Dialing for Dollars

[bhayes1016]

A post in the local morning show thread mentioned the Houston version of this. I remember seeing it as a kid; they showed an old movie in the mornings, and during breaks they would literally pick a name out of the phonebook and call them...they would win the "jackpot" (usually $100-$500, this was in the 70s) in they could identify a code word or phrase.

Did every market have something like this?

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

In the late 1960's, the old WNAC-7 here in Boston had a version, which ran during a weekday afternoon movie (many of the titles broadcast were from the RKO Pictures library, which at the time was under the same corporate ownership as WNAC).

Ed Miller was the Boston host.

Before the film, at the end, and during two or three commercial breaks during the film, Miller would take a slip out of a local white pages phone book.

Calling the viewer, he asked if they knew the "count" (something like "four from the top" or "seven from the bottom") and the "amount" (the amount of money in the jackpot). If a viewer knew both, he/she won the cash.

Did the other RKO General television stations have their own versions??

I'm not 100% sure, but I think WNAC even did a junior version around the same time on Saturday mornings with popular children's TV personality "Major Mudd" (played by the late Ed O'Donnell), but the youngsters who were called only had to recall the number of toys that would be given away to the winner.

 

[RobertMoore]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

Yes, the RKO General stations had their own versions, most notably WHBQ/Memphis, which had the same format WNAC/Boston had.

Here's a few more:

WISN/Milwaukee(Doubled as a Talk Show)
KXLY/Spokane
WTAE/Pittsbugh
KTSM/El Paso

 

[KML0224]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

I don't know about Hartford/New Haven, but I do believe that WLNE-TV (ABC) channel 6 of New Bedford, MA/Providence, RI used to have something like this in the afternoos a few years ago.

 

[dampier]

> A post in the local morning show thread mentioned the
> Houston version of this. I remember seeing it as a kid; they
> showed an old movie in the mornings, and during breaks they
> would literally pick a name out of the phonebook and call
> them...they would win the "jackpot" (usually $100-$500, this
> was in the 70s) in they could identify a code word or
> phrase.
>
> Did every market have something like this?

Rochester had this on WOKR-13, the ABC affiliate. Joel Loy (who would later "delight" us with PM Magazine followed by his going national on one of those gossip news shows) would sit in an orange chair with a plant and one of those hideous olive green rotary dial Stromberg-Carlson 10 pounder phones and would show movies for the female demo with cut-ins of him sitting there rotary dialing local numbers hoping for an answer. No answer. Busy signal. Someone who didn't speak English. Someone who hasn't a clue what the jackpot word was, and then Edna Guaranelli of East Rochester knows the phrase because her sister Sylvia called from Irondequoit earlier while she was folding the laundry and reminded her to turn on that nice young man on Channel 13. Compelling television it was not, and often watching the plant grow was more exciting.

I do remember one movie they showed emotionally scarred me as a child - it was some vacation day for me and they ran this film that showed this brave young girl who was very bossy and mature for her age until we got to see this delivery truck run over and kill her dog. They even threw in the yelp, followed by the screams and tears. I was horrified.

After that, it was Bowling for Dollars with Ron DeFrance for me.

 

[valkyrie777]

> A post in the local morning show thread mentioned the
> Houston version of this. I remember seeing it as a kid; they
> showed an old movie in the mornings, and during breaks they
> would literally pick a name out of the phonebook and call
> them...they would win the "jackpot" (usually $100-$500, this
> was in the 70s) in they could identify a code word or
> phrase.
>
> Did every market have something like this?
>

Oh, God! Thanks for jarring the memory banks. I thought I had forgotten the afternoon movie-announcer's cheesy phrase: "If we call, know the count and the amount"!

Ours worked this way: the announcer would start with a certain amount...say $100.00. Then, he would spin a wheel with numbers from 1 to 10. That would be the "count". The jackpot was the "amount." He would then call people up who had registered at the grocery store who sponsored the movie. He would ask the person called if they knew "the count and the amount." If they did, they won; if they didn't know, he would add some amount to the jackpot...usually about $10 or $20...spin the wheel again to get a NEW "count" and call a new person again later in the movie. I remember that one time the jackpot got up to about $1500.00; quite a bit for the late 70's.

Thanks for the stroll down my childhood's memory lane.

 

[bpatrick]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

> I don't know about Hartford/New Haven, but I do believe that
> WLNE-TV (ABC) channel 6 of New Bedford, MA/Providence, RI
> used to have something like this in the afternoos a few
> years ago.
>
WAVY/10 Norfolk, VA, had a morning show, Compass With
Dialing For Dollars. During the Dialing For Dollars
segments, the people called had to give the count, amount,
and direction (north, south, east, west--the show was
called Compass) in order to win.

