TV'S REAL LIFE "TED BAXTER" (Mary Tyler Moore Show's buffoon anchorman played by actor Ted Knight)
(And Joe Moore, Emme Tomimbang, Bob Sevey, Leslie Wilcox, Bob Jones and a lot of other memories)
Burl Burlingham wrote a great memory of KITV-TV 4 (ABC Hawaii) anchorman JACK HAWKINS' last broadcast on Channel 4's news, and here, Hawaii-raised Keoni (Hiroshi) Tyler — now in Hollywood at NBCUniversal — reflects on him, KGMB, Joe Moore's rise, and Hawaii's TV environment in the 1970s~90s.
He would love to hear your comments on here or on social media, so please reach out — always love to hear from people from his original homeland!
***
PART 1 of 5 [thread]
I am gonna jump around to various topics — all related to TV broadcasting and the subject at hand — but still, long-winded and a curvy journey. I am trying to weave together the environment at the time of Jack Hawkins and his departure. We in film and TV know that our visual mediums have to also add a "look and feel" of the station in the way things are presented: The colors of the logo... the music ... the chosen announcer and what tone is used ("You're watching KITV: Island Television" seems simple, but everything is all by design, because it adds to an emotional tug that is often subconscious to viewers, but equates to how you feel about what you just watched and if you 'take it with you).
IF YOU WANT TO JUST JUMP TO THE BOTTOM LINE, skip down to Part 5 of 5.
February 2020
I grew up in Kalihi, then Aiea and left my island homeland in 1996 when Hollywood enticed me and I needed to spread my wings. Growing up in a gang-infested neighborhood (right after we left, gangs burned down 4 schools in one day including my beloved Puuhale Elementary), I never thought I would be working/producing on the Academy Awards® (our team garnered a Primetime Emmy® nomination for my first Oscar® broadcast); never thought I would get invited to meet BIG stars and have drinks with them or go to their homes; or have the successes and failures I have had in my 24 years in La La land. I still marvel at Hawaii television, and am honored when anchors like Diane Ako interact with me on Instagram. Maybe one day, I will make Hawaii proud, though I am aging quickly. It would be great to be able to give back to my island home.
Growing up, I was fascinated with TV, video and Hawaii's broadcasters ever since my parents caught me tuning into KHET-11's sign-on test pattern (Google it) — and would call the station and bug technicians to identify the instrumental music they played during that and D.O.E. Educational TV logo "slides? (still pictures like "Television Classroom? and "Inservice Seminar? that filled time before the next educational program started). Just from memory, after I moved to Hollywood in 1996, I would in the late 2000's re-create the test pattern and all the music tracks, and made Blu-ray/DVDs and sent them as a gift to Hawaii Public Television — now branded as PBSHawaii. VP Robert Pennybacker was impressed and even shared the discs with a few old-timers who were about to retire. Robert Pennybacker is a legend who rose at KGMB after college in Los Angeles.
I was a strange kid: I would sit with my mother's alarm clock watching KITV and other channels and time each commercial break, and would notice a pattern back then: Obviously, it must have been FCC rules. In the 70s, primetime TV had a limit of 9.5 minutes of commercials and 2.5 minutes of station promos ("Tonight on ?Charlie's Angels'?); and you could not break away from the main show more than 5 times an hour; a 6th time was the "Adjacency" (end break) that followed a show's credits, and preceded the start of the next show.
Fast forward to today, where I sometimes re-cut old tv series, to, unfortunately, squeeze-in more commercials (I worked on re-cutting the original "Hawaii Five-0?). We take those old 1-hours and make room for 18-20 minutes of commercials, and also, break away from the show 10-12 times an hour! That means trying to cut scenes or shots out without taking from the story. A lot of editors just hack it because they have a quota to meet per shift. I was always a fast editor, but as a director, writer (and sometimes producer), I genuinely cared about respecting the legacy of anything I touched, so I watched the episodes carefully then went back to decide what to trim, with respect to the original artists and storytellers (and disdain for what I had to do to earn a living).
After we re-cut the show, the episode is sent to "Vari-Speed:" They take the new shaved edit I just did and they speed it up 1.5%, but keep the audio pitch the same so actors don't sound like Mickey Mouse. That 1.5% speed-up fits in yet another :30 second commercial! And broadcast and mainstream cable wonders why their audiences eroded.
All of us kids would love it when KGMB-TV 9 (CBS Hawaii) had "technical difficulties" in the 70s and would play a cool song: Mason William's "Classical Gas," putting a 35mm slide up saying programming would resume momentarily. I mean, it was as cool as hearing the Hawaii-Five 0 theme.
