From my well earned position as an old grouch, I'd like to remind you of the "good old days" when we posted Tulsa radio and TV memories...instead of gab about old cars, hamburger joints etc. For the most part,the thoughts of good old days sound like modern times to an old geezer like me.

Hey, Noel, I saw you in the 1948 Tom Tom, too!

Does anyone remember the Ford Fairmonts the police had and how easy they were to outrun? How about the Yum Yum at 51st and Peoria, the Chuck Wagon restaurant at 11th west of Lewis or the Pancake House at 11th and Utica.

Shoppers Fair at 21st and Sheridan or Jubilee City on East Admiral. I'll try to think of more later.

I noticed that, in Frank Morrow's 1947 Radio Log, KAKC is listed as 1570 kHz.

Does anyone know the story behind this one?

When did the frequency change to 970 kHz?

Thanks!

Here is a picture of Sonny from his announcing days. Surprise, Sonny! Also check out Lowell Burch's AMX in the pic with his note about 11 notes down from here.

Hello Tulsa...I used to go to the Apache drive in movies ...I grew up between the Admiral Twin and Airview movie drive ins...when we weren't old enough we bought beer at Big Johns beer joint over off of Apache...also where I bought my first match box of marijuana...$3.00 a matchbox....Latimer's Bar-B-Que was a hopping place back then too....Boots drive in was the cool place to go ...unless you were into a lot of grease in your hair and that would get you noticed at the Cottons Drive In and Jack Horners....Kings snooker hall was the best place to play pool or snooker and smoke to your hearts content....back then there was a gang called Dawson's Dirty Dozen...with guys with names like James "Dog" Dagenet and Boe "Brass Knuckles" Baker. and Phillip "Haymaker" Bean and Ricky "the Rooster" Butts...I wonder if Tulsa keeps a record of their Miss Tulsa's...we have had some real babes and it seems there should be a history of them somewhere...Jan Glass was a real babe Miss Tulsa around 66 or 67.....I enjoyed the site...thank you Tulsa TV stars.

I haven't yet found a site with the Miss Tulsas of the past...check out Mr. Brumley's art work; he is very talented. I grew up in the same area, between McKinley and Mitchell Elementary schools. Was King's snooker hall the one on King Street? Between the Cardinal food store and Butler Drug? It sounds like part of the world of S.E. Hinton's novels.

According to the FCC's database, the KOPE call letters are currently used by a low power station in Iowa. Also, I would doubt the channel number, because 51 is being used by the NBC station in Fayetteville, Arkansas. If skip starts flying this way from that station, ghosting could be a problem. But, if it is true, I would expect it to be a religious low power station, similar to channel 69.

I think that the best police car I've ever seen was the one employed by the fishing village of Winter Harbor, Maine. It was used only in the summer, when the touristers wandered in.

The vehicle was a VW Bug. It was hilarious watching it try to catch up with a speeder.

I heard this evening on the radio that Tulsa is getting yet another new TV station. KOPE channel 51. Does anyone have any info on it?

This is the most excellent site in Tulsa. Ah, for the good ol days of local TV news. You had your Lionels and Gustys but you had real solid news to go with it. Now, we don't have Gusty or indepth news. It's a pity.

The AMX (American Motors eXperimental) was introduced to the public by American Motors Corp in February of 1968 to compete with other 2 seater sports cars such as the Corvette. The AMX is similar to the Javelin model that debuted in September 1967 to compete with the Mustangs, but with a foot cut out of the wheelbase, leaving no room for a back seat.

The original AMX concept was developed beginning in October 1965. It's interesting to note that one of the first concept drawing showed the car with a Ramble seat in the back.

All AMXs were numbered with a dash-mounted plaque, but the company kept the first 50 numbers and reserved them for celebrities who might want buy one. I wonder who has those 50 now???

I wonder if Lowell might be one of those celebrities?

Yeah - I think we are on a Tulsa Car Memories tangent here!

A real AMX still in service! I would have it under sheets in the garage. We got dyslexic and called them MAX's in the '70's. 2 of my friends in high school had brothers with them - not a Mustang, but....What DOES AMX stand for?