Other stations that had Dialing For Dollars (count and
amount):

WQXI (WXIA)/11 Atlanta

On Channel 11, Linda Faye Carson, wife of Georgia
Tech's then-head football coach Bud Carson, did
Dialing For Dollars on Linda's Prize Movie at 9 AM
(this is around 1971 or '72); she also did weather
on the station's midday news. When Bud Carson was
replaced by Pepper Rodgers, he got a job as assistant
coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. At the same time,
the movie was moved to 3:30 and Don Barber, who had
a talk show on WAGA/5 in the late '60s, took over
Dialing For Dollars on what was now simply Prize Movie.
(This was in the fall of '72; DFD was dropped around
1974.)

WLKY/32 Louisville, WXIA's sister station at one time,
had Prize Movie at 9 AM and Dialing For Dollars Movie
at 3:30 for several years in the mid-'70s.

WLCY (WTSP)/10 Tampa/St. Petersburg
WGHP/8 Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point
WBRC/6 Birmingham, AL

R. Wells mentions that Channel 6 sportscaster Tom York
made the DFD calls; this was on the 3:30 movie.
WXEX (WRIC)/8 Richmond/Petersburg, VA

WLOS/13 Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville used to
have something called The Money Man. If Bob Caldwell
(who also did weather) called, and you could tell him
the amount in the jackpot and name the show/star of the
day, you won. I remember in the late '60s this was
inserted into Perry Mason reruns (4:30-5:30) and the
5:30 local news.

<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by bpatrick on 11/18/05 11:31 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[MCarney]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

> I don't know about Hartford/New Haven, but I do believe that
> WLNE-TV (ABC) channel 6 of New Bedford, MA/Providence, RI
> used to have something like this in the afternoos a few
> years ago.
>
George Allen was the host. IIRC it was on in the 1980's, which seemed to be a little late for the format. WLNE was a CBS affiliate at the time, and they shifted "Guiding Light" to 10am (before it was fashionable!) to fit in the movie.

 

[bayusm1]

>
> I do remember one movie they showed emotionally scarred me
> as a child - it was some vacation day for me and they ran
> this film that showed this brave young girl who was very
> bossy and mature for her age until we got to see this
> delivery truck run over and kill her dog. They even threw
> in the yelp, followed by the screams and tears. I was
> horrified.
>
> After that, it was Bowling for Dollars with Ron DeFrance for
> me.
>
What was the name of the movie.
I like it when the girls go wahaha!

 

[TimL]

Reialing For Dollars

> WQXI (WXIA)/11 Atlanta
> WLCY (WTSP)/10 Tampa/St. Petersburg
> WGHP/8 Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point
> WBRC/6 Birmingham, AL
> WXEX (WRIC)/8 Richmond/Petersburg, VA
>
> WLOS/13 Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville used to
> have something called The Money Man. If Bob Caldwell
> (who also did weather) called, and you could tell him
> the amount in the jackpot and name the show/star of the
> day, you won. I remember in the late '60s this was
> inserted into Perry Mason reruns (4:30-5:30) and the
> 5:30 local news.

Cleveland TV Veteran Ton Haley did something called Cash On The Line as a movie wraparound which sounds like a "Dialing for Dollars" Type Of Thing on KYW-3 from at least 1957-60. (Too young to have seen it myself.) In the 70's and 80's John Lanigan, and Later "Fig" Newton did a "Star Wheel" Contest called "Prize Movie" with postcards in which various WUAB 43 "stars" were on a wheel..People who sent in postcards were asked to identify the name of the "star". If They did, were awarded a small prize which was behind the letters W, U, A, and B on a prize board on the wall and then had to identify a movie clip for a jackpot prize which would grow each day. Sometimes it seemed the clip would go weeks without anyone identifying it..
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by TimL on 11/18/05 04:09 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[rwells2265]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

> IIRC it was on in the 1980's,
> which seemed to be a little late for the format. WLNE was a
> CBS affiliate at the time, and they shifted "Guiding Light"
> to 10am (before it was fashionable!) to fit in the movie.

WJSU-40 (CBS) in Anniston, Ala. (now half of ABC-33/40 in Birmingham) was still doing a DFD segment as late as 1985. It aired before their 6 PM newscast. I get the feeling they didn't give away a whole lot of cash - which perhaps was for the better, given the station's frayed shoestring budget.

Being that Anniston was barely 50 miles out of Birmingham, I wonder how many times channel 40 caught viewers at home while getting ready to watch either of the two major B'ham TV stations.....

"Hi, this is TV 40 Dialing for Dollars. Do you know the count and the amount?"
"Welllllll, I don't know. Wait a minute, you don't sound like Tom York. This is some sort of gag. Tom hasn't done Dialing for Dollars at channel 6 in years."
"Uh, sir, this is channel 40 in Anniston."
"40? I'll be dogged, I didn't know we even HAD a TV station here in town!"

