Dialing for Dollars

[KingDaevid]

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.

...the Green Bay hosts I recall were Terry Ruggles (who left for an anchor position at WZZM/13 Grand Rapids IIRC) and Bill Cole (who later popped up as the local headline reader on WLRE/26's early runs of "Independent Network News" circa '81). WISN-TV/12 Milwaukee's hosts were Howard and Rosemary Gernette; Howard later surfaced as the weathercaster for WSAW/7 in Wausau. There was constantly friction between the Green Bay and Milwaukee operations because whenever they would call viewers in Sheboygan and Fond du Lac, both within the signal range of WISN-TV and WFRV, they risked having the viewer give the correct answer -- of the other station's game. Thus, they got a lot of ticked off viewers in East Central Wisconsin between them...<P ID="signature">______________
King Daevid MacKenzie
WLSU Wisconsin Public Radio, La Crosse
heard weekly on http://www.radio4all.net/
"Kill Ugly Radio." FRANK ZAPPA</P>

 

[DrBear]

Reialing For Dollars

> ...the Green Bay hosts I recall were Terry Ruggles (who left
> for an anchor position at WZZM/13 Grand Rapids IIRC) and
> Bill Cole (who later popped up as the local headline reader
> on WLRE/26's early runs of "Independent Network News" circa
> '81).

Dring was earlier (mid 60s) with Dick Kay doing the news. Cole is best remembered by me for hosting "W.C. Fields Theater" Friday midnights, which introduced me to Fields and the Marx Bros.

 

[MCNDRWS]

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.
>


WNEP-16 In Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, PA Had The Count and Amount Format On Their Version Of "Dialing For Dollars". But Another Daily Feature Of The Show Was
Gerbil Races. A really Bizarre Addition To The Show.

Speaking of Nolan Johannes, He Became The Newswatch 16 Anchorman Quite A Few
Years Later. And Still Does Voiceover Work For Them.<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by MCNDRWS on 11/21/05 04:43 AM.</FONT></P>

 

[ixnay]

Reialing For Dollars

>
> ...the Green Bay hosts I recall were Terry Ruggles (who left
> for an anchor position at WZZM/13 Grand Rapids IIRC)

The same Terry Ruggles who was at WCAU-10 Philadelphia during its CBS O&O era? And does anyone know if Terry is still at WCAU now that it's an NBC O&O?

ixnay

 

[ixnay]

Reialing For Dollars

The Philadelphia DforD count-and-amount format aired on WPVI-6 (ABC) from 9:00 to 10:00 am in the 1970s. Hosted by Bob McLean (later replaced by WFIL jock Jim O'Brien) and Connie Roussin Spann. Bob/Jim would do the calling 6 times per show, after someone in the audience would come up and draw a shred of phone book from the Philly, suburban PA or NJ bin. In between calls there were talk features. One time between calls they had some audience members come up, be blindfolded, and scramble for cash.

I met "Jimbo" one time on a middle school field trip to WFIL which shared WPVI's building at the time.

ixnay

 

[kirjtc2]

> 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?
>

WLBZ-2 in Bangor, Maine in the 70s. Half hour talk show format hosted by the immortal Eddie Driscoll.

 

[mbclev]

Reialing For Dollars

> 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..
>

There actually was a Cleveland "Dialing for Dollars" in the early seventies, I think, on WEWS. Don Webster, I think, hosted these segments during "The Virginia Graham Show".

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

In central Illinois, add WCIA-3 (CBS) Champaign (also serving Decatur and Springfield) to the list, as they aired DFD from 3-5PM (with local host Ed Kelly) from as early as the late '60s to about 1984.

WCIA's co-owned station in Peoria (originally through Midwest Television, Nexstar since 1999), WMBD-31 (CBS) also had a "Dialing for Dollars" program around the mid-70s with then-weatherman John Day as host. It didn't have as long of a run as the one on WCIA, however.

 

[wbhist]

Even New York City had a Dialing for Dollars for a time: WNEW-TV, Ch. 5 (now WNYW), in the mid-1960's.

I presume WABC-TV's Prize Movie, hosted by famed Hollywood actress Gloria DeHaven as of 1969, would've likewise counted, as I read some TV ads suggesting that she took phone calls and gave prizes.

 

[pqgeorge]

Back to WNAC-TV (now WHDH), in 1968, Ed Miller's "Two O'Clock/Dialing For Dollars Movie" expanded to a second movie at 4:00 called "The Money Movie" hosted by the late Hank Bouchard (who later moved back to WPRI/12 in Providence). Bouchard would eventually do his own version of "Dialing For Dollars" (as a talk show) on 'PRI for many years and was the voice of Channel 12 for a long time.

