violence left in. "We are experiencing technical diffiulties, please stand by" sometimes it took 5 minutes or more...broken film? Sometimes I'd turn down the sound & put my ear to the side of the GE just to hear the hum. When we got a solid state set c.1980 it just wasn't the same, barely any hum! There was "AM Weather" on PBS, seemed to be on for hours. How much weather do you need? Well, no weather channel back then. Saturday morning WBAL had "Learning to Read", with a friendly older lady in a classroom-designed to teach reading to adults, if I remember right. I'd get up real early to watch the stations sign on, or stay up real late to watch them sign off. Some were elaborate-WJLA in DC had a great sign off with Ray Charles doing "America" and fantastic aerial shots of the capitol. Local WBOC would run about 15 minutes straight of PSA's prior to sign-off, while competitor WMDT had a great montage which included an aerial shot of a guy way up working on their transmitter tower. Many nights I would fall asleep watching WRC in DC to be awoken by the periodic sound of the annoncer (Mac MacGarry(SP?)) giving the station i.d.-they never went off the air. For quite a while after WMDT went on the air (1981+/-) there was nothing on from 7:30pm-8pm, just a screen with their call letters. Never did figure that one out. I remember WMAR Baltimore with "Private Secretary" running at 3 in the morning. WBFF Baltimore, now Fox but then independent, was popular with kids during the week-Captain Chesapeake played cartoons through at least the 80s, I still have my membership card from his show. They would actually run ads for CBS Saturday morning on WBFF!
What else? How about Super TV, on WFTY-50 in DC or WNUV-54 in Baltimore, regular stations until 7 at night, after which you needed a decoder and special antenna to see the movies they were running. There was Frank White on WBOC with the Southern Sportsman, a low budget hunting/fishing show, he played the same background music in continous loop, all brought to you by House Autry corn meal.
Gee, I'm rambling on too much...tv beta guy mentioned the CBS Special Presentation bit, and I always like that. They brought it back a few years ago for a Carol Burnett special, I sat there and just kept rewinding it, watching that little bit over and over and over...am I nuts or what
Okay, I'd better go-oh, Big Dave, I caught a mistake in your list, under #2, you of course meant "all those lies in the Kerry ads"-happy to correct that for you!
