KGIL on Columbo

[Jeff_Davis]

I'm watching a 1978 episode of Columbo on Hallmark. (Yes, I have no life.) Columbo's tracking the killer who is on a talk radio show with a host named Carol Hemmingway. When the killer walks out of the radio station, there's a trailer with the call letters 1260 KGIL. There's also a blue AMC Hornet station wagon with the call letters in white.

Anybody on this board ever get to drive it?

 

[Hot Hits]

I'm watching a 1978 episode of Columbo on Hallmark. (Yes, I have no life.) Columbo's tracking the killer who is on a talk radio show with a host named Carol Hemmingway. When the killer walks out of the radio station, there's a trailer with the call letters 1260 KGIL. There's also a blue AMC Hornet station wagon with the call letters in white.

Anybody on this board ever get to drive it?

The KGIL Mobile Studio or a Blue AMC Hornet?

 

[LKellerIII]

The KGIL Mobile Studio or a Blue AMC Hornet?

I remember that my mother used to listen to Carole (with an "e" I think) Hemingway - in the 70s, on...I want to say...KABC.

Speaking of awful AMC 70s cars - I recall that when KPIX 5 (San Francisco) hired an all new news-anchor team about 1974 with much fanfare, they gave both anchors - Gene Tuck and Andy Park - AMC Gremlins to drive, with the "5" logo, and their names painted on the side. Aside from the insult of being given a Gremlin...not even a Hornet, for heaven's sake - they must have felt like sitting ducks driving around town

 

[DrAkbar]

Speaking of awful AMC 70s cars - I recall that when KPIX 5 (San Francisco) hired an all new news-anchor team about 1974 with much fanfare, they gave both anchors - Gene Tuck and Andy Park - AMC Gremlins to drive, with the "5" logo, and their names painted on the side. Aside from the insult of being given a Gremlin...not even a Hornet, for heaven's sake - they must have felt like sitting ducks driving around town

Spent three months driving a Chevy Vega for a big Top 40 station. That aluminum block engine didn't like being left out overnight...nothing but stalls early in the morning. Now with an AMC Gremlin, you had your choice of an inline six or V-8 cast iron engine. Plus the front was a Hornet, and the rear was a squished Hornet. Obviously KPIX wanted their anchors to ride in style!

 

[KeithE4]

Spent three months driving a Chevy Vega for a big Top 40 station. That aluminum block engine didn't like being left out overnight...nothing but stalls early in the morning.

As a former Vega owner myself (a 1973 hardtop -- bought in 1976, junked in 1979), I can attest to that. The starter-fluid companies made a lot of money off of me during cold Chicago winters. The problem was that the choke was flaky and nothing could fix it.

At least mine didn't overheat. It did, however have a manual automatic transmission (I could shift it, but the "automatic" part failed at about 35,000 miles), and rusted out so bad that I could take a shower while driving in a rainstorm.

"Fill the oil, check the gas, please."

 

[LKellerIII]

As a former Vega owner myself (a 1973 hardtop -- bought in 1976, junked in 1979), I can attest to that. The starter-fluid companies made a lot of money off of me during cold Chicago winters. The problem was that the choke was flaky and nothing could fix it.

At least mine didn't overheat. It did, however have a manual automatic transmission (I could shift it, but the "automatic" part failed at about 35,000 miles), and rusted out so bad that I could take a shower while driving in a rainstorm.

"Fill the oil, check the gas, please."

Yes - though the AMC Gremlin is a bigger joke in retrospect, it wasn't actually a horrible little car. The Ford Pinto and Chevy Vega took the top prizes. The Vega was just congenitally awful - a cheap and horrible design, while the Pinto was better made, but felt heavy to drive, was gutless, and could barbeque you in a rear-end accident. For a delivery job I had in the early 70s, I drove the business owner's Pinto. I set out to trash the thing, taking bumps as hard as I could, and flooring it whenever possible...not that flooring it did any good. He told me one day that he couldn't figure out why he was only getting 15 MPG. I wasn't very mature in those days...

