In the 1970s, we used to call the New York news on NBC at 5pm the "Fire and Death Report." (The lead anchor I believe was Chuck Scarborough.) I swear the first half hour of every show was just a rundown of all the horrible things that happened in NYC that day: fires, murders, robberies, etc.
It was sort of lucky for them that all that terrible stuff waited until around 5 o'clock to happen, too. It was probably a great relief to the production staff. Imagine the daily meeting:
-- "It's 4:45 guys, and we got nothin'." -- "Hey, there's 7 million people in this city, and 33% of them are clinically insane. Just wait." -- "Yeah, we've still got 15 minutes, and they've never let us down. Remember July 17th, 1967? I remember like it was yesterday...Real hot outside...must've been 103 in the shade...Slow news day... Five minute to go, and some joker opens the monkey cage at the Central Park Zoo. We got 17 minutes out of that one." -- "Hey... we just got a call. A riot just broke out in the line of people waiting to get into the Seals & Crofts concert at the Garden. One guy thought it was the Loggins & Messina show and got pissed off when he found out he waited 4 hours in line to hear the theme to the Paper Chase..."
Anyway, after the rundown of the days "events" they'd still have 1/2 hour to fill. It really could have been described as "stuff that happened somewhere." Once, they showed a car that had somehow gotten stuck down one of those street elevators. It wasn't even a local story; it was in Indiana or Oregon or somewhere else, maybe another country. I remember saying "What is this doing on the news?" This bit is 100% accurate.
Mark,
ReplyDeleteIn the 1970s, we used to call the New York news on NBC at 5pm the "Fire and Death Report." (The lead anchor I believe was Chuck Scarborough.) I swear the first half hour of every show was just a rundown of all the horrible things that happened in NYC that day: fires, murders, robberies, etc.
It was sort of lucky for them that all that terrible stuff waited until around 5 o'clock to happen, too. It was probably a great relief to the production staff. Imagine the daily meeting:
-- "It's 4:45 guys, and we got nothin'."
-- "Hey, there's 7 million people in this city, and 33% of them are clinically insane. Just wait."
-- "Yeah, we've still got 15 minutes, and they've never let us down. Remember July 17th, 1967? I remember like it was yesterday...Real hot outside...must've been 103 in the shade...Slow news day... Five minute to go, and some joker opens the monkey cage at the Central Park Zoo. We got 17 minutes out of that one."
-- "Hey... we just got a call. A riot just broke out in the line of people waiting to get into the Seals & Crofts concert at the Garden. One guy thought it was the Loggins & Messina show and got pissed off when he found out he waited 4 hours in line to hear the theme to the Paper Chase..."
Anyway, after the rundown of the days "events" they'd still have 1/2 hour to fill. It really could have been described as "stuff that happened somewhere." Once, they showed a car that had somehow gotten stuck down one of those street elevators. It wasn't even a local story; it was in Indiana or Oregon or somewhere else, maybe another country. I remember saying "What is this doing on the news?" This bit is 100% accurate.