***
(End of Part 1 of 5)
(And Joe Moore, Emme Tomimbang, Bob Sevey, Leslie Wilcox, Bob Jones and a lot of other memories)
Burl Burlingham wrote a great memory of KITV-TV 4 (ABC Hawaii) anchorman JACK HAWKINS' last broadcast on Channel 4's news, and here, Hawaii-raised Keoni (Hiroshi) Tyler — now in Hollywood at NBCUniversal — reflects on him, KGMB, Joe Moore's rise, and Hawaii's TV environment in the 1970s~90s.
He would love to hear your comments on here or on social media, so please reach out — always love to hear from people from his original homeland!
***
PART 1 of 5 [thread]
I am gonna jump around to various topics — all related to TV broadcasting and the subject at hand — but still, long-winded and a curvy journey. I am trying to weave together the environment at the time of Jack Hawkins and his departure. We in film and TV know that our visual mediums have to also add a "look and feel" of the station in the way things are presented: The colors of the logo... the music ... the chosen announcer and what tone is used ("You're watching KITV: Island Television" seems simple, but everything is all by design, because it adds to an emotional tug that is often subconscious to viewers, but equates to how you feel about what you just watched and if you 'take it with you).
IF YOU WANT TO JUST JUMP TO THE BOTTOM LINE, skip down to Part 5 of 5.
February 2020
I grew up in Kalihi, then Aiea and left my island homeland in 1996 when Hollywood enticed me and I needed to spread my wings. Growing up in a gang-infested neighborhood (right after we left, gangs burned down 4 schools in one day including my beloved Puuhale Elementary), I never thought I would be working/producing on the Academy Awards® (our team garnered a Primetime Emmy® nomination for my first Oscar® broadcast); never thought I would get invited to meet BIG stars and have drinks with them or go to their homes; or have the successes and failures I have had in my 24 years in La La land. I still marvel at Hawaii television, and am honored when anchors like Diane Ako interact with me on Instagram. Maybe one day, I will make Hawaii proud, though I am aging quickly. It would be great to be able to give back to my island home.
Growing up, I was fascinated with TV, video and Hawaii's broadcasters ever since my parents caught me tuning into KHET-11's sign-on test pattern (Google it) — and would call the station and bug technicians to identify the instrumental music they played during that and D.O.E. Educational TV logo "slides? (still pictures like "Television Classroom? and "Inservice Seminar? that filled time before the next educational program started). Just from memory, after I moved to Hollywood in 1996, I would in the late 2000's re-create the test pattern and all the music tracks, and made Blu-ray/DVDs and sent them as a gift to Hawaii Public Television — now branded as PBSHawaii. VP Robert Pennybacker was impressed and even shared the discs with a few old-timers who were about to retire. Robert Pennybacker is a legend who rose at KGMB after college in Los Angeles.
I was a strange kid: I would sit with my mother's alarm clock watching KITV and other channels and time each commercial break, and would notice a pattern back then: Obviously, it must have been FCC rules. In the 70s, primetime TV had a limit of 9.5 minutes of commercials and 2.5 minutes of station promos ("Tonight on ?Charlie's Angels'?); and you could not break away from the main show more than 5 times an hour; a 6th time was the "Adjacency" (end break) that followed a show's credits, and preceded the start of the next show.
Fast forward to today, where I sometimes re-cut old tv series, to, unfortunately, squeeze-in more commercials (I worked on re-cutting the original "Hawaii Five-0?). We take those old 1-hours and make room for 18-20 minutes of commercials, and also, break away from the show 10-12 times an hour! That means trying to cut scenes or shots out without taking from the story. A lot of editors just hack it because they have a quota to meet per shift. I was always a fast editor, but as a director, writer (and sometimes producer), I genuinely cared about respecting the legacy of anything I touched, so I watched the episodes carefully then went back to decide what to trim, with respect to the original artists and storytellers (and disdain for what I had to do to earn a living).
After we re-cut the show, the episode is sent to "Vari-Speed:" They take the new shaved edit I just did and they speed it up 1.5%, but keep the audio pitch the same so actors don't sound like Mickey Mouse. That 1.5% speed-up fits in yet another :30 second commercial! And broadcast and mainstream cable wonders why their audiences eroded.
All of us kids would love it when KGMB-TV 9 (CBS Hawaii) had "technical difficulties" in the 70s and would play a cool song: Mason William's "Classical Gas," putting a 35mm slide up saying programming would resume momentarily. I mean, it was as cool as hearing the Hawaii-Five 0 theme.
***
(End of Part 1 of 5)
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