 

[DrBear]

Reialing For Dollars

Add Green Bay to the list - Cal Dring in the 1960s on WFRV (NBC in those days). Had the wheel, the drum full of cut-up phone books, the count (5 up from the bottom) and the key phrase (NBC Week).

Usually three calls during Midday (along with news headlines, weather and farm markets) and two more during the Early Show movie at 3:30.

--
And, lest we forget, the mention in Janis Joplin's "Oh Lord Won't You Buy Me a Mercedes-Benz"
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV
Dialing for Dollars is trying to find me.
I'll wait for delivery each day until 3
Oh Lord, won't you buy me a color TV.

 

[moedog1]

Reialing For Dollars

I remember Dialing for Dollars on WXEX-TV8 in Richmond--I think they started DFD in the 50's and continued throughout the 60s during old movies, syndicated programing and between local and national newscasts. I always wondered who had the unbelievably boring job of cutting up the phonebooks, since you would have to count the number of listings on each slips. They called people from as far away as Roanoke Rapids NC, Charlottesville, and Fredricksburg and got winners from those areas, so it was a lot of phone books....

 

[bpatrick]

Reialing For Dollars

> I remember Dialing for Dollars on WXEX-TV8 in Richmond--I
> think they started DFD in the 50's and continued throughout
> the 60s during old movies, syndicated programing and between
> local and national newscasts. I always wondered who had the
> unbelievably boring job of cutting up the phonebooks, since
> you would have to count the number of listings on each
> slips. They called people from as far away as Roanoke
> Rapids NC, Charlottesville, and Fredricksburg and got
> winners from those areas, so it was a lot of phone books....
>
I remember a couple of long versions of Dialing For Dollars
back around 1967 or '68 on Channel 8: one from (IIRC) 9-10:30
AM, the other from 4:30 until ABC News came on at 5:30.

On KHJ (now KCAL)/9 Los Angeles in the early '70s Tom Hallick
was host of The Golden Shot Movie, a forerunner of TV POWWW!!
People were called and asked to take a shot at a target on the
screen; by verbally indicating when to shoot, they either hit
the target and won money or something; or they missed and won
nothing (K.M. or somebody else from California, help me out
with the exact procedure). TV Guide once did a picture feature
on this.

And don't forget that the original concept of What's My Line?
was as a telephone game called Stop The Camera. The idea was
to call a person, who (hopefully) was watching as the camera
panned the audience row by row until a celebrity appeared, at
which point the person was supposed to yell, "Stop the camera!"
and identify the celeb. That didn't work, so Mark Goodson and
Bill Todman changed it to something like the Who's Who game on
'70s Line. The person called would try to match six people from
the audience with their occupations. Perhaps thankfully, Stop
The Camera never got on the air; the concept was changed into
the familiar celebrity-panel format before it ever hit the air.
This is from Gil Fates' 1978 book about What's My Line?

 

[ViewStu]

Reialing For Dollars

> >
> I remember a couple of long versions of Dialing For Dollars
> back around 1967 or '68 on Channel 8: one from (IIRC)
> 9-10:30
> AM, the other from 4:30 until ABC News came on at 5:30.
>
> On KHJ (now KCAL)/9 Los Angeles in the early '70s Tom
> Hallick
> was host of The Golden Shot Movie, a forerunner of TV
> POWWW!!
> People were called and asked to take a shot at a target on
> the
> screen; by verbally indicating when to shoot, they either
> hit
> the target and won money or something; or they missed and
> won
> nothing (K.M. or somebody else from California, help me out
> with the exact procedure). TV Guide once did a picture
> feature
> on this.


KTVU, Channel 2 in Oakland, CA, had 'Dialing For Dollars' for many years, weekdays at 1 o'clock. The host was Pat McCormick, who also had a long stint as the weatherman on the station's 10 o'clock news. He also created the dog puppet characters 'Charley and Humphrey', who did a kids' show at KTVU and other Bay Area stations in the '60s and '70s...and eventually, when that ran its course and KTVU tried its own TV POWWW game, McCormick did that, too.
I admit to not remembering much about the format of 'Dialing for Dollars'(I was 5 when I was first aware of it,and barely watched it for the decade or so that it ran until KTVU dropped it) other than McCormick sitting in an armchair in what was supposed to be some shlocky 'living room' set. For some reason, I remember the phone being bright-red...possibly the same prop used on KTVU's version of 'Romper Room', come to think of it?:-D
The other posts in this thread jogged my memory about the 'jackpot wheel' and 'name the count and the amount'. They always seemed to get through to little old ladies, and occasionally, they really DID give away a jackpot!
McCormick eventually retired from KTVU about 1990, and the station just showed an afternoon movie without the 'DFD' gimmick, until dropping it for syndicated programming about a year later.
The same name and format were briefly used on KICU in San Jose in the mid-late '90s. By that time, KICU was KTVU's sister station. Yet another former weather guy named Steve Dini served as the host, using the same basic 'jackpot wheel and phone calls to littleold ladies' format. This was actually quite popular, as apparently the fans of KTVU's version were glad to see it back on the air. But, eventually, the 'reality' of local daytime TV took over, and KICU eventually replaced it with 'judge' shows or something(ironically, that kind of fare now airs on KTVU, while KICU has won back the little-old-lady audience with 'Matlock' reruns...hey, maybe Andy Griffith could do a nationwide 'Dialing for Dollars' revival?;-) )
>
<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by ViewStu on 11/18/05 09:58 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[KMRichards]

