Thursday, August 7, 2014

When Channel 7 Was King; Circle 7 Western Ad Promo; Van, Jerry, John and Pete




There was nothing quite like it: "NewsScene" --Van Amburg, Jerry Jensen, John O'Reilly and Pete Giddings.


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17 comments:

  1. Did they film that at Frontier Village?

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    1. I think it was done at Ponderosa Ranch...where Bonanza was filmed...near Incline Village on the Nevada side of North Shore Tahoe.

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  2. Gee, I thought Anchorman was fiction. I guess a lot it was based upon reality and I just never knew. The only thing missing is the Sex Panther cologne (well it could have been there but Youtube is not smell-o-vision) and a conversation about what San Francisco translates to in English.

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  3. Never forget that clip, especially Jerry Jensen.. And they used to call Giddings a 'Naturalist"..

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  4. @2:57 I lived in San Diego in the 70s. I've been told the Ron Burgundy character was a hodge podge of several Southern California newscasters of that time, but Ron Burgundy sure acted a LOT like one I distinctly remember.

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  5. KPIX Channel 5 now rules the airwaves.
    And everyone knows it too!

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  6. I'll never forget the time I was up at the top of the tram at Heavenly Valley one summer and Jerry Jensen was there, enjoying the view and the sun, sitting on the ground chatting with the squirrels as he fed them peanuts. And they were chatting back. All of them were having a grand time.

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  7. This really aired??? No wonder satire is dead. Paddy Chayefsky and Jerzy Kosiński couldn't imagine anything this idiotic.

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  8. An all-time classic. Does anyone have the KRON "They Got Haircuts- We Got Haircuts" promo -circa mid '80s? A little more subtle, but nicely done too!

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    1. I don't recall the "haircuts" campaign ... would love to see it.

      However, I do recall when KRON countered the Western theme with "Newshounds." All of the anchors, and key reporters, were photographed holding a giant dog head. - a different breed for each personality. These graced their newspaper ads, as well as billboards all over the Bay Area.

      I suspect that the humans involved were very happy to see that effort scrapped.

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  9. It's pretty much agreed that Burgundy is modeled after ex-San Diego anchorman (and later on, Los Angeles) Harold Greene. I have friends who say that Burgundy is EXACTLY like Greene.

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    1. Totally agree with that assessment. The only other anchor I've heard about in San Diego that resembled the Ron Burgundy character from the late 70s is Paul Bloom. If you look at some of his earlier air checks (accessed via YouTube) from the late 70s/early 80s he's a dead ringer for Burgundy (he still anchors the news in SD but looks much older with no mustache). I was living in the Bay Area during the 70s and remember Channel 7 news and the promos quite well. Their ratings were supreme and couldn't be touched. Now I live in San Diego and have heard about the wild times here on local TV from that era with quite a few colorful personalities. Actually it's still sort of wild, at least on a couple of channels, much more laid back with a lot of happy talk and joking around (I have actually laughed out loud at some of the things they do, and I don't laugh at TV shows all that often) compared to the current look and feel of today's Bay Area stations. When I visit the Bay Area now and tune in to the stations their newscasts are way too serious, staid, and rather boring. It must be a cultural thing. San Diego is a lot more laid back -- that's one of the reasons I moved here.

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    2. If I recall correctly, Harold Greene was also on KPIX/SF in the late '70's or early 80's. Most interesting thing about him was his wife's name, Muffy or Fluffy or Puffy or something similar.

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    3. Yes, Harold Greene had a very brief tenure at KPIX around 1977 co-anchoring with Dave McElhatton, before returning to Southern California. He had a successful run at a couple of stations in LA, then back to San Diego for a few years, then back again to LA. Ironically I recently saw him hosting the televised Pacific Southwest Emmy awards that took place here in San Diego which incorporates not only San Diego but Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Bakersfield, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Santa Maria markets. He's of course older looking now, having lost the Ron Burgundy look of the 70s, but his performance was almost that of Ron Burgundy. Sort of goofy, loosing his place in the script, a bit inept on stage, cracking jokes that hardly anyone laughed at. Yep, he would have to be the inspiration for Ron Burgundy.

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  10. I watched the Forty Niners first preseason game last night and CBS had a promo using some of their network stars promoting the NFL. Interspersed were KPIX TV anchors with jerseys and eye black making mean football faces. I wonder if someone will post that in 30 years.

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    1. I saw it-touting the Thursday night NFL game on KPIX this season. Got the message across but damn. (It ought to be) pretty embarrassing for the news folks if they want to be considered journalists. Like pretending last night's "American Idol" and "Survivor" results were news and leading the morning shows with them. Or having your ND tweet program announcements that are unrelated to news. Walter Cronkite wouldn't wear eyeblack.

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