As previously mentioned here - Harry Volkman had an AMC (duh Rambler) Marlin in the late 70's while at WMAQ in Chicago. Then radio talent Henry Cooke used to josh him about it a lot when Harry did early morning WMAQ *radio* weather cut-ins.

KOCO in OKC had a fleet of the last run of AMC/Jeep "Eagle" 4WD mini-wagons as newscruisers in the early '80's - heavy on maintenance but unstoppable in up to 5 inches of snow. They replaced all but 1 with K-car mini-station wagons which surprisingly ran okay in snow for early FWD cars. KOCO did not go with the van flow or only bought a few Chevy Caprice "bluesmobiles" to complement all the FWD Eagles when I was there...

I think it is grossly unfair for the website guru to point out that his MOTHER went to highschool with me. Jeez.

(I'm really expecting somebody to bring up their grandmother, but they'd better not. I might be able to tell them a thing or two about HER.)

It just adds to your aura as a grand (ahem) man of broadcasting.

Is this the Tulsa Old Car Memories? To John Hillis - I owned a Volare. It, too, had an electrical fire. I drove it into Clark Motor Company on 11th with the interior full of acrid smoke. The mechanic said they could not find out why it was burning up. I said I would have to sell it since I couldn't see where I was going and I was choking pretty bad on the smoke and all, so the guy who was working on it asked how much I wanted for the car. I told him and he bought it on the spot!

My daily driver is a blue 1969 AMX that I have owned since my college days. It may be a Rambler but at least I haven't experienced any fires in it yet.

Volare, woe woe!

To: Jim Ruddle

But WHICH Tulsa Hudson dealer got the big sale? Tulsa then would have bought a good number for the city - in the days before fleet sales were inaugurated! Would have loved to have bought one used!

Oddest police car of my youth was in Westmont, IL. Benny Shermeta's Used Cars was a CHECKER new car dealer. Westmont had a 1968 or 1969 Checker Police Car as the low bid winner back then. I think it was wrecked shortly after acquisition and replaced by Chevy's.

Duh - it's black and white and looks like a cab, but.....

You may remember from your DC days, Falls Church, VA had Volvo cruisers for several years!

For auto buffs who treasure really sick items: In 1948, Tulsa police cars were--so help me God--Hudsons!

Hey, Jim Ruddle! Spotted you a couple of times in my mom's 1948 Tom Tom (Central H.S. yearbook).

I was flashin' back.

My telecine guy here was dubbing McGovern and Nixon re-election spots today here from National Archives material in preparation to doing some tape-to-tape color correction work. Neat stuff but not as slick as today. Can anyone here remember "The November Group" - who came together every 4 years to produce spots for national campaigns?

BTW - our client for the color correction work? The Cartoon Network!

Got this on another weblink. At KTUL we were the last in town to put magnetic cue tape on films to have it stop a projector after a break. That's because we had LIVE human projectionists to load/rewind/cue film in the '70's.

FROM Dave Robertson,Digital Video Engineer, Sonic Foundry Media Services,Madison, WI 53704

"The metal tab on the film reminded me of another film chain automation. Cue tones on an audio cart would cause the slide projector to advance to the next slide in a "slide/cart" spot. That way you had another :30 to load film on a projector or cue a quad tape. Otherwise you had sit with copy and advance the slides manually! In the small market station where I worked (Anchorage, AK) we were doing this into the early 80's."

That was MORE advanced than we had at 8 or 6 in the '70's but then quad tape was headed toward paloookaville with what looked then like 3/4" tape taking over. By the way - 4 years ago we still made 2" copies of spots here to send places like this in "political years".

Plymouth or Dodge - do you remember when TPD and the brothers in blue in Wichita both ran "scout cars" from Chrysler in the 70's? Were those Aspens or Volares?

Traffic enforcement in Wichita had the OMNI/TC3 hatchback decoy cars (in regular not police colors) with radar slung in the back with a black & white parked around the corner to write the tickets? I learned when in Wichita to drive SLOWLY around any Chrysler product with the hatch open on a residential street.