From the film Top Secret!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9GGDOUDLhc

 

[michael hagerty]

Yes - though the AMC Gremlin is a bigger joke in retrospect, it wasn't actually a horrible little car. The Ford Pinto and Chevy Vega took the top prizes. The Vega was just congenitally awful - a cheap and horrible design, while the Pinto was better made, but felt heavy to drive, was gutless, and could barbeque you in a rear-end accident. For a delivery job I had in the early 70s, I drove the business owner's Pinto. I set out to trash the thing, taking bumps as hard as I could, and flooring it whenever possible...not that flooring it did any good. He told me one day that he couldn't figure out why he was only getting 15 MPG. I wasn't very mature in those days...

From the film Top Secret!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9GGDOUDLhc

First things first: Carole Hemingway did evenings at KABC from 1974 to 1982. She was off the air entirely from 1982 until January of 1986, when KGIL hired her. She was there until 1992. Interestingly, IMDB shows the episode of Columbo with Carole as 1978. So she was on KABC...but they're showing KGIL's car and mobile studio.

Now, radio and TV station cars: Apart from the fleet of '67 or '68 Mercury Cougars that KHJ used to have for 20/20 news, and the built-like-tanks Chevy station wagons that made up KMPC's Daycruiser/Nightcruiser fleet, broadcast news vehicles---especially in the old days---are a mixed bag, to say the least. From my career:

KIBS, Bishop (1971): A 1971 VW Super Beetle (not bad, but then I never saw it more than 3 years old) and a 1966 Chevy Van, which was surprisingly okay. Only the two front seats and three-on-the-tree.

We didn't have station cars at KSLY, San Luis Obispo (1974), KIOQ-FM, Bishop (1975) or KUKI, Ukiah (1976-77).

KOLO-AM, Reno (1977-81): Had one Olds Cutlass Supreme coupe for a news car when I arrived. In 1980, they dumped it and got two Toyota Corolla wagons. When I switched from programming and jocking to news, I got one of them to take home every night. Nice little car, but again, I only saw it for its first year and a half.

KTVN-TV, Reno (1981-84): A menagerie, and a fairly mangy one at that: Two 1977 Dodge Aspen station wagons that you could tell apart only by the color of their interiors (one red, one blue), that spent most of their time on the back of tow trucks. A 1979 Subaru wagon that sounded like a sewing machine was under the hood, but the all-wheel drive was what we needed. A 1980 Eagle station wagon (essentially an AMC Hornet wagon jacked up to ride high with all-wheel drive)---a better car than I expected it to be. And a 1983 Ford Escort wagon, which was very nearly as slow and noisy as the '79 Subaru.

KTNV-TV, Las Vegas (1984-86): A fleet of six pale yellow 1983 Plymouth Reliant K Cars with tan interiors. The air conditioning worked. That's about the only good thing I can say about those.

KTVK-TV, Reno (1986-2000): Started out like KTVN, with a batch of stuff, a couple of '84 Chevy Celebrity sedans (again, one with a red interior, one with blue), a couple of '83 Chevy Celebrity wagons (same deal with the interiors), three '86 Ford Aerostar vans, and four '83 Chevy S-10 Blazers, which were horrendous.
We replaced the S-10s and the Aerostars with Ford Bronco IIs around 1988 and then, in '92, shifted over to a fleet of Ford Explorers, trading out a third of the fleet each year.

KTAR-AM, Phoenix (2000-2004): We had company news cars, but I'll be darned if I can remember what they were.

KNXV-TV, Phoenix (2009-2012): A mix of Nissan Pathfinders, XTerras and Versa hatchbacks. Decent.

KFBK-AM/FM, Sacramento (2013-now): A couple of Toyota 4Runners and a recently-retired Ford Escape. Also decent, apart from abuse by staffers no longer with us.

 

[mohawk82]

We have a 1982 AMC CJ-7 Jeep that my wife bought brand new for $9995. It has the original 258 and 4 speed transmission. Both were rebuilt at 180,000 miles. It has 245,000 miles on it now. O'Reilly Auto honors ALL of our lifetime warranty parts which include, starter, alternator, clutch and battery. In 1992 we had a Howell throttle body fuel injection kit installed and trashed the crappy carb. It has run like a top for the 25 years that I have been driving it.

Just my AMC $0.02

 

[LKellerIII]

From my career:

KIBS, Bishop (1971): A 1971 VW Super Beetle (not bad, but then I never saw it more than 3 years old)....

