In the 1950's which where the earlier days of live television in Los Angeles the largest places for this kind of fodder were the children's television shows and one show hosted by the late Art Linkletter.
One of the most memorable was the Los Angeles version of "Bozo the Clown" which at the time starred Larry Harmon as the famous clown. That show had a small budget as many did so the idea was to have contests where children could win prizes. The problem with Bozo's contests were that the odds of actually winning something were indeed small. In one contest a small male child no more than about ten or eleven years old was given the task of "throwing" a balloon through a hula hoop positioned far enough away that an adult would have had a great deal of trouble. In addition in the days of live television and insensitive black and white television cameras the studio stages often were not air conditioned so there were fans blowing to keep the kiddies from passing out in a pool of their own sweat. This poor kid was handed a small number of balloons, one at a time, and one could see by the pathway of the balloons that minor air currents from the cooling fans were having a major impact on their pathway. The kid was becoming frustrated knowing even at his young age that he was not going to win anything. On live television, as the kid threw his last balloon and of course did not win, immature in years, very angry and frustrated, whispered something under his breath, to which Larry Harmon very audibly said: "That's a Bozo No-No!" At that point the young tike turned around and with an absolutely straight face with a sincere look in his little eyes looked up at Bozo and said. "Cram it Clown!" "Just Cram it!" This was the beauty of live television.
Probably the best laughs of all time came from one of the former Golden Girl Betty White. In those same days of live television in Los Angeles she was a side kick on a live 1950's television talk show hosted by the late Al Jarvis. That particular day the two sponsors were "Dr. Ross Dog Food" and "Kermit Pies" which were featured in supermarkets around Los Angeles. Each one had a jingle and the appropriate jingle would play as Betty finished her sales pitch for the product.
Betty pitched her little heart out praising the quality of Kermit Pies and just as she finished the jingle came on: "Give him Dr. Ross dog food, do him a favor, it's got more meat, and it's got more flavor, . . . . " Needless to say that the sponsor was not thrilled at what had happened, but there probably were people who went out looking for the new Kermit Pies for dogs.
Live television was amazing and it was a training ground that was incredible. Many years ago I was involved with two College FM radio stations and subbed for the regular hosts and because I had a valid FCC license during a flu epidemic I also did engineering for one of these stations. The best thing I can say was that the transmitter for one was very old and it drifted a great deal in power and frequency. One had to watch for power and frequency drift and manually reset things constantly. Many of the shows run on these two different stations were live as they happened. I will tell you that doing live anything on the airwaves be they radio or television is not easy. One's level of fatigue and the events of the day before the "radio gig" played a heavy influence as did the weather and other events.
There were events that took place there that were incredible.
Radio to this day remains a better source for far more interesting fodder than television ever was.
In about 1969 or 1970 I was driving on a trip. It was my Senior year in HS and I was headed for Jackson Hole Wyoming, headed there for a medical convention with my Mother. The car freaks can eat their heart out over this one. The car was a new blue and white 1969 Pontiac Trans-Am Firebird, it was the very first Trans-Am. It was the big engine with a 4 speed manual transmission. My Mother had one of these. I also need to clarify that my Mother was in her earlier years not the Station Wagon type. When that Trans-Am went goodbye it was Corvettes after that. That car had the best radio offered at the time and as we were on the road on the eastern side of Nevada we came within range of radio station KELY in Ely, Nevada. This was a small town radio station and all of the town news was read over the airwaves. The news was that farmer whatisname's pig had given birth to a huge litter of piglets, that hay was on sale for $3 for a 100 pound bale, that there was a dance at the Moose Lodge, and when it came to music the "DJ" was a slightly tongue-tied twelve or thirteen year old girl who was madly in love with Donny Osmond. I was used to living in Los Angeles where the "in station" at the time was KRLA. I was used to professionals that were legendary and to get a radio DJ that was like this seemed unbelievable to me. I think that while in range of that station I heard everything Donny Osmond ever placed on a vinyl LP.
I look back at that moment now with great fondness because the lack of polish and professionalism she showed made the show a delight. At the same time after having had experience myself in later years I came to realize how well she really did. She did not have dead air time, she kept things going, she did station breaks and identification compliance with FCC rulings she did very well.
Doing live broadcasting of any kind can be very scary. . . . . .
