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[static] And good morning, good morning, good morning boys and girls.

What is today?

[banjo music] ♪♪♪ [swing music] ♪♪♪ (female announcer) Ladies and gentlemen, the '59 Chevy.

[Jerry Lee Lewis singing] ♪♪♪ Good evening.

I am Sivad.

[static] ♪♪♪ (narrator) It's pretty hard to remember now, but believe it or not there once was a time without any television.

♪♪♪ ú Radio was the big thing in entertainmen@t. Complete with music, programs, soap opeúras, sporting events, commercials, and news.

B@ ♪I've been away from you a long ptime♪ But once inventors figured out how to send sound through th@@e air, it wasn't log before they started trying to figure out how to send pictures as well.

Entrepreneurs in the 1920s and 30s including some here in Memphis managed to send faint images over homemade equipment.

In New York City, one station began broadcasting as early as 1931.

But the images weren't really clear yet.

The earliest of experimental images was this one of Felix the Cat.

But at first TV screens contained only 60 scan lines.

When picture tube scanning went from 60 to 441 lines, however, Felix looked a lot better.

And TV was ready for commercial use.

At the World's Fair in 1939, television as we know it was introduced to the American public.

But here in the Mid-South, it would be another nine years before real TV finally arrived.

And some couldn't wait.

(man) I was already fascinated with radio.

The idea that I could sit at home and I could play records and put on these live shows and I could hear that in New York City, that alone was fascinating.

But the idea of seeing it in addition to hearing it was incredible.

(narrator) Here in Memphis WMC Radio, owned by the Memphis Publishing Company, was the first to make the jump to television.

The radio station was originally located in the old "Commercial Appeal" building at Second and Court.

But by 1941, the station had moved to the Goodwin Institute on Madison, and that's where they began setting up TV studios.

The station applied for a TV license as WMCT Channel 4.

They got it.

By the fall of 1948, the station had its transmission tower and equipment in place.

And on the night of October 28, 1948, the decision was made to try it out.

The station's long time chief engineer, E.C.

Fraise, known as Pop, got everything ready.

Station personnel gathered that night in the Peabody Hotel ballroom along with some 200 television set salesmen.

The late Henry Slavick, general manager at the time, was there.

At about eight thirty one night, I was there at the meeting.

I had known in advance that we were topping off the tower - the last connection.

And Pop Praise intended to test the transmitter that night without any notice to anyone for fear that we'd run into difficulties and disappoint people.

Well, he turned the tower on and we gave the signal and they turned the sets on at the Peabody Hotel there in the ballroom with about four receivers on the stage, and there was the test pattern.

Perfect.

(narrator) The first actual program came about two weeks later.

It was an experimental broadcast of the Ole Miss/Tennessee football game live from Crump Stadium... and it went off without a hitch.

About a month later, on December 11, 1948, regular local programming got underway.

The little studio in the Goodwin Institute came on the air at 6:30 PM.

It's believed about 1,400 TV sets in the Memphis area were tuned in when the screen began to glow with the letters "WMCT."

For the next four and a half hours there would be such things as "Jack Pennington and His Juniper Junction Varieties Gang," "Slim Rhodes and His Mountaineers," a cooking demonstration, and a full length movie, "The Black Dollar."

Finding programming in those days was a challenge.

It would be two more years before the NBC network cable was extended to Memphis.

So in those early days, they did almost anything to fill the air time.

(man) And so in three days time I put together a whole evening of shows for television.

And the shows were picked so that they could be repeated night after night after night.

A show for instance like, "The Hobby Showcase."

And we rounded up all the people in Memphis who lived by a certain hobby and were willing to talk about it.

And each night we'd have a different people talking about his hobby.

(narrator) The late Russ Hodge would eventually go to a competitor, but in the beginning he helped put WMCT on the air.

[recording of Hodge] Well we didn't even know what was starting.

Going back each day was kind of exciting because you really didn't know what you were doing and you were flying blind.

(Yearian) And keep in mind also that there were very few television sets out there.

Most people who wanted to see television had to walk down the street and look through a store window.

The department stores had sets working and if you wanted to see something on television, you'd have an early dinner and walk down and watch it on the sidewalk.

That was a common thing.

(narrator) All of the sudden, there were ads in all the papers for these new fangled television sets.

The "Commercial Appeal" published helpful articles on how to pick the right receiver for you living room and gave tips on re-arranging the furniture.

And General Electric promoted what they called daylight television sets, promising they'd be so bright you could even watch TV during the day.

At the time, sets could cost anywhere from $200 to $2,000.

People rushed to buy them.

And a lot of young people wanted to get jobs in this exciting new business.

Ed Greaney was one of them.

He joined WMCT just two months after it went on the air.

As time went by Ed became Production Manager, then Program Manager.

(man) And of course sitting here now in this studio and thinking back 56-57 years ago what a studio looked like and the size of the cables that ran to the cameras - lifting those and pulling those around and at the same time we generally were wearing a suit while we did that.

I'd take it up to mop off after "Man's Best Friend" which was the animal thing we did.