That business I did delivery for also let me use the other owner's VW Super Beetle. I was happier on those days. Compared to the Pinto, the Beetle drove like a Z28.

KTVN-TV, Reno (1981-84): A menagerie, and a fairly mangy one at that: Two 1977 Dodge Aspen station wagons that you could tell apart only by the color of their interiors (one red, one blue), that spent most of their time on the back of tow trucks.

Awful cars. It's a wonder Chrysler stayed in business as long as it did before Iacocca. Believe it or not, until about 3 years ago, a neighbor of mine had a Plymouth Volare...accent grave over the e (WC Fields...The Bank Dick) that had somehow made it to the second decade of the 21st century. He rarely used it - the thing just sat at the curb taking up a parking space. Half the trunk lid was rusted out, and he had duct-taped over the rust holes, then painted the tape to match the color of the car...or so he thought. I'm normally a nice neighbor, but I actually took to leaving big insulting notes on his car in marking pen so everybody could read them. The car finally disappeared, so I'd like to think I embarrassed him enough to junk it.

QUOTE=michael hagerty;6166690] KTNV-TV, Las Vegas (1984-86): A fleet of six pale yellow 1983 Plymouth Reliant K Cars with tan interiors. The air conditioning worked. That's about the only good thing I can say about those. [/QUOTE]

Speaking of Iacocca. Those ugly s**t boxes were his strategy to save Chrysler. Never could figure out why it worked.

 

[DrAkbar]

Speaking of Iacocca. Those ugly s**t boxes were his strategy to save Chrysler. Never could figure out why it worked.

Consumate salesman. The K cars saved Chrysler's bacon and served as the platform for the wildly popular minivan. Iacocca also masterminded the purchase of AMC which gave Chrysler the Jeep franchise. So you see, those KPIX anchors tooling around the Bay area in their AMC Gremlins were definitely in the know!

 

[Hot Hits]

Michael you worked for Homer? KGIL's mobile unit was a joke, had a Mic and two record players. I wonder who had the nicest mobile studios during those times. The West Coast RKO mobile unit was amazing when I would see it parked at KRTH

 

[michael hagerty]

Michael you worked for Homer? KGIL's mobile unit was a joke, had a Mic and two record players. I wonder who had the nicest mobile studios during those times. The West Coast RKO mobile unit was amazing when I would see it parked at KRTH

I did work for Homer. In fact, I worked for two of McLendon's guys---Homer Odom and Reg Streeter, who owned Concerned Communications (owners of KUKI as well as KOBO, Yuba City and KBLF, Red Bluff).

The absolute best of the mobile studios was the Sturgeon (KFRC's nickname for the mobile studio). KRTH and KHJ had no clue what to do with it, which is why it went back up to San Francisco and was put into service for KFRC in its last days as a Top 40 and for Magic 61.

It was sold to the Monterey Bay NPR station, which used it at the Monterey Jazz Festival for several years, but eventually, they just parked it. Bill Shakespeare, who worked at KFRC in the glory days and now is in Reno, bought it and has restored it to its original 1981 state---takes it out to Hot August Nights and other local events and plays unscoped KFRC airchecks through the exterior speakers. There's a great Facebook page with pictures, videos and the full story:

https://www.facebook.com/KFRCMobileSturgeon/?ref=br_rs

And here's the Sturgeon in KHJ livery: http://stumptownblogger.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b86d36970c01a73d60631b970d-pi

 

[Hot Hits]

I did work for Homer. In fact, I worked for two of McLendon's guys---Homer Odom and Reg Streeter, who owned Concerned Communications (owners of KUKI as well as KOBO, Yuba City and KBLF, Red Bluff).

The absolute best of the mobile studios was the Sturgeon (KFRC's nickname for the mobile studio). KRTH and KHJ had no clue what to do with it, which is why it went back up to San Francisco and was put into service for KFRC in its last days as a Top 40 and for Magic 61.

