Detroit TV-1980's and 1990's

Discuss anything in this thread that relates to anything related to television in Metro Detroit/Windsor from January 1, 1980 to December 31, 1999, including Bill Bonds and whatever memorable local programs were still on then and even national programs on 2, 4, 7, 20, 50, 56 and 62 such as Dallas, Dynasty, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, Cheers, Seinfeld and ER, plus the days when 50 was the area's Fox affiliate until Fox suddenly switched to 2 for their local outlet in December 1994 [[at the expense of CBS, who went with 62 after some difficulties) and when 20 and 50 found new networks the following month.

Do the episode tapes still exist for Hot Fudge?

How about the Electric Company?

The Scene or The New Dance Show anyone?

I worked at WXYZ from 1983 to 1987 and at WKBD from 1989 to the present. I'd be happy to answer any questions that I can.

Its six o'clock and its time to rock
We rock nonstop till seven o'clock
We won't stop, We won't stop
Say hip hop hippity hope we'll rock nonstop till seven o'clock
With the latest steps and the latest styles
Its six o'clock everybody's clean
Its six o'clock and not time for the Scene!

Its the Scene with your host Nat Morris....

Whats the name of this town?!?

WDIV posted this video a few months back - it's a tour of their new [[at the time) studios from 1983, guided by Dwayne X. Riley:

http://www.clickondetroit.com/entert...-wdiv/25756542

I used to watch Kidbits with Gary Ad Mach as the science instructor. That show lasted to the early 1990s with syndicated re-runs.

Check it out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVFtx3LbgGY

Here's a clip from Hot Fudge Show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtiAmPjYDY

Right on!

And this game show Name the Feeling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fawRVtwA-Mk

Since last month was the 20th anniversary of the famous Fox-CBS 2-50-62 realignment [[which saw Homer Simpson and David Letterman swapping sides of the VHF-UHF border), how many of you also remember it?

The realignment, as you know, stemmed from Fox acquiring the rights to NFL NFC games. Fox wanted to affiliate with stations in NFC markets, including here, that were on the VHF spectrum, had more established histories and had more advertising value [[as you know, back when Fox went on the air in '86, in the three most-important markets of New York, LA and Chicago, Fox was already on VHF stations in the former two, but was relegated to-and still is-a UHF station in Chicago, specifically WFLD channel 32, whose founder also once owned WKBD). The realignment also affected CBS stations in other markets that also have NFC teams, though it took a while for them to switch to Fox.

This may be the reason why the Lions temporarily switched to UHF during much of the '94 season. It wasn't until the December 17th game that they returned to WJBK.

However, even with channel 2 picking up the Fox affiliation, WKBD kept Fox's cartoon block [[Fox Kids) for a few more years, even after affiliating with UPN, until WADL acquired that block.

On the CBS side, they were having difficulties in finding another local station. WXYZ was one of the stations that CBS tried to affiliate with and if this did happen, to prepare, ABC purchased stations in Flint and Toledo so that at least the cable people could still watch ABC programs. Channel 7, though, stayed with ABC.

CBS eventually ended up on the weakest UHF station we had, WGPR, but not with controversy. Not long later, they changed the calls to WWJ-TV. The result was damage being done to local ratings for CBS programs. In fact, in the early years under CBS, the transmitter was so weak that viewers in the outer-ring suburbs had to watch CBS programs on stations in Bay City, Lansing and Toledo. It wasn't until 1999 that 62 finally received a better transmitter.

After a couple years, 2 and 62 ultimately became O&Os of their respective networks.

And here's another fact: until the end of it's original run, one of the shows I watched in that era, Tiny Toon Adventures was always on 50-both during syndication and when it was on Fox Kids in it's last season.

Channel 4 had this guy at halloween called Count Scary, and he used to say "oooh, that's sca-a-ary" but it was a really bad take off of Sir Graves Ghastly. We renamed him Count Stupid, and and changed his motto to "oooh, that's stooopid."

Then, it must have been 1981 or '82 when the Red Wings sucked so bad they went "zero for Channel 20." Back in those days they only showed about 20 Wings games a year on TV, and on a rare occasion you could catch one on Hockey night in Canada on Channel 9.