And it's the only time, or first time, that my mother came to the station to see what I did and I was mopping up after "Man's Best Friend."

(man) We swept the floors, we did news, we did weather, we did interviews, played records.

Peter Thomas, one of our announcers, had a friend called Bill Killebrew who was a sketch artist.

And Peter Thomas would sit and play records and then Bill Killebrew would sketch something to the music.

And he was really good.

[piano music] ♪♪♪ (narrator) A piano player by the name of Berl Olswanger had a show each afternoon.

He would play and his three friends were called the Olswangers.

♪I ain't got nobody♪ ♪And nobody cares for me♪ (narrator) In early 1950 cable was completed from NBC in New York to bring national programming to Memphis.

It was a first not just for Memphis, but the entire state of Tennessee.

(male announcer) This is Bob Stanton speaking from Radio City in New York.

Tonight the National Broadcasting Company is proud to welcome a new station to its television network.

And here to officially extend our greeting is NBC's president Mr.

Niles Trammel.

Ladies and gentlemen, we at NBC want to welcome WMCT, Memphis to the NBC television family.

Memphis has the first television station in the state of Tennessee.

(narrator) Even though national programming could now be seen, there were still plenty of local shows.

Here are some of the local shows you could watch in the early fifties.

"In the Chapel" featured religious programming.

"Slim Rhodes and his Mountaineers" offered hillbilly music and comedy.

"The Welcome Mat" was a show in which Olivia Brown interviewed interesting people.

There were quiz shows including "Quiz 'Em on the Air."

And another one called "Photo Quiz Derby."

"On the Farm" was geared toward the many farmers in the Mid-South.

There were sporting events to cover.

And of course programming aimed at women.

There were cooking and homemaking shows galore.

Perhaps Carolyn Godman was the best known TV homemaker.

She had her own cooking show for many years.

There was a show called "Shopping at Home."

It included exercises led by instructor Cathy Bauby.

The "Channel 5 Club" was a popular show.

It was emceed by Bob Smith, and it usually drew a big crowd down to the Goodwin Institute Auditorium.

On this episode a surprised housewife learns that the donkey she pinned the tail on is her own husband.

WMCT also had a show called "Handy Theater."

It's believed to have been the first television show in the country to exclusively feature African American performers.

Two regulars on the show were comedians Bones Crouch and Sweetie Walker.

And Beale Street musicians were invited on the air to play.

♪♪♪ The classical music tradition was carried on by the daily "Evening Serenade" including musician Vincent DeFrank among others.

We had a little six piece string orchestra which I was very proud of.

The "Evening Serenade" under the direction of Noel Gilbert.

Each evening five times a week, 6:30, unsponsored, the string music evening serenade by which people could eat their dinner to peaceful beautiful music.

I was very proud of that show.

Very costly... (narrator) Some of the same musicians appeared each year on a program called "Thanksgiving in Song."

Big Star sponsored it for seventeen years.

All this programming was done live in very small studios in a building that had never been built for television to begin with.

(Berryhill) We had to work on three different levels.

The auditorium upstairs, we utilized that for live shows and for concert type things.

And the kitchen set was downstairs in the basement, so to speak.

And then the main studio was actually an old radio studio.

(Berryhill) It was not designed for television.

It was extremely cramped, so you had to - many times you had to back the cameraman right up against the wall as flat as he could get.

(Grearey) The kitchen was in a basement area off of Third Street, so the cameras had to be taken out the front door on to Madison and then rolled down the sidewalk and then they were lifted down some steps and then they were connected down there.

After the program was over the cameras were disconnected, rolled back up Third Street.

Thank goodness after a while we got some more cameras.

(narrator) It took a lot of careful juggling to make it all work.

(man) We had schedules put out weekly of what we were to do and what shows we were to do.

And some were turn around shows - you went right from one show to another.

One show may be in the studio and the next one may be in the auditorium upstairs.

And the word hectic doesn't really cover it.

(narrator) After a short time in operation, WMCT changed numbers on the dial from Channel 4 to Channel 5.

(man) Well what happened, the FCC - Federal Communications Commission - assigned Channel 4 to Memphis, Channel 4 to WSN in Nashville, Channel 4 to KARK in Little Rock.

And you can imagine what happened half way between here and Nashville - interference between the two stations.

Same way between here and Little Rock.

And FCC decided then that Channel 4 in Memphis should move to Channel 5.

And that's why we have Channel 5 even today.

[steamboat whistle] (narrator) For five years, WMCT had the Memphis airwaves all to itself.

But WHBQ radio had been looking to make the plunge into television for quite some time.

On September 27, 1953 WHBQ-TV went on the air from studios located in the Hotel Chisca.

At first the station carried CBS programming.

It was assigned Channel 13 on the dial.

(Burns) Nobody wanted 13.

Not a person wanted 13 because 13 would be considered a hard Channel to receive on your TV set, and at first it was.

(narrator) At least two people in Memphis wanted the license for the next TV station.

One was radio pioneer Hoyt B. Wooten, the owner of WREC radio.

