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Invisible characters on TV shows

M

MsMusicRadio

Guest
Was watching" Detroit 1-8-7"- tonight and it appeared that when the major characters left the squad room for the day, no second shift appeared. This reminded me of classic shows with the same thing.

1) Barney Miller mentioned a night shift, but I don't recall ever seeing them.

2) Except on maybe one show, nobody was ever seen following Johnny Fever or preceeding or following Venus Flytrap on WKRP. This was way before VT'ing.

Any more?
 
In some of the early episodes of MASH there were references to another shift of doctors that were never seen, and there were also the other MASH units, the 8063rd most of the time and occasionally the 8055th (the "Eight-o-double nickel").
 
Believe it or not, in 1966 CBS aired a "busted pilot" called
"Where's Everett?", about an invisible baby; Alan Alda played
the father (or adoptive father, or something, I don't recall
any other details except that it aired once on a Monday night
and was never heard of again).
 
Ray Walston was invisible a good bit of the time on My Favorite Martian
 
Barney was invisible on an episode of "The Flintstones," and Fred had to put a cap on him so he knew where he was.

OT, but I think there was a famous blooper once, about a pre-emption of the movie "The Invisible Man," and the voiceover went thusly.... " 'The Invisible Man' will not be seen tonight....."

cd
 
MsMusicRadio said:
2) Except on maybe one show, nobody was ever seen following Johnny Fever or preceeding or following Venus Flytrap on WKRP. This was way before VT'ing.

Any more?
Click to expand...

Actually voice tracking did exist at the time of WKRP and years prior. Back in the mid 70's I can remember our local AM country music station had only two live jocks during the week with one in the mornings and the second in the afternoons..the rest of the time it was automated and this was 1975.

What about invisible towns? Mama's Family had that with "Hinkley" and "Gump"..or was it "Bump"? They were mentioned as being near Raytown but one never saw anybody from there.
 
mleach said:
MsMusicRadio said:
2) Except on maybe one show, nobody was ever seen following Johnny Fever or preceeding or following Venus Flytrap on WKRP. This was way before VT'ing.

Any more?
Click to expand...

Actually voice tracking did exist at the time of WKRP and years prior. Back in the mid 70's I can remember our local AM country music station had only two live jocks during the week with one in the mornings and the second in the afternoons..the rest of the time it was automated and this was 1975.
Click to expand...

Voice-tracking goes back earlier than that. Top 40 station KRLA in Los Angeles had voice-tracked DJs in all but morning and afternoon drive times for a couple of years in 1967 and 68. The system could be glitchy at times - songs and DJ announcements would sometimes repeat back to back, and occasionally the system would go down resulting in minutes of dead air. You can imagine some ancient and huge automation system with reel-to-reel tapes taking up half a room.

And "Beautiful Music" stations were practically always automated.
 
Was there ever a TV version of "The Shadow"? There was the 1993 Alec Baldwin movie version that tanked, but I've never heard of it being done on TV.
 
MsMusicRadio said:
Was watching" Detroit 1-8-7"- tonight and it appeared that when the major characters left the squad room for the day, no second shift appeared. This reminded me of classic shows with the same thing.

1) Barney Miller mentioned a night shift, but I don't recall ever seeing them.

2) Except on maybe one show, nobody was ever seen following Johnny Fever or preceeding or following Venus Flytrap on WKRP. This was way before VT'ing.

Any more?
Click to expand...

There were at least two or three episodes where episodes where the shift change for Johnny was covered or partially covered. In one episode we see rex erhardt the midday man come in after johnny and in the episode where johnny comes back after getting fired fro L.A. we see the "new" morning after johnny signs off the overnight show. Moss Stiger was always assumed as being in the hospital after many suicide attempts. That's why you never saw him.
 
Lkeller said:
Voice-tracking goes back earlier than that. Top 40 station KRLA in Los Angeles had voice-tracked DJs in all but morning and afternoon drive times for a couple of years in 1967 and 68. The system could be glitchy at times - songs and DJ announcements would sometimes repeat back to back, and occasionally the system would go down resulting in minutes of dead air. You can imagine some ancient and huge automation system with reel-to-reel tapes taking up half a room.
Click to expand...

There's some pictures of the KRLA "automation system" here: http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/krlapix.htm (scroll about 2/3rds down)
It wasn't really automated... it was voice-tracked on cart, then put on the air from the transmitter by engineers, who also had other maintenance duties at the same time. One cart machine started the next, one through six, later 1 to 8, before they had to insert new carts.
 
There was a station in Knoxville during the mid to late 70's (WOKI-FM) that was being Voice Tracted at least part of the day. Russ Skinner, who happened to an instructor at the local broadcasting school, VT the mid-day shift for WOKI. What made it obvious that it was being Voice Tracted was he often give the time and tempature during his program. Quite often, he would give the time as 1:35 pm when in actuallity, it would be 10:45, while during the afternoon portion of his shift, he would give the time as 11:20 or so. And this happened every day.
 
There were a couple of versions of "The Invisible Man," one from
England in the '50s; the other, American, in the '70s. He did wear
clothes so we could at least tell where he was.

Remember "Pete And Gladys"? On "December Bride" Pete Porter
(Harry Morgan) talked about Gladys, but we didn't see her until
they got their own show in 1960. Cara Williams (CBS's would-be
Lucy) played her.

And don't forget those two immortal characters on "The Andy
Griffith Show" we never saw: Sarah, the telephone operator;
and Juanita, Barney's girlfriend at the diner.

Finally, if someone says Uncle Martin was invisible a lot, so
were Samantha and her relatives, as well as Jeannie.
 
Lkeller said:
Voice-tracking goes back earlier than that. Top 40 station KRLA in Los Angeles had voice-tracked DJs in all but morning and afternoon drive times for a couple of years in 1967 and 68. The system could be glitchy at times - songs and DJ announcements would sometimes repeat back to back, and occasionally the system would go down resulting in minutes of dead air. You can imagine some ancient and huge automation system with reel-to-reel tapes taking up half a room.
Click to expand...
You have just described WCMT-FM in Martin, Tennessee, at least as it was in the early '90s when I worked there. The automation, to me, looked like something from the '70s, and I was told while I was working there that the station had been, more or less, automated from the time it came on the air in 1968, so that was probably original equipment that I was working with there. Only it took up the whole room, because the room was rather small.

It is my understanding that they upgraded and modernized after I left there.
 
anotherguy said:
In some of the early episodes of MASH there were references to another shift of doctors that were never seen, and there were also the other MASH units, the 8063rd most of the time and occasionally the 8055th (the "Eight-o-double nickel").
Click to expand...

On one episode some of the 4077th actually went to the 8063rd but they had bugged out.
 
George and Maryanne Kirby + their dog Neil were invisible to everyone except "Topper" (and the viewing audience). However, they would appear and disappear at will on the show.
 
MsMusicRadio said:
Barney Miller mentioned a night shift, but I don't recall ever seeing them.
Click to expand...

The night shift held business in Ralph and Alice Kramden's bedroom. :D
 
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