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<DIV>I want to episode out of the LA market Bozo where the kid
says... cram it Clown!</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 PTSIZE="10">Thanks,<BR><BR>Ed
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 3/28/2011 9:06:51 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time,
dave@zfx.com writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>Well,
this does have to do with Quad....
<DIV>This story by Vince Staten from Sunday's Kingsport Times News tells part
of the story...</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN style="BORDER-COLLAPSE: collapse; FONT-FAMILY: arial, sans-serif; FONT-SIZE: 13px" class=Apple-style-span>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Johnny Carson used to rail against NBC, his employer, for its
shortsightedness in the sixties and early seventies.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Every afternoon the network would record his “Tonight” show on
videotape for replay later in the evening. The shows were saved for a time
until sometime in the early seventies when an employee, intent on saving the
company money on purchasing videotape, which was expensive at the time,
recorded over the Carson library.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Carson complained that much of his best work on the show was
lost.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>It was. In fact much television from the early years of TV is gone.
Broadcasters reused tapes again and again.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>But there is surviving tape from Kingsport’s Bozo the Clown Show,
thanks to Dave Sieg, who was just a high school kid in 1969, working part time
at WKPT-TV after school.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>But we are getting ahead of ourselves.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Let’s got back to 1967. “D-B was brand spanking new,” remembers Dave,
“and they had a TV studio!”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5><SPAN> </SPAN>Dave was trying to negotiate his way up and
down the ramps of the new D-B when he walked past a half-open doorway. “I got
a glimpse of plastic-wrapped racks of equipment and a guy scratching his head
looking at some drawings. Not being able to resist, I stepped in and asked him
what all the equipment was for. ‘This is going to be a TV studio! Do you want
to help me put it together?’ he asked. His name was Gary Smith and that
invitation undoubtedly changed the course of my life. I had always tinkered
with old radios and electronic kits, but this was on a completely different
level! I thought I had died and gone to heaven!”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Dave, who owns the technology consulting company ZFx, credits Gary
Smith with teaching him everything he knows about video.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>“We had a great time playing video production and doing live homeroom
‘broadcasts’ every morning.”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>When Kingsport’s local cable company was sold to United Transmission of
Kansas City, the new owner began originating local programming on cable
channel 12, KUTI-TV. It was mostly stuff like Felix the Cat cartoons and a
live newscast, which Dave says, “consisted of a guy reading the paper aloud
weekday afternoons.” But they needed workers. “I was hired with two other
guys. We lugged one of the cameras and a 100 lb videotape recorder to the
National Guard Armory and shot ‘Wrasslin’’ every Wednesday night and then we
did the same thing every Saturday night at the old Gem Theatre, shooting the
‘Lonesome Valley Jamboree.’”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Then when WKPT-TV signed on the air August 20, 1969, Dave got a job
working there after school on, among other shows, the Bozo the Clown kids’
show. Also working on the Bozo show was George Hilton. “George had done
lighting at the Olde West dinner theatre and so he was our set and lighting
man.”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Bozo made its debut the first week in September 1969.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Bozo was played by Rusty Cury, a WKPT deejay. “Rusty had been to Larry
Harmon’s ‘Bozo School’ where he learned to apply all the makeup, wear the
costume and talk like Bozo.<SPAN> </SPAN>He took over the women’s
restroom every afternoon getting ready.”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>The show featured a live studio audience of Kingsport kids who played
games for prizes and watched cartoons. The show ran for two years but George
Hilton left before the end of the run.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>“On George’s final day at work, we convinced Bozo (Rusty Curry) to drag
George out in front of the camera and dance around with him during the musical
kiddy-pan.”</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Dave recorded it on a two-inch videotape and then wound the tape up on
a pencil because video reels were expensive.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>He put it away and forgot about it. “Then a couple of years ago, I
visited my friend Larry Odham [CQ], who has managed to keep some of the old
2-inch quad videotape machines working in his basement lab. We unrolled the
tape onto a reel and lo and behold, it played
perfectly!”<SPAN> </SPAN></FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Dave later posted the clip, which runs almost three minutes,
online.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>The segment features Rusty Cury as Bozo dancing around and cavorting
with Hilton.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>If you were on the Bozo show, you’ll want to check out the video
because the camera pans the studio audience, some twenty or so kids who look
to be six to ten. One of them could be you.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>The clip is at <A style="COLOR: rgb(6,88,181)" title=http://www.vimeo.com/3814121 href="http://www.vimeo.com/3814121" target=_blank>www.vimeo.com/3814121</A>. I have a link on my blog, <A style="COLOR: rgb(6,88,181)" title=http://vincestaten.blogspot.com/ href="http://vincestaten.blogspot.com/" target=_blank>vincestaten.blogspot.com</A>.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5>Those kids are now almost fifty. Let me know if you are one of them or
if you can identify any of the kids.</FONT></P>
<P style="TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class=MsoNormal><FONT size=5></FONT> </P></SPAN>- And I KNOW the QuadGroup has some Bozo
stories....<BR>-- <BR>Dave Sieg<BR><A title=http://www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg" target=_blank>www.linkedin.com/in/davesieg</A><BR><A title=http://www.davesieg.com/ href="http://www.davesieg.com/" target=_blank>www.davesieg.com</A><BR><A title=http://www.scanimate.net/ href="http://www.scanimate.net/" target=_blank>www.scanimate.</A>com<BR><BR></DIV><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Please
trim posts to relevant info when replying!<BR>Send QuadList list posts to
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here:<BR>http://mail.quadvideotapegroup.com/mailman/listinfo/quadlist_quadvideotapegroup.com<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>