(man) Hoyt and Abe Plough, the president of Plough Incorporated were involved in a battle for Channel 3... And had to go to hearings in Washington and make their case.

8xo8o8o8o88+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8: And Hoyt finally won out.

í6[6[:[:[:[:['['ñññññññññññññññ< Another thing he won...during those days when everything was on hold, he had a verbal and later a written agreement :á with Frank Stanton, the president of CBS, that whenever he got a television station, he would get CBS.

(narrator) Hoyt Wooten usually got what he wanted.

He started out in radio in 1922, broadcasting from his home in Coldwater, Mississippi.

That grew into WREC radio in Memphis.

He applied as early as 1928 to experiment with television.

He was such a perfectionist the story goes, that he insisted all the screws in all the station equipment had to have their slots exactly up and down so they'd gather less dust.

Regardless of what he did, it had to be the best... the best available equipment, the best available talent, the best of everything that money could buy.

He was a true pioneer because the people in Coldwater C0 used to call him "that crazy Wooten boy."

(Dorman) Way back in the late forties, he built the mansion that he lived in down on Highway 51 South.

Somebody asked him one day, "Hoyt, why did you build this beautiful mansion down here on South Highway 51?"

He said, "So that my friends in Coldwater could see where that crazy Wooten boy lived when they drove past it."

That's the kind of man he was.

(narrator) Wooten's new station, WREG, became the CBS affiliate Channel 3.

It was located in the Peabody Hotel.

(Cook) The control room for the television was what had formally been an organ - pipe organ - and used to be played for radio shows.

So they ripped out the organ and put in the booth for television.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;.

;2;;;;7 w;w;Then it moved down to what d to be the dining rv7v7n6n6oom in the basement of the Peabody.

And there was little more space down there.

Right in the middle of it there was this big pillar.

And when you moved the camera you had move around that pillar.

And sometimes if the director hit the wrong button you'd get a nice shot of that pillar.

(narrator) Channel 13 switched to ABC.

The people of Memphis now had all three television networks to watch.

Sometimes the reception was kind of fuzzy, but who cared?

Back then people were so excited to have TV they would sit and watch anything.

(man) We used to watch the test pattern because television was - I mean I hate to sound ancient, but I remember when it was exciting to have the test pattern on.

You know, we'd study that.

You know that Indian guy that was on the test pattern.

And we used to sit and watch that test pattern and think - we'd ask each other, "Who do you think that Indian chief is?

You think that's Geronimo?"

They'd sit and watch the test pattern.

Had an Indian with all his feathers and everything right in the middle of the test pattern.

And they'd sit and gaze at that for hours thinking that something perhaps will happen.

(narrator) In the TV industry, this image is still known as the Indian head test pattern though it isn't used anymore.

It's believed to have been created by RCA in 1939.

The lines and circles on it allowed TV engineers to adjust their broadcast signal.

But no one really knows why the Indian head artwork was added.

It's not part of the lines and patterns.

Apparently someone just thought it looked interesting.

But whatever the reason he ended up on there, the magnificent chief in his feathered headdress has definitely become part of American history.

♪♪♪ And good morning, good morning, good morning boys and girls.

What is today?

(narrator) When TV came to town, every station came up with popular shows aimed at children.

There were certainly plenty of little baby boomers around Memphis watching them.

What month is this?

Danny, you ought to know that.

(narrator) Happy Hal Miller was one of the first kid TV show hosts.

He was on Channel 13.

♪♪♪ Hal was a popular community theater actor when he was recruited to write and star in a kids show.

"Lunchtime Theater" was the first of his shows.

On that one kids had lunch with Hal and watched cartoons.

He even wrote the early theme song.

It was on his own record label, Little Bo Records.

♪If you want to be a pal of Happy Hal♪ ♪Here's you all you've got to do♪ ♪Mind your mommy and feed your little tummy♪ ♪And smile the whole day through♪ ♪If you want to be a pal of Happy Hal listen here to me♪ ♪Mind your dad and never be bad♪ ♪'Cause it makes him sad as can be♪ (narrator) Happy Hal's show changed names and broadcast times, but he was on Channel 13 continuously for 17 years.

Happy Hal had a number of puppets with Little Bow and Curly as the regulars.

At one point, in the mid 1960s, Hal was on TV three hours a day.

"Cartoon Time" was in the morning and "Fun House" was in the afternoon.

♪♪♪ Memphis kids grew up on daily doses of "Popeye," "The Three Stooges," and "Casper the Friendly Ghost."

Lots Memphians remember being on Happy Hal's shows.

In this picture, children from the Joy Land Kindergarten in Whitehaven visit Hal in 1955.

Eventually, Hal Miller decided to retire from TV and concentrate on his growing toy store business.

He signed off the air for good in 1971.

♪♪♪ ♪Good-bye now from Happy Hal♪ ♪We'll see you again on the very next show♪ ♪Lots of fun, surprises too♪ ♪On the Happy Hal Miller Show♪ (narrator) Happy Hal was so popular that Channel 5 decided to create a new kids show of its own to give it some direct competition.

Employees held a brainstorming session and someone said, "Kids like animals so how about a circus?"