 

[Tim L]

Tom Haley at KYW-TV 3 in Cleveland hosted "Cash on the Line" with a 9AM Movie from either 1956/57-May 1960..I've only seen a still picture of the set but it did appear to be an early version of "Dialing For Dollars". When Haley moved to a 10AM Game Show Format (Give N Take) the 9AM spot was taken over by "Funsville," a show actually produced at KDKA-TV 2 Pittsburgh and hosted by the famed Josie Carey, recently from WQED-13 and "Children's Corner"..The show appeared to be quite similar to Childrens Corner, In that it was set in a small town with live and puppet characters..

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Re: Dialing for Dollars--"Children's Corner" (WQED) question

When Haley moved to a 10AM Game Show Format (Give N Take) the 9AM spot was taken over by "Funsville," a show actually produced at KDKA-TV 2 Pittsburgh and hosted by the famed Josie Carey, recently from WQED-13 and "Children's Corner"..The show appeared to be quite similar to Childrens Corner, In that it was set in a small town with live and puppet characters..

Sorry to get off-topic now, but when you mentioned "Children's Corner" and WQED, would Fred Rogers had been involved with that program before the days of "Misterogers" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood?" It appears that Children's Corner appeared to have resemblances to the "Neighborhood of Make Believe" on "Mister Rogers."

 

[FreddyE1977]

Re: \

> 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.

Yes, for a time Linda Carson also did weather for KDKA-TV2 in Pittsburgh when Bud was an Assistant Coach for
the Steelers.

I remember the WTAE-4 Dialing for Dollars, but I could also get WKBN-27 out of Youngstown, OH at my
house, and found it much more entertaining. They used rotating slides with phone exchanges from
Youngtown and nearby parts of PA and OH, and a random tumbler to pick the last 4 digits. You therefore
never knew who they were calling.....nor did the host! Pay phones in nudie bars, bus depots, the county
jail, UPS, etc. He would often be frozen on-air when caught offguard by whoever it was picking up the phone
at the other end. The reactions were priceless!

 

[johnnyu]

WMAR-TV in Baltimore carried Dialing for Dollars. For a time, it was simulcast on WCBM radio.

 

[oldschooler1]

This thread is still going?!!

I swear I remember posting this info before...

In Syracuse, WSYR-TV ch. 3 had the "Dialing for Dollars" franchise. In it's heyday (early 70s), it was done during all their local shows: Lady's Day, Denny Sullivan & the Gang, and especially during "Hollywood Matinee" with Ed Murphy.

"If we call you, you have to know the count, and the amount."

The count was either down or up, from the bottom of the snipping...The amount, always went up if the caller didn't know it.

Yep, a rolling barrel full of clipped Syracuse phone books. Probably snipped up by Newhouse interns from S.U.

They used the same barrel later for "Bowling for dollars" home contestants.

Our house got called once. We didn't know the count and the amount (but we sure knew dialing for dollars). We won a buck for answering the phone.

Boy, that was a classic local TV station, if there ever was one.

 

[LKellerIII]

This thread is still going?!! I swear I remember posting this info before...

This thread started in November 2005; so you probably did post that info before.

 

[2MANYHATS]

I remember the WTAE , Pittsburgh version of DFD..I beleive the host's name was Dell Taylor...they also ran Bowling For Dollars hosted by Nick Perry, who became more famous for fixing the state lottery's daily number.

 

[LABreeze]

I lived in Henderson, TX (I was born in 1966) prior to 5 other stations opened up to some 25 years later, we had one local TV station which was KLTV out of Tyler (they are not associated with DFD, unfortunately), but our antenna can pick up Shreveport stations. One of them that did Dialing For Dollars was a local ABC affiliate KTBS-TV 3. I do not remember the personality's name, but he used to be ring announcer for Championship Wrestling which later became Mid-South Wrestling. They would do it twice a day, once in the morning and another during the afternoon. Then about maybe during the early 80s, KTAL-6 did theirs similar to DFD. I think they had their "Cash Call" during the news (6 or 10pm IIRC) and at the time I believe call a viewer randomly to get the correct count and amount during commercial breaks of Wheel of Fortune (syndicated, by the way).

As a kid growing up, I had no idea why random calls were made, but later in life I realized the logic that went on in that concept. I believe that later on, radio played a part in their cash call years later, but that's another topic for another time.

 

[Laura151]

I remember seeing Dialing For Dollars in the late 1960's and early 1970's on WPTV (Channel 5) in West Palm Beach, Florida. I lived in Fort Lauderdale at the time. I don't know what they originally ran when they started the show, but in the fall of 1971, they ran old episodes of Ben Casey. The basic format of Dialing for Dollars in West Palm Beach was exactly the same as most of the other stations (slips from the phone book, up and down, etc.).

 

[bhayes1016]

I lived in Henderson, TX (I was born in 1966) prior to 5 other stations opened up to some 25 years later, we had one local TV station which was KLTV out of Tyler (they are not associated with DFD, unfortunately), but our antenna can pick up Shreveport stations. One of them that did Dialing For Dollars was a local ABC affiliate KTBS-TV 3. I do not remember the personality's name, but he used to be ring announcer for Championship Wrestling which later became Mid-South Wrestling.

Reeser Bowden.