Answering two questions with one post

Question #1:

> > I always wondered who had the
> > unbelievably boring job of cutting up the phonebooks,
> since
> > you would have to count the number of listings on each
> > slips. They called people from as far away as Roanoke
> > Rapids NC, Charlottesville, and Fredricksburg and got
> > winners from those areas, so it was a lot of phone
> books....

Not all that difficult, actually. Get a nice, fresh blade in an X-Acto® knife, put a ruler inbetween the columns of a phone book (the white space is in the same position on the front and back of all the white pages) and cut through several dozen pages at a time.

Then take the column-length strips in multiples, count down the number of lines you want each piece to have, and use a paper cutter to do the cross-cut.

I could probably do the San Fernando Valley phonebook in a few hours that way.

Question #2:

> On KHJ (now KCAL)/9 Los Angeles in the early '70s Tom
> Hallick
> was host of The Golden Shot Movie, a forerunner of TV
> POWWW!!
> People were called and asked to take a shot at a target on
> the
> screen; by verbally indicating when to shoot, they either
> hit
> the target and won money or something; or they missed and
> won
> nothing (K.M. or somebody else from California, help me out
> with the exact procedure).

My fuzzy memory remembers it pretty much the way you describe it, Bob. Knowing KHJ's budget at the time, it was likely not a cash giveaway; more likely, prizes came from advertising trade accounts.<P ID="signature">______________


</P>

 

[rugrats1]

Reialing For Dollars

> On KHJ (now KCAL)/9 Los Angeles in the early '70s Tom
> Hallick
> was host of The Golden Shot Movie, a forerunner of TV
> POWWW!!
> People were called and asked to take a shot at a target on
> the
> screen; by verbally indicating when to shoot, they either
> hit
> the target and won money or something; or they missed and
> won
> nothing...

This was actually based on a British ITV program, "The Golden Shot", which aired in the late-1960s and most of the 1970s, as they had the exact same concept, except that instead of movies, they usually had a recording artist play or sing between shots.

 

[oldtimeradio]

Reialing For Dollars

(snip)
> 'Matlock' reruns...hey, maybe Andy Griffith could do a
> nationwide 'Dialing for Dollars' revival?;-) )
> >
>

Add KPHO-TV, Phoenix to the list. The version I remember was an hour long show Monday to Friday afternoons at 2 pm. (1965-66)

Count and amount format, using the Metro Phoenix White pages (I helped cut up a phone book one Saturday afternoon).

<P ID="signature">______________
Mike
MOR Memories - Class from the Past
http://www.mormemories.com
































</P>

 

[tomp]

Reialing For Dollars

In Buffalo, the DFD format was your basic morning show, complete with live band Jimmy and Johnny, and hosts Nolan Johannes and Liz Dribben. There were talk segments in between the dialing portion...I wasn't born yet but I believe in the 60s format, the object was to come up with the count and the amount. Later, in the 70s, the format was changed to a random call and identify the personality of the day for a jackpot of $777. There were also trivia contests each show (call in with the right answer and win tickets, etc.). Eventually, the show dropped those segments, and is now AM Buffalo, with your basic talk format.

 

[KML0224]

Re: "Dialing for Dollars"

> On Channel 11, Linda Faye Carson, wife of Georgia
> Tech's then-head football coach Bud Carson, did
> Dialing For Dollars on Linda's Prize Movie at 9 AM
> (this is around 1971 or '72); she also did weather
> on the station's midday news. When Bud Carson was
> replaced by Pepper Rodgers, he got a job as assistant
> coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. At the same time,
> the movie was moved to 3:30 and Don Barber, who had
> a talk show on WAGA/5 in the late '60s, took over
> Dialing For Dollars on what was now simply Prize Movie.
> (This was in the fall of '72; DFD was dropped around
> 1974.)
>

That name sounds very familiar. She had a reporting stint in either the late 1980s or early 1990s at WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 of Hartford, CT.