We'd have a clown, circus and someone said, "Well, circus comes maybe once a year but we've got the zoo year round.

Bingo!

Zoo!"

(narrator) The show became "Looney Zoo."

Harry Mabrey was the first zoo director.

Ken Berryhill volunteered to be the first puppeteer.

(Berryhill) So I went up and applied, And Wilson Mount said, "When did you ever do puppets?"

I said, "Well, I've never done puppets but I do character voices."

[in character] Rasputin the fox.

And different things like... [in character] Yes, sir we're slowing down.

(narrator) There was no script.

Each day they decided what they'd talk about.

In the mid 1960s, Channel 5 used "Looney Zoo" to help demonstrate brand new color television.

In these home movies you can see Ken popping out from the puppeteer's position in the tree stump.

Although on the show of course, the puppeteer stayed out of sight.

(man) I remember being escorted in to be on "Looney Zoo" and it was this tiny, tiny little room.

And the set was sort of pushed way back in the corner.

And it was like a forest set, a drop of a forest.

And then they had a little grandstand where the kids could sit.

(narrator) In later years, handsome Trent Wood became the host of "Looney Zoo."

Rhodes College professor Ray Hill succeeded Ken as puppeteer, adding some new characters.

He also played Tiny the Clown.

I did the puppets too.

See, I was just like...like Eve.

I had lots of characters.

The many faces of...cause it was Ima Emu and Puppy Dog and Poindexter and Rasputin and Murgatroid Mouse.

Plus Tiny.

We would have up to 100 children a day.

I know one of the last appearances in Memphis that Tiny and I did at the Memphis Fairgrounds, (Wood) we had over 15,000 people came out for an appearance.

Just a monster crowd.

♪He caught the minnow but he didn't catch me♪ (narrator) Trent Wood also hosted one of the earliest kids shows, "Play House."

That show had cute puppets too, including Arfy, the puppy dog.

Thank you, Arfy.

My, you're getting to be a better singer every single day.

(Wood) Robert Johnson, columnist for the "Memphis Press Scimitar" said that in 1960-1963 I was on camera more than anybody else in the Mid-South.

And it felt like it - my wife could attest to that.

(narrator) In those days of course, everything was still done live and you never knew what the kids would say.

(little girl) I want my mommy.

You want to see mommy?

Why don't you go see them right now.

Mommy will take you outside.

♪Love me tender, love me sweet♪ ♪Never let me go♪ (narrator) Other kids shows on early TV included "Bozo the Clown."

Oh look at us Tiny, we're up on the moon.

How will we ever get back to earth without a rocket ship?

I don't know, Bozo.

Do you have any ideas, Uncle Fletchie?

Well, not at the moment but give me a little while and perhaps I can come up with something.

Ought not to be too hard to get you boys back down to earth.

It's only 12 million miles as the crow flies.

(narrator) And educational shows included "Ding Dong School" with Miss Frances as the teacher.

That one actually wasn't local but was a network show.

"Romper Room" was shot locally but was actually a national franchise.

Rena Franklin was one of the early hosts when the show was on Channel 13.

(Franklin) I had to go for two weeks to Baltimore to be trained at the Romper Room home which was run by - had been originated by Nancy and Burt Claster in Baltimore - and then they had franchised it.

And at the time that I was a teacher, there were 281 women all over the United States in their own home towns doing the program.

(narrator) Each child who appeared on "Romper Room" received his or her own diploma and official photograph.

The show eventually moved from Channel 13 to Channel 5 where it ran for many years.

Charles Spence appeared on the show with Miss Betty.

(Spence) I was six years old and fortunately my father worked with the producer of the show.

And he was told that they needed an extra child for the show.

And I had to come in and audition by the way.

At that time there were no African American kids on television period.

And I was excited.

♪♪♪ (narrator) Channel 13 had great success when it put one of its young radio djs on TV hosting a kids show called "Wink Martindale of the Mars Patrol."

(Martindale) The seats were old airplane - metal airplane seats - like out of World War II fighter planes.

And I would have a little thing up in the front when we got ready to blast off - it was made out of a record turntable.

And I would turn that on and they would start all these sound effects in the control room.

This is when we got ready to blast off.

This is after I interviewed all the kids and we had our Bosco and milk.

And all of the sudden you hear all these sounds, you know.

And they've got a camera over my shoulder that would zoom in.

They'd put lines on it so it look spiraled in the middle.

Woooo.

Vrrrooom.

And they told the kids, you know when we'd get ready to blast off we always instructed them, we'd be sitting there and now we're ready to go.

(Martindale) And everybody would move back like this and the camera would move up so it looked like we were taking off.

♪♪♪ (woman) They gave us a Mars Patrol gun and it was plastic and it looked like it had fireworks coming out of the end.

And so while he was talking and asking us questions and before any video came on, we were all going, "rrumm rrumm rrumm. "

And finally they stopped and they said, "Don't do this."

If you shoot those guns they could blow up the cameras.

(narrator) The show, along with its young host, was a big hit.

