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Submitted by: Bob Neary, Feb 16, 2010 Kevin McCarthy was part of the team that worked on 'Duckpins for Dollars' on Sunday mornings. The camera crew was also the setup crew and it was a lot of heavy lugging to get that set up and ready to go. We usually met at 5am in front of WTEV and then all jumped into the WTEV Mazda station wagon for the ride over to Rhode Island. That first week, a lot of tired staff -- myself included. After a few weeks, though, everyone knew what had to be done and who was responsible for doing it and things went pretty smoothly. Of course, even though it was 6:30 in the morning --- the strict WTEV necktie rule applied. I was always willing to look the other way if the crew loosened their ties. It didn't seem to me to be too important when constructing the set. As long as no public was around, no harm/no foul. Not really even my job either. One particular morning, however, Mr. Lee Tanner made a surprise visit to the set. The show had been on-air for at least six weeks and I guess he wanted to see how it was all being done. This happened to be the very same Sunday morning that Kevin McCarthy had decided, instead of just loosening his tie, he was going to take it off and set it aside. Lee hit the roof. I thought he was going to fire Kevin on-the-spot. "Wait a sec, Lee.." says I, "There's no backup cameraman to replace him; we'd have to cancel the remote taping for the day." He relented, but things hit the fan on Monday. A pretty wild day as I recall. Tanner still wanted to fire Kevin. To be honest, I think that there was a strong mutual dislike going on there. The union, however, was standing up for Kevin. While it was all being sorted out, Kevin was put on some kind of working suspension. He still came into work, but was assigned non-crew functions. Cleaning up the studio, painting the floor, etc. I think, the hope was that Kevin would get angry and quit. Except ----Kevin handled it most well, and that's why I remember this story. He would show up right on time, properly dressed (wearing a tie.) And, he had the biggest smile you ever saw... all the time. I mean, all the time! About a week into his banishment, he even brought his parents into work with him and gave them a full tour of WTEV. And, on a break, took them down and introduced them to Vance! Brilliant! And it worked. Mr. Lee Tanner relented and Kevin went back on regular status. |
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