Comments on: TV Urban Legends Revealed #23

By: Brian Cronin

Brian Cronin — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:57:08 +0000

Boy, OM, you’re totally correct. I was watching it now. Thanks for the head’s up – it’s fascinating stuff.

By: OM

OM — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:57:50 +0000

…If you want to see one of the few surviving examples of just how shoddy ABC’s news department was, go over to YouTube and watch a few of David Von Pein’s clips from ABC’s “coverage” of the JFK Assassination. The irony is that while ABC beat See-BS and NBC to the announcement that JFK was dead by two full minutes, this came from a feed directly from the ABC affilliate in Dallas, WFAA. And WFAA provided a more professional presentation than ABC could; in fact, due to phone problems on the set, the ABC anchor had to take calls from the field on a phone located off the set and clearly revealing the back side of another set! It’s no wonder that very few people who watched any of the four days of assassination coverage remember watching any of ABC’s coverage. It’s actually embarrassing to watch!

By: OM

OM — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:31:58 +0000

…If you *really* want to see what a total clusterfrack ABC’s news department was in the early 60′s, there’s about four hours of coverage of the JFK assassination on YouTube that shows clearly that they were a totally lost cause. Possibly the most camera-unfriendly news reporters in TV News history trying to coordinate a live breaking news event, and finding that their affiliate in Dallas was superior to their efforts in both presentation and sets. Many TV critics who wrote of the three networks’ efforts to keep the nation apprised of the developments in Dallas praised both See-BS and NBC for their work, but almost unanimously denounced ABC’s network debacle, stating that ABC would have been far better off letting the Dallas ABC – WFAA – affiliate anchor the show.

By: Eldric IV

Eldric IV — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 13:09:39 +0000

In 1958, NBC and CBS delivered nearly TWICE the amount of news coverage than ABC! Roughly 96 hours compared to 49!!!

Perhaps add “each delivered”. Otherwise, two networks delivering twice the amount of news as one network is expected.

By: Daniel O'Dreams

Daniel O'Dreams — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:30:49 +0000

Yikes Sorry Kamino. How did I miss your post?

By: Daniel O'Dreams

Daniel O'Dreams — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:29:40 +0000

Brian has said he doesn’t want to cover legends already covered on Snopes.com. I guess he doesn’t want to step on the toes of his inspiration. Here’s a link to the Marilyn/Paul story. http://snopes.com/music/artists/marilyn.asp

By: Boxcuttah

Boxcuttah — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:29:33 +0000

Here’s a link to The Lawrence Welk Show’s cover of “One Toke Over The Line”. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg

By: Kamino Neko

Kamino Neko — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 02:26:34 +0000

snopes dealt with that one.

By: JoeMac

JoeMac — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:02:35 +0000

I finally decided to check out this site (I’ve reading your Comic Book Legends site for a few months now and got the book, which was awesome).

Anyway, the legends you featured about Eddie Haskell reminded me of another stupid rumor I heard many times, that Josh Saviano (who played Kevin Arnold’s best friend Paul on Wonder Years) grew up to become Marilyn Manson.

Could you please dispell this ridiculous legend once and for all?

By: David Markham

David Markham — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:20:19 +0000

We sure like our exclamation points today!!!

I agree that if I were a TV viewer in 1960, I would appreciate somebody putting something else on instead of useless early election coverage. I remember in the days before cable *hating* it when the President talked, because that meant there was *nothing* to watch. I’d have done the same thing if I were ABC.