Ditto when drivin' from Sayre to Amarillo in the late '70's - you were leary of white unmarked big Chevy wagons on the shoulder - usually the DPS "welcome to Texas" speed trap cars....

John Hillis will remember 6's wacky named of vans in the '70's - several times I drove an EMU or so it was painted on the side - "Electronic Mobile Unit" - really a glorified stripped down Ford van bought cheap and 6 staff had put in pegboard, maybe bunjee cords or tie-down straps and carpet du jour on the floor. Usually with balding tires and bent mirrors. But it was a rolling billboard. Heaven help you if you drove John Bateman's unit with 18 scanners and power invertors and whatnot. It WAS a newsmobile! You FELT like a hotshot newsdude when behind the wheel.

Here in DC now - a lot of news units are unmarked and tend toward FORD Crown Victoria looks. In OK we had to have either a van or station wagon - most slathered in stripes or station logos. I am told cars are usually not painted here or in New Yawk City to discourage break-ins....Now the ABC and CBS affiliates here have some smaller trucks "prettied up" with new paint schemes....

I didn't have a Bob Drewel "Ahrspin," but I will confess to owning its Chrysler cousin, the Plymouth Volare, which had to be one of the worst vehicles ever.

My first Tulsa winter, snow pack from my shoes got into the floorboard headlight dimmer switch and I had flames licking my cuffs. The service guy at the dealer (not Drewel) said that was a new one on him. He had to replace the foot switch and the burned carpet.

And that was before the warranty ran out. After 24,000 miles, the thing really went downhill. (Actually, that was about the only way it'd make a left turn without stalling out.. downhill)

Y'all mentioned Mr. Meadors sellin' those Dodge "Aspirins" for Bob "Drool". I remember for a time they ran those spots just ahead of the Tonight Show. We all got a hoot out of those spots, but our dad did particularly. Those spots kinda filled the void left when Daniel P. Holmes quit runnin' his spots yellin' about fixin' highway 33!

Wish I could get a pic of Dan P. Holmes...(9/11/00) And here one is, courtesy of Frank Morrow!

I was just thinking about Doc Ock the other day. When he was in business, my sister saw his wife in Sam's. She was wearing her Doc Ock name tag and was buying a stack of TVs. My sis asked if they bought all of their stock at Sam's. The lady was embarrassed. She realized that she had forgotten to take off her ID tag and said, "My husband would kill me if anyone found out I was wearing my name tag while buying electronic merchandise in Sam's but we ran out of TV's! I had to buy some more!"

The Hungry Pelican was pretty popular back when. I had almost forgot about it.

Don’t know much about her current situation, but when she came to Channel 8 Jenny Johnston was given weekend weather duty. Since she had no experience, she pleaded with me (the weekend anchor) to run her TelePrompTer. I had never seen anyone use a TelePrompTer on the weather, but she used it for several months until she became comfortable.

Ed Poston did sports on weekends for a time when I was at KTUL-TV in the mid ‘70s.

Also, note to Gary Chew and Nathan Wilcox, please send me your email addresses. I lost my entire address book following computer problems.

My mother was a elevator operator at the Philtower Building in the late 50's and early 60's. Every day, Cy Tuma would get on her elevator and she would always say "Floor, please", which she knew, but she used to get a big kick out of Mr. Tuma saying, "now Ada, you know which floor I get off on".

Now one story she used to tell me about was one day Mr. Tuma got on with some big wigs from the network. One said to my mother after she said floor please, "Boy, you must have your ups and downs every day, don't you?" To which my mother replied, "it's not the ups and downs that bothers me so much as it is the jerks". At which time Mr. Tuma started laughing and he laughed all the way to their floor.

Emmett, thank you for the stories...now added to the Cy Tuma page!

Does anyone remember the Bob Drewel Dodge ads from the seventies? They were located at 11th and Harvard. They sold Dodge Asperns (Aspens). That one always made me laugh. What about the Hungry Pelican restaurant at the same location? Also where can I hear the Rebel Jeans song? Thanks a lot for the site, I enjoy it a lot.