It was sold to the Monterey Bay NPR station, which used it at the Monterey Jazz Festival for several years, but eventually, they just parked it. Bill Shakespeare, who worked at KFRC in the glory days and now is in Reno, bought it and has restored it to its original 1981 state---takes it out to Hot August Nights and other local events and plays unscoped KFRC airchecks through the exterior speakers. There's a great Facebook page with pictures, videos and the full story:

https://www.facebook.com/KFRCMobileSturgeon/?ref=br_rs

And here's the Sturgeon in KHJ livery: http://stumptownblogger.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b86d36970c01a73d60631b970d-pi

I'm a tiny bit confused and thanks for posting those links. What was the Motor Home sized mobile studio that sat outside near the KHJ transmitter in 1986. I was told it shared duties with KFRC although it seemed to always be in the same spot. It had no visual Station markings on it and was breathtaking, just like the whole facility was!

 

[michael hagerty]

I'm a tiny bit confused and thanks for posting those links. What was the Motor Home sized mobile studio that sat outside near the KHJ transmitter in 1986. I was told it shared duties with KFRC although it seemed to always be in the same spot. It had no visual Station markings on it and was breathtaking, just like the whole facility was!

There was only one. It wasn't really "shared" in the strictest sense. KFRC built it and had it from 1981-83. RKO commandeered it and sent it to KHJ for a little more than two years. If you saw it in 1986, it had probably already had the KHJ markings removed prior to being shipped back to KFRC.

Here's the Sturgeon as KFRC had it between 1981 and late 1983:

When it went to KHJ in fall '83, it was repainted:

If you saw it in '86 with no markings, it probably looked like this, give or take (this is how it looked when Bill bought it from the Monterey NPR station):

When it went back to KFRC in '86, it was repainted with the station's then-current logo and it was repainted again later that year as the station went to a standards format as Magic 61:

KFRC did lives from Caesar's Tahoe, from toll plazas at bridges all around the Bay Area...from an aircraft carrier, for crying out loud.

KHJ used it for Dave Hull to do remotes from the parking lot of a donut shop. RKO figured out that they'd robbed KFRC, so they sent it back.

 

[Hot Hits]

Your memories are priceless. I know you have done many things in your career, have you written a book yet? I'd pick it up for sure! Found this in Billboard

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...rc sturgeon why did they call it that&f=false

 

[michael hagerty]

Your memories are priceless. I know you have done many things in your career, have you written a book yet? I'd pick it up for sure! Found this in Billboard

https://books.google.com/books?id=E...rc sturgeon why did they call it that&f=false

Hard to get the Sturgeon out of my brain. I was fortunate enough to watch Jack Armstrong do his show in late '82 from the Fort Mason Christmas Fair in it (I was outside, but he had the window open so we could see in). Incredible.

If you haven't seen it, here's video from the Sturgeon's last broadcast (mislabeled as 1984, but it's fall '83) in San Francisco before it was sent down to KHJ. Great stuff with the jock staff and it takes you inside to see how it really was exactly like being in a studio--none of the usual remote compromises:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ9EQQNDEI4


I'm hoping to get over to Reno for an afternoon and have Bill Shakespeare give me the tour. He's done a wonderful restoration.

 

[LKellerIII]

Never knew "The Hullabalooer" worked for KHJ. From when to when?

 

[michael hagerty]

Never knew "The Hullabalooer" worked for KHJ. From when to when?

Llew: KHJ hired Hull for mornings in the fall of 1985. He was there just a few weeks before they fired everyone and automated as KRTH-AM on February 1, 1986.

 

[LKellerIII]

Llew: KHJ hired Hull for mornings in the fall of 1985. He was there just a few weeks before they fired everyone and automated as KRTH-AM on February 1, 1986.

Thanks, Michael. Did K-Earth AM then simulcast the FM? Last question - was KRTH-AM before or after "Car Radio?" That sounds like kind of a lame format.

 

[KeithE4]

KTNV-TV, Las Vegas (1984-86): A fleet of six pale yellow 1983 Plymouth Reliant K Cars with tan interiors. The air conditioning worked. That's about the only good thing I can say about those.

Speaking of Iacocca. Those ugly s**t boxes were his strategy to save Chrysler. Never could figure out why it worked.

I owned a Plymouth Reliant in the '80s. Not a great car, but I had little trouble with it. The worst part was that I was too cheap to buy one with air conditioning, right when Chicago had some Arizona-level hot summers.