And as someone asked above: What's the name of this town? Geektown was the answer, as another WGPR personality, RJ Watkins, had his own group for a second called RJ's Latest Arrival, and their song was called "We Are Here to Geek You Up."

Channel 62's commercials were as low budget as you could get. The Singleton Cleaners commercial cracked me up when the guy asked "how do I look?". The guy at the competitors cleaners said, "you down, you down" and the customer replied "I wish my sleeves was down".

One day I was hanging out with a bunch of girls who went to St. Mary's of Redford that lived in Rosedale Park, and they described my latest girlfriend as like "watching channel 62 24 hours a day." I still crack up when I think about that.

Ron Codin of the Hot Fudge Show used to come to the North Rosedale Park Community House to play guitar and let kids throw pies in his face. The puppets on that show were like earlier Lazytown.
Gary Ed Mach....That's what you watched [[or Captain Kangaroo) if you got up too early and were biding your time until the super sugar-fueled Saturday Morning [[remember when it was worth waiting for that) 4-hour block of cartoons kicked in...The man would show you how to drive a straw into a raw potato, then they'd cut to two minutes of the Kidbits logo going on infinite "Doot doot doo-doot" loop.
Yes, channel 50 played piggy-back [[the way Cartoon Network does to Adult Swim) to the earliest inception of FOX in the late '80s. It wasn't all Tracey Ullman, Beans Baxter, 21 Jump Street, or Garry Shandling. A lot of it was abysmally decrepit, sleazy stuff. Like Married with Children or the sit-com about a women's prison [[packed with hideous lesbian jokes).
There was a terrible void on weekend afternoons [[loaded with golf). Maybe Kennedy would play a goof film. Sunday mornings used to play old Blondie [[not Debbie) shorts. Yet, we had Thriller or Creature Features on the UHF, packed with giant spiders, blobs, and possessed children. They'd play psychedelic music with over-polarized camera tricks for their promos. Somehow, Count Scary, Sir Graves Ghastly, or the Ghoul made more sense. It seemed every other Saturday afternoon would be films of some giant [[Daikaiju) monsters trampling on model cities while caught up in their furry-like cosplay ecstasy.
There was a very un-P.C. host for the Kung-fu Theater named Charrie [["Charlie") Rum.

oh-duh-then there was Soupy.

I want a new local horror-classics show. Where is it...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hypestyles

I want a new local horror-classics show. Where is it...

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The closest thing I could find is the highly-popular Chicago-based Svengoolie, which airs on Me TV [[Uverse channel 136, it's on WOW too).

And the next post must bring us back on topic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

Channel 62's commercials were as low budget as you could get. The Singleton Cleaners commercial cracked me up when the guy asked "how do I look?". The guy at the competitors cleaners said, "you down, you down" and the customer replied "I wish my sleeves was down".

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loved that commercial, would crack up everytime I saw it..... been looking for a clip of it on the internet but can't find it....

you down, you down

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

Channel 62's commercials were as low budget as you could get. The Singleton Cleaners commercial cracked me up when the guy asked "how do I look?". The guy at the competitors cleaners said, "you down, you down" and the customer replied "I wish my sleeves was down".

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I believe I would've laughed at this too...if channel 62's signal could reach Southgate back in the 80's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcONhxo3K2k

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVibmM7FUvi0AmT8PxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsa3 ZzMnBvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw--?p=singleton+cleaners+commercial+youtube&tnr=21&vi d=73762FE4392C0D1B5DDB73762FE4392C0D1B5DDB&l=165&t url=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.60 8001656815289645%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fww w.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DP7qYKd9-wtE&sigr=11a3gdrod&tt=b&tit=Detroit+Commercials&si gt=10jgr0avs&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2 Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dsingleton%2Bcleaners%2Bcommerc ial%2Byoutube%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=13h9brf1a&hspart=mozil la&hsimp=yhs-001

more channel 62

Got to love this one too from channel 50 with the ever tanked Bill Kennedy and the 'modern woman' stylings of Amyre Makupson doing the news. Great commercials too of stores long gone.

http://youtu.be/W7apYLesgxw

That period has to be like the “Dark Ages” of local programming when it comes to shows with original characters that were designed for kids as compared to the ones from the 1950’ & 60’s. They may have been silly and corny at times but these guys were considered local heroes and they will always be remembered.