Good one, pretty obscure. I preferred to think of it as Bob "Drool" Dodge. The salesman...Charles R. Meadors, I believe, selling "Ahrspens".

We need help on your other questions.

The great guitarist Andres Segovia provided me with two surprises in one week. The first one occurred when I was browsing in Tulsa Record Store on Boston Ave. I had never heard classical guitar before, only the pickin’ and grinnin’ type. When I put the Segovia record on the turntable (it was one of those new-fangled 33 rpm jobs), I listened for a bit, then asked the man who worked there if this was a multiple recording a la Les Paul. I could hardly believe it when the store employee said that it was not. I could not believe that one person could play all those notes simultaneously on a guitar.

The next day or so I was at KTUL, preparing to start my shift, relieving Al Clauser. A couple of the other announcers and some of Al’s band members were there. I mentioned to Al my experience at the record store, and asked him if he had ever heard of Andres Segovia. He said that Segovia was the world’s greatest guitarist. The other people around us were as surprised as I was to hear those words come out of mouth of one of the region’s most well known country and western bandleaders.

I, too, poseess a hand that shook the hand of Oom-a-gog. I will never forget it. I was in 1st grade in 1961. I was a celebrity in our small town classroom. I also saw mentioned that the late John Chick used to say "Hi Mabel" when Hub's Shop was mentioned in ads on his show. I knew Mabel and it always made her day when he said "hi" to her on the show. He was one of the Great Ones.

I hope that the young man who now owns Oom-a-gog will get a Tulsa special done some time on him. He has a lot of old friends around here that would like to see him again. Thanks for a great site that I visit almost daily. You sure jog a lot of memories.

You're welcome, B.J. That young man is Billy James Hargis II. You can read about him (and see him) on the "Oklahoma Memories" page, or the Oom-A-Gog page. I think he would be interested to see all the stuff on this site; maybe he will show up here one day.

Maybe someone who was around then can expand on this. Cy Tuma told me a story once about a show he used to do at 6. It was a Sunday night show and he would sit in a big easy chair near a fireplace. They hired a big dog of some kind to sit curled at his feet. He said it always amazed him that all through the 15 minute show, the dog would always stay curled there at his feet. One night, about 10 mintues before the show started, someone opened an outside door and the dog shot through it before anyone could do anything. They looked all over outside for the dog but couldn't find any sign of it. About 30 seconds before airtime, someone opened that same door and the dog came shooting through and curled up at Cy's feet just in time for air. Cy said he didn't know where the dog had gone, but luckily he had just enough time to get there and back.

Check out the new Cy Tuma page with all the stories about him from this site, plus a new picture or two!

Diane Elliott did marry Ed Poston. They had a little boy named Elliott, but have since split. I heard recently that she married a guy named Davis Ward who works at 8. This is what I've heard from other ex-KTUL folks.

Photo from "8's The Place" promotion, courtesy of Mike Bruchas. More photos from it on the KTUL page.

Weather "babes". What ever happened to Jenny Johnston at 8? Ditto Diane Elliott - someone said she married former 8 newsman Ed Poston.

You know that Bob Hower at KFMB in San Diego in the '60's supposedly hired Raquel Welch as a weekend weatherperson - her first broadcast TV job. And Regis Philbin was out there then,too, and is a Bob Hower long-time friend.

BTW, not to sound sexist - there is a "news babe" site out there that tracks what readers feel are the most babe-escent reporters and anchors around the country. Sorry - no "news hunks" page.....

"Not to sound sexist"...uh huh. Some visitors have impurified the concept by nominating guys.

I have enjoyed this site since it started. Even though I have always lived in OKC, the similarities of oldies TV are surprising. The dance show in OKC was hosted by Ronnie Kaye. It had two couples that went to the dance contest at American Bandstand and won. The first year they won first place and the second year they won second place. A trip to Hawaii and a corvette, respectively. A proud moment for OKC TV and OKC teens. They always broadcast the show from the fairgrounds during the state fair. It was fun to watch.

