Well, we did the rest of the "Tiger Terrell Show", AND the news with only one camera, while MD wondered what was holding up Tiger's Pyth Helmut?????
#1....The Fish Tank..... WAAY-TV's first newcast was called ..."THE WAAY OF THE WORLD"....A title first coined by MD III and used extensively by the radio station. The graphics for this first newscast were done by rear screen projectors and the Anchors stood up at a podium, with hopefully just enough light on the news reader, so that you could still see the background graphic on a screen the size of Wyoming.. In the studio, we had also begun a morning studio talk show called ...."COFFEE BREAK"......This had the traditional couches and chairs, and one "homey" attraction....A FISH TANK.....
In the early days, the first News Director/Anchor...Dan Akens, also shot, processed and edited film, and somewhere in between wrote copy....One night when arriving on the set while the "WAAY of the WORLD" theme was playing, Dan discovered that the Fish Tank, which was about 50 Gallons of water and 50 guppies and assorted tropical fish, on a wrought iron stand....was right up next to the podium, where he needed to stand, (to catch that aformentioned light)....He put the script down and tried to "schootch" the tank out of the way.....
The tank of course went crashing to the floor, with glass, water and fish flying everywhere......Soaking wet from the knees down, with fish flopping and cutting themselves on the broken glass....The floor director cues him...(O.K. No Floor Director...The Studio Cameraman cues him)......"Good Evening...from Huntsville...This is ..."The WAAY of the World" !!!! (When the first film roles Dan tries to pick up as many flopping fish as possible and put them back in what's left of the broken tank)
#2....."Tiger and the Go-Cart"....... "MD" thought we needed an afternoon children's show.... (Not having learned his lesson with Bennie Carl) We took a DJ from WAAY Radio ...named Tiger Terrell, put a Pyth Helmut on him and thus the "TIGER TERRILL SHOW" was launched....There was only one problem with Tiger Terrell hosting a children's show..... Tiger was still a CHILD, himself... One day a sponser had a Go Cart in the studio..... During a station break, Tiger decided to start the Go-Cart ...IN the studio and began to "spin" around the studio crew, going .."Whee!"..until he came in contact with the pedestal of Camera Three ( We only had two cameras but it sounded better to call one of them "3")....The camera and pedestal shot to the concrete floor, smashing the lens turret...and basically giving "Cactus" a pretty good sized project....(Fortunately, all the Alumni know "Cactus" Gay...and I don't have to explain any political correctness in regard to his name...he was born somewhere in the prop storage area of the old studio, and just never left)
Well, we did the rest of the "Tiger Terrell Show", AND the news with only one camera, while MD wondered what was holding up Tiger's Pyth Helmut?????
#3..."Fire in Atlanta"......Dan Akens had worked for Smith Broadcasting for four years, first at WAAY Radio, Then at WJIG in Tullahoma, Tn., at WNUE in Fort Walton, and finally with MD at a production studio for all the stations in the Smith Broadcasting Offices in Homewood, Alabama. Dan left to go do news, as Ex. Producer of the Georgia News Network at flagship station WGST in Atlanta. While working in the newsroom one day, the switchboard called Dan and said he had a phone call from someone who said, there was a fire at the Heart of Atlanta Motel and they could give him an eyewitness report.... When Dan got on the phone, it was M.D.Smith the 3rd, trying to disguise his voice (which was impossible...he could do several different voices, but if you knew M.D....you knew all the voices were his)
Anyway, after saying...."there'a fire at the Heart of Atlanta Motel"...Dan said..."What are you doing M.D. ????".....
M.D. said...."we've just bought the TV station in Huntsville, and I want to talk to you about coming back to work for us as News Director/Anchor.....And the rest is history! (Here's Dan with a 16mm Bolex, the staple of the TV news industry for silent cameras)
MD 4...Stop me, before I hurt myself!!!!.... Here's one from WAAY Radio days, but since you guys adopted the Christmas Parade, you may not know this story...
#4......"Lights and Sirens"......This is about the first WAAY Christmas Parade.... For whatever reason, the city would not give us a fire truck for Santa to Ride on...Maybe because they had their own Christmas Parade... I can't remember.....But I know that we put on the first WAAY Christmas Parade and it was to end up at Parkway City, which of course sponsored, the whole thing....We read Christmas Stories on the air for ten days leading up to Santa's Big Day....Miss "Mary Christmas", read the stories (Many of which I wrote, because there weren't that many good stories then and MD wanted 10 days of advertising out of this),,,and then with MD supplying the sound effect of the short wave radio, we would contact Santa and see where he was on his trip...but I digress..... We couldn't get the fire truck, so we decided to use the convertible (kind of maroon, but almost red) of "Wild Bill Malone"...the night-time dee-jay at WAAY Radio....He was the Mayor of "Lick Skillet", up there near Fayetteville...
Well, there we were in the WAAY Christmas Parade, Miss Merry Christmas in her little red outfit on the back of the convertible "Wild Bill" behind the wheel and I was in the passenger seat, when I discovered that under the dashboard, Bill had some switches for flashing lights inside his grill work and a siren that sounded just like an emergency vehicle....SOoo, I laid on those numerous times during the parade and kids loved it....(Did I say Tiger Terrell was a kid?) ....Anyhow, when we pulled up at Parkway City, two cop cars asked us to pull up by the front of the mall and they began to look under the hood for the "lights and sirens".....Seems they had been looking for a car that would flash and run its siren up and down the Fayetteville Highway !!!!.....I think M.D. got "Wild Bill" off the hook, paid the fine, or whatever....
All for now.... Sorry to get carried away. Dan