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LOCAL & NATIONAL TV MISHAPS ON LIVE TV

dhett said:
I think the worst was when the two helicopters collided in Phoenix. KNXV was in the middle of a live report. 'Nuff said.
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I believe more/less the same thing had happened in Buffalo way back in the 80's. Don't remember who it was but I am pretty such the Buffalo stations havent used a chopper ever since.
 
dhett said:
I think the worst was when the two helicopters collided in Phoenix.  KNXV was in the middle of a live report.  'Nuff said.
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The KNXV footage of that collision is difficult to watch....you can clearly hear crunching metal and screams before they cut away.

Mentioned before on here by myself was a live solo copter crash that occurred in the late 80's on Jacksonville's WTLV. They were hovering over I-10 when the video image suddenly went spinning and cut out in a matter of 2-3 seconds. Pilot killed, reporter injured. It came down in (thankfully) a vacant lot just a few blocks from where I was living at the time. The odd thing was that the reporter was in the middle of a sentence when the copter started spinning out of control, and completed the sentence as it went down. There must be some sort of delayed reaction in such a situation, where you are so focused on a task that it actually takes the brain a couple of secs to "catch up" to what is happening.
 
Quote from: Lkeller on Today at 09:46:24 AM
Quote from: bpatrick on Today at 06:36:34 AM
I keep thinking of the time Art James was doing a live
commercial for Peter Pan peanut butter on "Say When!"
and nearly cut one of his hands apart opening the jar.

And a rather minor one involving a major personality:
Johnny Carson, doing a live Jello commercial on "Who
Do You Trust?", referred to a "cup" as a "crup". Naturally,
he was able to ad-lib around it: "you can add a crup, too."


I'm sure there are hundreds of examples from the live commercial era. For example, Ed Mc Mahon used to do live Alpo dog food commercials on the Tonight Show in which he'd serve a bowl of the stuff to a live dog on camera. I seem to recall at least one clip in which the dog showed absolutey no interest in the food, running around the set, jumping on Carson and the guests, and so forth.


Don't think it was Ed, but I recall someone doing a live dog food commercial in which the pooch, who had been starved for a day or two to insure a ravenous appetite come commercial-time, gobbled the contents of the bowl in seconds, paused, and promptly regurgitated the slop.
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I remember hearing that story too. For some reason, it seems like it was Ted Mack from the old "Amateur Hour". Someone mentioned a mishap on an old peanut butter commercial...One I've seen involved the pitchman dropping the knife into the jar after spreading some peanut butter on a slice of bread, causing the bottom of the jar to break. Probably the most famous of theselive commercial mishaps was Betty Furness trying to open the refrigerator door, or John Cameron Swayze looking for the Timex watch that had been strapped to an outboard motor propeller.
 
The knife-thru-the-jar Peter Pan peanut butter gaffe was indeed the "Say When!!" game show with Art James pitching the peanut butter himself. It is on YouTube if you search "art james" "say when".

My only lament is that the entire episode has not survived. The show ran 4 years....I have the pilot ep, but that's all that there seems to be.

cd
 
I wish I'd saved the tape -- because I think we were still rolling the 6PM aircheck for the local news that night when this happened...

But in about 1998, ABC's techies were on strike. And it started to show, on the air.

"ABC World News Tonight". Peter Jennings is doing an interview w/ someone in one of those big-ass monitors behind him. He finishes.

Turns to camera 2 to start the next story, but the director takes camera 3.

So he turns to camera 3, but then the director takes camera 2.

So Peter turns to camera 2, but then director takes camera 3 again!

And, it happened again!

Peter finally said, wagging his finger at the camera -- and this is network TV, the #1 newscast -- "I'll make up my mind, if you just make up yours."

Funniest thing I've seen on network news ever.
 
cd637299 said:
The knife-thru-the-jar Peter Pan peanut butter gaffe was indeed the "Say When!!" game show with Art James pitching the peanut butter himself. It is on YouTube if you search "art james" "say when".

My only lament is that the entire episode has not survived. The show ran 4 years....I have the pilot ep, but that's all that there seems to be.

cd
Click to expand...

And that is what happened; the bottom of the jar broke; James was uninjured. I think that clip has been show on bloopers shows or "embarrassing game show moments" specials. I can't think of any similar mishap that befell Ted Mack.
 
An interesting off-shoot of this thread is the joke commercials many TV advertisers suddenly decide to record, just to let off steam, or have some fun. Really bad idea. Somehow, these joke reels always find their way into the public, and these days...onto You Tube.

Here's usedcar huckster Chick Lambert referring to his boss Ralph Williams as a "bald headed son-of-a-bitch"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkr5SOxjihI

And cheap furniture huckster (and later criminal) Ed Barbara dissing his customers:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK-w5_UJTjk
 
Not live, but "live on tape," the original "Jeopardy!" used pull
cards to reveal the "answers," and they would frequently get
stuck. Art Fleming would make some mild joke like, "Boys are
back there enjoying a keg of beer." (Boy, do I wish something
like that would happen to Trebek!)

In 1968, "Guiding Light" was still live when it expanded from 15
minutes to 30, and for a big start to the new, expanded format,
Bill Bauer was going to undergo a heart transplant. The actor
who played him got on the operating table and promptly went to
sleep--for real! Nobody but the other cast members noticed it,
and they had a time waking him up when the show was over.
 
bpatrick said:
Not live, but "live on tape," the original "Jeopardy!" used pull
cards to reveal the "answers," and they would frequently get
stuck. Art Fleming would make some mild joke like, "Boys are
back there enjoying a keg of beer."
Click to expand...

I recall one instance that a stagehand pulled a money card, only to reveal a blank space, instead of an "answer".
 
bpatrick said:
Not live, but "live on tape," the original "Jeopardy!" used pull
cards to reveal the "answers," and they would frequently get
stuck. Art Fleming would make some mild joke like, "Boys are
back there enjoying a keg of beer." (Boy, do I wish something
like that would happen to Trebek!)

In 1968, "Guiding Light" was still live when it expanded from 15
minutes to 30, and for a big start to the new, expanded format,
Bill Bauer was going to undergo a heart transplant. The actor
who played him got on the operating table and promptly went to
sleep--for real! Nobody but the other cast members noticed it,
and they had a time waking him up when the show was over.
Click to expand...

"Had a time waking him up?" Do we know if Bill had a few cocktails at lunch before laying down for his 'operation?'
 
During one of the periodic writers' strikes of the 1980s, some of the soap opera actors took to adlibbing their lines, mainly because they didn't have any.
I don't remember which soap this was, but Joseph Campanella played a man who is revealed to be the "hidden" murderer. While holding one of the actresses at gunpoint, it was obvious that he hadn't been given the lines or any idea of what the action would be that day. So the "victim", in character, had to feed him all his "motivations" for being a killer, and even told him on the air how he planned to kill her too. With a look of terror in his eyes, all poor Campanella could do was nod and say "Yeh! Yeh! That's right! That's right!"
 
In the Quad Cities, KWQC has claimed to be 'THE station for news'. It should also consider itself the station for bloopers as well. Among the QC bloopers that I can recall:

- A reporter disappearing and reappearing like magic!
- An anchor mispronouncing a reporter's name (said a fowl word by mistake)
- Clips I saw on youtube.com featuring cameras moving on various anchors
- Chris Williams saying the FOX 19 9:00 News (it runs on 18)
 
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