From left to right - Poop Deck Paul, MilkyThe Clown, Captain Jolly, Johnny Jingles, Johnny Ginger, and Bozo. Down below are Sagebush Shorty and Soupy Sales
Attachment 25517

Don't forget Sgt. Sacto from the Captain Detroit show and other Tom Ryan characters!



Attachment 25518



http://www.detroitkidshow.com/Tom_Ryan.htm

Thanks for posting these pictures, but I also have made two other similar threads where you should discuss them.

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...0-s-and-1950-s
http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...0-s-and-1970-s

I grew up in East Lansing, so the only Detroit station we got was WKBD 50. Rain or shine, we would run home from wherever we were playing to catch Creature Feature. I swear, until I was 9 or 10 I though Vincent Price was Edgar Allan Poe-- he was in every film adaptation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aoife

I grew up in East Lansing, so the only Detroit station we got was WKBD 50. Rain or shine, we would run home from wherever we were playing to catch Creature Feature. I swear, until I was 9 or 10 I though Vincent Price was Edgar Allan Poe-- he was in every film adaptation.

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Wasn't WKBD the default Fox affiliate for Lansing during the network's infancy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mtburb

Wasn't WKBD the default Fox affiliate for Lansing during the network's infancy?

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IIRC Fox was channel 42 or something like that. But honestly I wasn't paying attention. If it didn't carry Scooby Doo we were not watching it.

WKBD 50 used to be FOX. WJBK 2 used to be CBS. WWJ-TV 62 used to be independent.

Back in 1995 the "switch" happened and 50 went from FOX to UPN. 62 went from independent to CBS. 2 went from CBS to FOX.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aoife

IIRC Fox was channel 42 or something like that. But honestly I wasn't paying attention. If it didn't carry Scooby Doo we were not watching it.

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Actually, channel 47. It only joined Fox in 1990, until then, WKBD served as the default Fox affiliate.

20 years ago today, WXON became a charter affiliate of the new WB Network. Channel 20 enjoyed being one of the only local stations that were unaffected by the previous month's affiliation swaps. After Granite Broadcasting acquired the station in 1997, it's call sign was changed to WDWB, which may stand for We're Detroit's Warner Bros.

20 would be one of several WB affiliates that became My Network affiliates in markets where their UPN stations [[such as WKBD) were already planning on becoming CW affiliates.

Today, 20's calls are WMYD and is owned by Scripps, resulting in a duopoly with WXYZ.

Here dog!
C'mere dog!
Me and dog want you to go to Teley-graph roo-ad
ri-i-ght no-ow!
Get a good deal.

1940s thru the 1960s Detroit TV is covered here.
www.detroitkidshow.com

20 years ago today, not long after WXON became network-affiliated, WKBD, after having been an independent station again for barely over a month after loosing the Fox affiliation to WJBK [[at the expense of CBS, who moved to WGPR), became a charter affiliate of the new UPN network. After a short time, channel 50 became the third Detroit station to become an owned-and-operated station of it's network.

Today, 50 is a CW O&O and has a duopoly with WWJ-TV [[the former WGPR), which is now a CBS O&O.

"Walt Lazar... Chevrolet is the super-super dealer."

was that dealership the one on

Main STREET
Royal OAK
North of 11 mile ...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

"Walt Lazar... Chevrolet is the super-super dealer."

was that dealership the one on

Main STREET
Royal OAK
North of 11 mile ...

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Nope.

Telegraph "south of I-94".

Remembering a sitcom named Hamtramck in the late 80's. Made references about Detroit. Didn't last. Not sure what channel it was on or how many episodes actually aired.

Gildersleeve in da' house! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqyDj7RX6Y
People can trounce on Faygo all they want, but Redpop still goes well with pepperoni pizza.

Then there's these- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc7dbwzPeKA :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQr548olzOo

I'm aware that there've probably been many prior threads that have posted these, but they are still classics for me growing up.

never forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKqRQmabWA8

Quote:

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Originally Posted by knwb

never forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKqRQmabWA8

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Yah, they were drinking buddies with the Brawney guy up in da' U.P., eh? Brings to mind a tile service that I think was on Evergreen [[?) called K & K [[?).

Anyone recall the "Kowalski Sausage Cinema"?