Tulsa TV Memories is great! Keep up the good work.

Thank you, Ms. Shaw.

Good to hear from Bill Van Burkleo. He is one of a few "Dance Party" attendees I remember from my period of hosting that show. I'm glad you were smart enough to get into medicine, Bill!

Now to Mr. Robertson's remembrance of Bell's offer to kids who made an "A" on their report card. Lionel was rebuked for telling his viewing kids to "Get their A's out to Bell's!" Of course he kept on using that admonition. Last but not least, our friend Gailard Sartain is playing in the movie "The Replacements." It's in Tulsa now and features Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves.

I remember KOTV dance party. I think that I was the first "Favorite football player". I still have the trophy they gave me. My sister Connie used to dance on that show and then went to Dick Clark's dance party and danced there some. Those days got me interested in television and while playing professional football in Canada I produced and directed TV in Canada. I then came back to Tulsa and was one of Tulsa Cable Television's first employees as their sports and special events director. Probably would still be in Television but went back to school and now practice Emergency Medicine.

Thanks, Bill...got your comments (and Lee Woodward's) onto the Dance Party page.

I apologize for the second post in one day, but looking at this great site brought back some other memories.

Remember in the late 60's/early 70's, the "Bell's Amusement Park" commercials, how at the end of the school year, you could bring your report cards and for every "A" that you got, you could receive a free ride ticket? Also, those commercials for the "B movies" like "The Legend of Boggy Creek". Then, in about 3 seconds, the announcer would blurt out the 20 small towns where the movie was playing:
Coweta, Sapulpa, Pawhuska, Checota, Owasso etc. Indelibly etched on me brain.

Rides for A's...good memory. We have discussed those mangled pronunciations here before... see Guestbook 8 and Guestbook 24 (near the bottom).

It was either in '65 or '66 when I was 5 years old, that I hit the pinnacle of my T.V. career. Channel 2 (they must have been KTEW at the time) had a daily contest to draw their famous weather robot "OOMAGOG", and my drawing was selected, and I got to see it hit "air". Not bad for kid from way up in Osage County. Ironically, I have been the morning show audio man at 2 for the past six years now.

Other Tulsa T.V. memories...The crazy "SEVCO" commercial that ran in the early 70's on one of the late nite fright shows...In a heavy european? (Transylvanian) accent... "SEVCO, VER VE SERVEECE, VAT VE SELL".

Any cartoon junkies out there? I remember in the late 60's and early 70's that the networks would run a Fall preview on the Friday night before the beginning of the brand new Saturday morning cartoon season. Our T.V. only got 3 channels back then (2, 6 and 8), so this was exciting stuff that I will never forget.

Thanks for listening

We learned in Guestbook 3 that this gentleman is named Joe Pierre. I, too, thought it to be an eastern European accent, but we are told that Joe is French. "Try it, you'll like it, SEVCO!"

Thanks for visiting, Joe. We'll be listening for you on Channel 2.

I was delighted to see a pic of my old friend, the late John Chick. We were in the same high school club. Johnny was on KRMG radio when I was announcing on Tulsa TV. I was in California (forty years) when he reached his star status on Tulsa TV. He was always a very talented guy. I felt terrible that we never touched bases after he became ill. I knew his first wife, Sue, I believe and heard from his daughters as a result of this web page. Now that I've retired and returned to Tulsa, I sorely miss not being able to visit with John.

Welcome back to the Guestbook, Noel!

Here is a picture of John Chick on the last day of his morning show. Thanks to Jim Reid for this one. There are many more pics of him on the Mr. Zing and Tuffy page.

Just archived Guestbook 50; this is #51.

Topics discussed in #50: OKC TV personalities, Hamm's and Blatz beer ads, the 1956 flood on Riverside Drive (with pics from Frank Morrow), John Monks, and the Billy Parker Show.

An FM Pilotuner was mentioned by Don Norton...just found these pics.

We heard about a visit from Wonder Woman. We also heard stories about Mack Creager's radio days, Cy Tuma, and old B & W cartoons tossed by local TV stations.