(Martindale) I remember the first time I ever went to Goldsmith's for my first - it was the first time I'd ever done a personal appearance - and it was at the old Goldsmith's downtown.

And there were kids lined up literally around the block.

I mean, I was the first coming of Elvis here.

[laughing] ♪♪♪ (male announcer) It's your "Top Ten Dance Party" brought to you by the Coca-Cola bottling companies of the Mid-South, bottlers of Coca-Cola.

(narrator) Wink Martindale also hosted "Top Ten Dance Party."

It showcased all the latest songs, singers, and high school dancers.

And our other special guests today on "Top Ten" include a new singing group known as the Five Delrays.

They will be here introducing their new record.

(narrator) Singers like Neil Sedaka and Pat Boone were guests on the show.

Then I began to sing at the other high schools and on local television.

Went to New York for Ted Mack's Show and Arthur Godfrey's Show.

♪♪♪ (narrator) But the most famous guest was local.

(Martindale) Elvis came on the show and I think that interview that day was the first - if not the first - one of the first televised interviews that he ever did.

And about this Judy Spreckles... that I've been getting a lot of publicity with Judy Spreckles.

That all got started when Judy gave me a ring out in Las Vegas.

She gave me this ring here.

And...that ring there.... It is a big ring, isn't it?

(narrator) Later on, Elvis' good friend George Klein had his own show on 13.

It was called "Talent Party."

Pete has a brand new single out on the Carr label which is also available and it's called "Birth of the Blues."

Pete would you mind blowing that for us?

(narrator) Other shows for youngsters included "Western Theater" on Channel 13.

It was hosted by singing cowboy Freddie Burns and ran five days a week featuring Roy Rogers and Gene Autry western movies.

In the open, he'd ride a horse up to a hitching rail and get off.

And then they'd splice that to a shot of him walking onto the set.

(Burns) And you'll notice the cabin that's on the wall to the right.

There's where I stored by six shooters.

And as a show went on the air, those doors would open with my six shooters there and I'd take them and put them on and walk out to the camera.

Those were Colt Frontier six shooters.

[gun shots] (narrator) Like a lot of other kids shows, "Western Theater" was sponsored by Bosco.

In June of 1956, Memphis gained a fourth television station, WKNO Channel 10.

It was one of the nation's first non-commercial stations.

WKNO began broadcasting in- school educational programs in 1959.

(man) You could play with anything.

You could do things.

I mean this wasn't commercial - you didn't have a sponsor looking over your head.

You could play with effects, you could do anything you wanted.

That was what was fun.

(narrator) Bernie was the cameraman and local actor Allen Bates was the soft spoken host for the children's show, "All Aboard With Mr.

Be."

Holden Potter was producer of the show.

(Potter) It was the space age.

Everything was electronics.

Everything was shiny aluminum, everything was glass, everything was rockets going up in the air.

And that's what everyone was exited about.

(Potter) And Allen and I felt we wanted something that for pre-school children was warm, friendly, non-threatening.

And we kind of settled on a character who smoked a pipe, because pipes have great aromas anûd they r?>?emind you of your grandfather.

John McDonald, a high school student at Catholic High School here in town, would come out in the afternoon for very little money and he would play Poncy De Lion, (Potter) who was the main puppet.

[in character] And then he also did Troilus, the train loving troll who lived under a bridge.

The train was turned mechanically in the studio by a stage hand behind the curtain cranking this thing around as it went around.

And the train itself was modeled after a real American train called The General.

[train engine chugging] ♪♪♪ (narrator) There was one local kids show however that outlasted them all...and that was on Channel 5.

It was Dick Williams' "Magic Land."

Dick Williams had the longest running magic show in American television history - it's in the "Guinness Book of World Records."

It was a 25 year run in this very studio.

And every Friday evening Dick had a whole bunch of Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and assorted other Memphians who in your viewing audience many of the people watching I'm sure went to Magic Land at some point during their growing up years.

And Dick did these incredible magic shows with his wife, Virginia.

(man) And I can remember sitting there and I'm looking at the sign and watching him do the 3 and 4 boxes that he pulled in different directions with his wife in them, and apparently in pieces.

And I thought, "Well, I'm sitting right here and I don't see anything other than the fact that this lady is going east and west at the same time."

(narrator) "Magic Land" premiered in 1966.

In this clip you can see that Dick's entrance that first day went a little awry.

He was supposed to disappear in the smoke.

Well, that's live TV for you.

Dick had an impressive bag of tricks.

This one is called the substitution trunk.

Master magician Harmon Baker himself taught it to him.

And this photograph ran in newspapers and magazines all over the world.

It was the first time a person was ever floated in air outdoors instead of in a studio.

Dick and his glamorous assistants charmed Memphis kids and adults alike.

When the disco era arrived, Dick went right along with it.

♪I don't know what it is but I never want to miss Disco Magic.♪ ♪Disco Magic♪ (Birch) And of course on the side, Dick did weather on the weekends and you never knew when he was going to do a magic trick during the weather forecast.

And so I remember one time in particular he said, "Well, Joe, I guess I've written a book on weather."

