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Submitted by: Dave Schutz, July 9, 2010 Background: WTEV's signal was the strongest of any commercial station available on Cape Cod (Hyannis Port), and far stronger than the ABC affiliate from Boston. In the summer of 1970, Robert Kennedy had been dead for only two years, but the gossip columnists were beginning to report that his widow, Ethel, might be starting to "date". Story: It was a warm summer day in August of 1970. I was working "Video Tape" in Master Control, on a Saturday afternoon. We are running reruns of The Cisco Kid (circa 1950-1956, but produced/syndicated in color). Promos and PSA's were filling the breaks, as this 15+ year old series certainly wasn't Prime Time material. WTEV rarely used live booth announcers, and all audio tags were stored on hundreds of audio cartridges, that carried only a file number, and offered no overt indication of their content. In theory, the Video Tape Operator, and the person doing Switching, were supposed to preview the audio tapes to verify that there wasn't a filing error. Of course, like many policies at WTEV, things weren't always done in accordance with official policy. At the time, ABC was running their original "ABC Movie of the Week". During a break in the Cisco Kid, we ran a 60-second promo (16-mmm film) for the ABC movie. See similar promo on YouTube: The specific ABC promo we ran was for an original movie; "The Life & Times of Robert F. Kennedy". During the final few seconds of this serious, almost somber promo, with the silhouette of an "RFK looking" man walking away into the sunset, an audio tag was to be inserted by WTEV. The audio tag was supposed to be a simple: "See this stirring documentary, Tuesday Night on Six!" However, the audio cartridge wasn't previewed by us in Master Control, and instead viewers heard the tag for "The Ghost & Mrs. Muir" (then an ABC Prime Time series.) "See this story about a cantankerous ghost, and a lively widow, Tuesday night on Six! I was standing behind the switcher in Master Control, and my jaw hit the floor. I was horrified and scared beyond belief. Looking through the control room window, to the reception desk, I expected to see all of the phone lines on the patch-cord telephone switchboard aglow. After all, this was Kennedy Country, and the family's home was nearby. In point of fact, we got only got a couple dozen calls. I never explained to the receptionist what the cause was for the strange surge in calls she was getting from viewers. Five-minutes later, the "Hot Line" rang (private phone line directly into Master Control). It was Maurice Wynne. He asked; did I hear what I think I just heard??? I responded; Maurice, what do you think you heard? Maurice: Cut the sh*t! How many calls have you gotten? Of course I tried to hide the truth, and said only a few calls had been received. Maurice replied: "If I were you I would NOT fill-out an Irregularity Report about this event. You had better pray this blows over." In fact it did blow over, and other than Maurice, the other Master Control engineer, and me, no one in the station seemed to know (yet) what had happened. A couple of weeks later, I was working overtime into the evening, and all of the department managers were reentering the building, following their weekly dinner meeting with Vance. They all came into Master Control and started patting me on the back with comments like; "Well Done Dave: Cantankerous Ghost and Lively Widow; and you claim it was an accident." Maurice had finally told them about the incident over dinner, and what I suspect were a couple of rounds of drinks. At that moment it was obvious to me that on a sunny Saturday afternoon in August 1970, The Cisco Kid, on channel 6, had very few viewers. It was an accident! At least I think it was an accident..... |
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