Some 1990s commercials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssRwOrTY2TI

1980 super bowl commercial http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...-datsun-280zx/

http://i970.photobucket.com/albums/a..._Blackgold.gif

When cable became really huge still vexes me.

At some point in 1980-1981, there was a stray UHF channel that would show promos for IT TV [[and maybe HBO), and because I was a junkie for any scene taken from movies I loved, I liked that they would show clips from Altman's Popeye. Yet, it was mixed in with clips from Kramer Vs. Kramer and the very slow, drawn-out hallway-filling-with-blood scene from The Shining [[which creeped me out then). You thought you'd be in for a treat, and then, about the time the films were to air, the signal would cut out, because we weren't subscribers [[but I didn't understand those things at the time).

Only two kids in my whole neighborhood had cable in the '80s [[and one, his dad had his own bar/pooltable/disco dance floor rumpus room in the basement and the other had a swimming pool in their backyard, both had Atari 5200s-that's how well off they were). When all of our close neighbor friends left Holy Cross [[on Greenfield) to attend another Lutheran Grade School out in Farmington Hills, we went along [[the church still covered the education and we all belonged to the same ostentatious kiddie carpooling situation-so, commuting the kids to school was a big enough issue to make this move, I guess) with it.

The kids at my school [[from Livonia and elsewhere) would go on about some stupid show where they dumped green slime and water on kids heads. I was in the same camp with the teachers just making an odd face like "what's that all about?". When one of the UHF stations started to show a sloppy children's game show called "Double Dare", I still thought "Is this what they were going on about?".

Then, in 1988, we finally got cable [[this was 4 years after we got out first VHS player-the photo business my mom worked at expanded to rent videos, as well; so, her boss would let her take home one free rental each night for us to watch-provided it wasn't a big draw selection at the time. That and the local celebs who would visit, is the reason my mom came home with a standup movie promo of Eddie Murphy for Beverly Hills Cop 2 signed by Gil Hill.). It was a bombardment of A & E, MTV, VH1, a new station called E! [[with an aspiring Greg Kinnear, who would show clips from movies like Beetlejuice, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and the Great Outdoors), and of course, Nickelodeon. It was from the latter, I finally found out the riddle of "You Can't Do That on Television".

The explosion of cable into our house that year [[along with graduating grade school and losing my virginity over the summer) along with a shady occurrence where my mom's boss had to stash all of the store's goods in our back den area [[videos too!-I was a popular kid that summer. It also helped in my Crash Course in learning Monty Python. Also, my parent's thought they could hide the adult tapes that came in different colored boxes behind a mountain of other ones, but I was a determined Sir Edmund Hilary and scaled it many times to get at the precious, naughty, precious cargo.) for a time, and the acquisition of a Nintendo Entertainment System [[graduation present) brought on a strange change in me. After being a 8-hour a day devoted couch potato videot all my life, this massive glut [[or "show-verdose", as I call it) of video overload triggered a change where I just felt "There has to be more to life than this".

I struggled long to put TV far from me [[didn't watch any of it during High School-didn't even notice when the Simpsons were getting better-Conan O' Brien/George Meyer-style!). I will always maintain the position to this very day that my life is so much better without the shiny beast [[same goes for my own self-imposed limited exposure to computers) taking over the main living area of every American household like it were some altar. I still find it odd looking back, how so many of us didn't have cable and it wasn't a big thing, but come right after Obama is inaugurated, this generation had to conform to a digital TV signal.

Getting away from TV wasn't easy. About a year and a half after we got cable, HBO lured us into a almost free package. So, shows like Tales from the Crypt and Kids in the Hall were airing about that time. Showtime was added later, and not many folks remember when they would show little slips in between [[like animation) or their 30-minute movies [[one dire Twilight Zone one with Kurtwood Smith was a predecessor to "Groundhog's Day").

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

And as someone asked above: What's the name of this town? Geektown was the answer, as another WGPR personality, RJ Watkins, had his own group for a second called RJ's Latest Arrival, and their song was called "We Are Here to Geek You Up."

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You're thinking of RJ Rice, not RJ Watkins. RJ Rice was the founder of RJ's Latest Arrival [["Shackles" was the jam). RJ Watkins is now the President of WHPR in Highland Park. Great guy.