And he brought out a book and I said, "No kidding, Dick?

That's great."

And he opened up and a giant flame roared out of it.

It sort of left you speechless and your eyebrows singed.

But you know, it was a fun place to be... with a magician weatherman.

I mean, where else can you get that but in America?

(narrator) "Magic Land" was a popular and long running show.

You could say the same thing about something else that has survived in one form or another for decades... [bell dings] Studio wrestling.

[crowd cheering] Actually, wrestling has been a crowd favorite for a long, long time...before it was ever in a studio at all.

In its early days, WMCT broadcast wrestling matches from Ellis Auditorium.

Then a studio wrestling show ran on Channel 13 for many years before moving to Channel 5.

Dave Brown was a radio dj when he was tapped for the show.

(Brown) Lance Russell was the program director at Channel 13 and the host of the wrestling show.

He came to me and he said, "I'd like to have you be my co-host on the show."

He said, "I need somebody to help me out."

And he said, "If you ever think you might want to get in TV "you should take this job because it will be the best training you can get."

(Brown) So I did.

Couldn't stand wrestling.

I just took the job for the experience.

Don't get over there and get ready to ring no bell, Dave.

(Brown) But thirty-five years later, when I left wrestling, I couldn't wait to get here on Saturday morning and see just what we were going to do next.

We all got together in a dorm room on Saturday morning and watched Dave Brown and Lance Russell and Jerry Lawler and a cast of thousands do battle.

Is that who I think it is?

Yes it is.

What is this?

Well what does it look like?

Tell me what does it look like?

I heard he was gong to be here today so I dressed appropriately.

That's what it is.

The Super King, what else?

(Brown) And of course the whole theory of wrestling changed in that time.

When I started, we sort of had to pretend amongst regular human beings that wrestling was probably real and that everything you saw on television was actually happening.

And that guy was really being hurt that badly.

And of course when Vince McMahon came around in New York and pretty much admitted there was a lot of choreography involved - it's still a rough sport, but a lot of choreography involved - it simplified our lives a great deal.

And it was just as much fun and it's just as successful.

It's amazing.

(narrator) Overall studio wrestling is probably the most popular program ever to run in Memphis.

Over the years there were other popular shows, both local and network.

But when it comes to Memphis TV personalities... [scary music] ♪♪♪ (narrator) It's quite possible that the most beloved character of all was this guy.

Of course we're talking about....Sivad!

♪♪♪ Watson Davis was head of public relations for Malco Theaters.

That's where he developed the character.

Sivad is Davis spelled backwards.

In the early 60s, Channel 13 bought a package of old horror movies and hired Davis to host the show.

It was called "Fantastic Features."

Doyle Childress was the show's director.

He also took part in it.

Not only was he the mysterious voice that talked to Sivad, he also appeared on camera.

(Childress) They would cut from the horror movies right before going to commercial to Sivad, and there was a little skinny guy that would come out with a clipboard and have a white doctor's coat on.

And this was his psychiatrist for his very corny jokes.

(Childress) I would have the clipboard, I would look at him, and you can imagine how corny the jokes were.

And the camera would zoom in on my face - every week the same routine.

I went into a store to buy something the other day.

I said, "I want to try on that suit in the window."

And the clerk said, "I'm sorry, sir, but you will have to use the dressing room."

[laughing] (male announcer) Sivad, please.

Actually I went in to get something for my wife and the manager said, "What are you asking for her?"

[laughing] (male announcer) Sivad... (narrator) The show went off the air in 1972, but as far as Memphians are concerned... [voice echoing] Sivad lives forever.

And a good, good evening to you.

[scary music] ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ (male narrator) From the earliest days of television, there has been TV news.

A completely different animal from its cousin, the radio.

TV network reporters became familiar faces as they brought the world into Memphians' living rooms.

In 1951, WMCT hired a young man who played records on the radio in Birmingham, Alabama.

He would become the first face of Memphis television news.

This is Dick Hawley, friends.

I'm really pleased to be able to speak to you folks that have all those fine television sets out there in the Birmingham vicinity.

(Birch) Dick Hawley was Mr.

Television, I mean, he really and truly was the legendary broadcaster from WMC.

And he came here in a time when there were only three channels: CBS, NBC, and ABC.

And people regarded the Dick Hawleys of America as the real movie stars.

(man) Dick was just wonderful.

Dick was a pro's pro.

Dick could adlib like no man you ever saw.

(man) Dick had the air of authority, and of course a great voice.

For instance, a cotton dress deserves special attention.

(Martindale) My two heroes in Memphis on television were Trent Wood and Dick Hawley, the Esso reporter.

Memphis bank clearings soar to a new all time high so far in 1954.

(narrator) Dick didn't just read the news.

In those early days he also did the weather and the commercials.

Florida Melba...the cigar supreme.

We did live commercials, weather shows... I even did some wrestling matches back in the old days.

And it was one of those things where the demand was so great on television to introduce people to new things.

And the talent - we didn't have any talent - but the talent was so unspecialized that anybody got a crack at doing anything back in those days.

And it was really fun.

(narrator) You had to be pretty unflappable to handle all that and Dick really was.

You know, you can make a lasting impression with a Melba anytime, but there's one particular time when the offering of a cigar means...nevermind.

Start over again.

You know you can make a lasting impression with a cigar anytime.

(Brown) He was getting ready to come out to do the weather.

He'd been doing the news, so now he was standing up instead of sitting behind the desk.

So he had unzipped his pants and he was reaching in through the fly to pull his shirttail down so it would be neat and straight while he was doing the weather.

(Brown) Well, they came back on camera just as Dick was zipping up his pants.

He never missed a beat.

He looked right in the camera and he said, "Sorry folks - just neatening up for you a bit" and went right on with the weather.

(narrator) Dick also served as emcee at countless beauty contests and talent shows.

In later years he anchored "Wake Up Call" with Peggy Ross.

And he was usually the voice you heard on station IDs.

(Hawley) Good morning, and welcome to the showplace of the south.

At this time WMC-TV begins its broadcast day.

(narrator) His career with Channel 5 lasted for 42 years - longer than any other news anchor in town!

During that period, TV news changed beyond recognition.

(man) The tools that we had back in the 1950s, by comparison with what television stations have today, were absolutely primitive.

I'll give you a perfect example.

Here at WREG now and at every station in every local market, their network affiliations send down national/international stuff that's less than an hour old by way of satellite transmission and you have it here to edit and look at in a matter of minutes.

In my day at Channel 5 NBC news, the stuff we got from the networks had to be done on film - 16mm film - which had to be processed and duplicated for all of their affiliates.

So it was 1, 2, 3, 4 days old sometimes.

(narrator) In the days before videotape, there was only film to work with.

News crews took film cameras into the field with them.

And since film isn't reusable, they had to do their best to get the shot right the first time.

Then it came back to the station to be processed and edited if there was time for that.

(Greaney) They had a very elaborate process.

It had to be run through a machine.

It took 40 minutes for that film to make its trip all the way through the various chemicals to come out at the other end.

And of course the thing was you hoped it came out the other end, but frequently it snapped or something happened inside while it was being pulled through.

And then you got a call from the laboratory in the back saying, "I don't have any film for five o'clock."

(man) You just had to cut it with your fingers.

We had a Movieola which you run the film through, and you would stop it, lift it up, break it, you had to glue it together with a hot plate.

(man) When you cut, there was no making copies of things.

You didn't have the advantage of tape.

When you used a shot, you used a shot.

(narrator) For a long time, TV stations didn't have that many people working in news.

So you had to be a jack of all trades.

When I got the job, I was the producer, the editor, the anchor, and sometimes the reporter.

We had no staff, no electronics, tape;3 hadn't "#:á#áááááeven bed then.2-2-[2[2[2[2[2[2[2[2[2[26Lv (Cook) It was a one man show every night at ten o'clock.

I did the news, the weather, the sports, and then after a break, I introduced the late movie.

May I tell you how much I got paid for doing that?

It's almost embarrassing.

(Cook) In addition to the salary I was getting for doing radio, which was minimal, I got three dollars a night.

Fifteen dollars a week for doing the ten o'clock news on Channel 3.

(narrator) Esso wasn't the only company to sponsor news segments.

Here, Paul Norman anchors a newscast sponsored by Golden Fluffo Shortening.

Interview shows came on the scene too.

An early show on WREC radio called "Breakfast Club" would become "Good Morning from Memphis" on Channel 3.

(woman) Some man called and his name was Johannes and I was saying, "Yes, your highness."

You know, oh man... [laughing] But you laugh your way through it.

You just keep on going.

I mean, once you do it on television it's it.

(narrator) The world of sports reporting was a little primitive in the early days.

(man) Sports on WMC in the early days was not, how will I say this?

Was not a top priority.

We had when I first started there one photographer, Charlie Caldwell.

And it used to bug me I couldn't get sports film.

So I thought, "I'll shoot it myself."

(narrator) That's exactly what he did.

Calling the game while looking through the viewfinder until videotape came on the scene in the 1970s.

As the medium grew, there was a chance to have some fun with it.

Great Scott!

Great Scott!

Great Scott!

Great Caesar's Ghost!

I don't believe what I saw!

(Eaton) I probably got it out of the funny papers.

Dick Tracy used to say "Great Scott!"

a lot.

Why I started saying it I don't know.

Great Caesar's Ghost [sighs] I don't know where that came from either.

It's an old one - it's been around for a long time.

I didn't invent it.

(narrator) But he did invent sports poetry, at least in Memphis he did.

Let's see....the meaning of life.

As I gaze back through time it became perfectly clear, the one burning question is why are we here?

Philosophers and thinkers down through the ages, have put millions of words on thousands of pages.

But their logic was flawed and had a hollow ring, because they assumed we're here for the very same thing.

Ah, but my inspiration revealed that each time has a season.

We're all placed on earth for a different reason.

So for my time in repose I have no regrets.

Because I found that I'm here to hate the Yankees more than the Mets.

♪♪♪ (narrator) As time went by, TV news crews had more challenges to meet.

Presidents came to town.

This is President John Kennedy's motorcade on Union Avenue.

Of course local politicians were covered too.

Memphis has grown into a great city.

It is no longer a little city, it is a metropolis of a great area.

(narrator) Trent Wood and a WMCT cameraman captured the only interview of Mayor Edward H. Crump ever caught on film.

We are having our usual wonderful day.

It'll be a great game between two great teams.

For a great cause.

(narrator) As time went by, color television was born and eventually took over completely from black and white.

Memphians flocked to see demonstrations of color TV.

Soon everyone wanted a color set.

Boy, look!

He's wearing a blue suit...he's got a red tie on... and she's wearing a red dress!

It was just amazing.

♪♪♪ (narrator) And new technology didn't stop there.

When I started in the news station, the only computer in the building was in the traffic department upstairs.

(Birch) There was a typewriter at your desk with the ink, and it was like the old newsroom stories of yesteryear.

You know, like the old movies where we got in there and banged out newscasts on typewriters.

And if you made a mistake you had to rip it out and start all over again.

I have no idea how much we spent on carbon copies in this building.

♪♪♪ (narrator) From the very beginning of course, local TVGGGGGGGG covered the rise to fame of Elvis Presley.

(Wood) Elvis was without a doubt the most polite person I was ever around.

Yes sir, no sir, no ma'am, yes ma'am, may I please, could I do this... Last time I saw Elvis in 1975, he still called me Mr.

and I said, "Elvis call me Trent."

"Yes, sir."

(narrator) WHBQ-TV captured the first interview with Elvis when he got home from the army.

(man) Do you have plans of moving away from Memphis?

No, sir.

I have no plans for leaving Memphis.

(man) Are you going to keep Graceland?

I'm going to keep Graceland as long as I possibly can.

[laughing] (narrator) When the King died at Graceland in August 1977, crews covered that too.

In fact, it marked a new milestone for local TV news.

Channel 5 provided live coverage of the funeral from a helicopter.

(man) Here is our exclusive shot from a helicopter over Elvis Presley Boulevard.

And there you see that long, long, long line of white cars moving down Elvis Presley Boulevard.

(narrator) Mason Granger provided the live narration while a cameraman struggled to keep the signal in the right place.

(man) We were doing the microwave.

Somebody physically laying on the floor of that helicopter and aiming that microwave to a live truck down on the ground.

(narrator) Channel 5 had one of the first live remote trucks.

And for many years it was the only one in the South.

We can see the station employees wore natty trench coats with the station logo on the back.

Going out on remote used to be an enormous undertaking.

It could take two full days to set up for one.

Eventually that time got shorter and shorter and reporters started doing more and more work actually live from the field.

As time went by, the old remote trucks gave way to newer and fancier models.

These held color cameras and eventually could send satellite signals as well as microwave.

Technology made an enormous difference in the way elections were covered.

At first results had to be posted by hand on big wooden boards.

Then it became possible to get them by computer.

Teletype machines were replaced by faxes.

And then by email, cell phones, and satellites.

(Dorman) I never dreamed that TV someday would be the way it is today.

Anytime of the day or night you can push a button, get a full newscast.

That was unheard of in the days that we started.

About the most that anybody ever did in the way of a newscast was 15 minutes.

And I never will forget when the CBS evening news changed from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

The public was asking, "How in the world can they fill 30 minutes with news?"

But we did and we still do.

(man) Gosh knows where it's going from here.

Cameras are getting smaller and pretty soon you're going to end up on disk.

TV Cameras will be disks and CDs.

You're not going to worry about tape anymore.

Microwave shots are going to be passé.

You're going to end up with fiber optics.

You can go to anybody's house, plug in your video and your audio to a telephone line and go by fiber optics.

(Brown) In the very near future we will not be shooting by videotape at all, and I mean very near future.

It'll all be edited in computers, it will all exist as computer files which will be much more stable and the storage will be minute compared to what we have now and certainly minute compared to when we had cans of film.

♪I ain't got nobody♪ (narrator) Luckily for all of us, there are still a few old cans of film lying around gathering dust.

In them, we can still see early television.

A box full of magic that seemed to hold everything shiny and new.

It's been over half a century now since TV came to town, but if you listen maybe you can still hear those old signals.

[static] It doesn't seem like we've been around here all that long, but I guess we have.

Yes, sir, we sure have, Slim, and it's been a lot of fun.

I hope the folks are still enjoying it as much as we are, don't you?

That's it for now.

Have a good day today and get back with us tomorrow morning for the Tuesday morning news brought to you by Fluffo.

[national anthem playing] ♪♪♪ [test signal] ♪♪♪ (female announcer) Funding for "Memphis Memoirs: When TV Came to Town" is made possible by... (male announcer) Mid-America Apartment Communities, an apartment only real estate investment trust serving the Southeast and South central United States.

On the web at maac.net.

Mid-America Apartment Communities, creating great places to live.

And by the WKNO Partners in Excellence Fund, committed to presenting quality programming.

And also by members like you.

Thank you.