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Phoenix Suns Retro Night on KUTP

K

KeithE4

In honor of their 40th anniversary (the franchise was granted on January 22, 1968 and play began that fall), the Suns are taking a page from the Fox baseball broadcast of a few years ago and simulating the broadcasts of old. The first segment is trying to simulate a 1968 broadcast.

This so-called 1968 broadcast looks like something from 1958 as viewed on a 1948-vintage TV - the ones with the magnifying bubble in front. The black-and-white picture looks like it was shot with cheap Super-8 movie film rather than live from an image-orthicon camera, which would have been used at the time. I won't even talk about the silly getup that Tom Leander and Eddie Johnson are wearing.

I'm sure the quality of the broadcasts that aired back then (on Channel 5 in '68?) were much better than the unreasonable facsimile that the Suns are producing right now (early in the 1st quarter).

And what? No A-1 beer commercials? ;D
 
I attended the game but DVR’d it as well.

My thoughts on the TV broadcast:

It was a good idea but poor execution. For example, I don’t think they really needed to have the first quarter in black & white. Just having the retro graphics would have been good enough. The white graphics on a black & white screen were nearly impossible to read…I cannot imagine that it looked that bad 40 years ago.

The pseudo-color in the second quarter was rough on the eyes. The electronic advertising banner that surrounds the arena reflects on the court a lot, and whatever sort of camera setup they were using at that point just did not look good on TV.

I don’t have a HDTV…I shudder to think what it would have looked like on there. I bet it would have been more bearable if viewed on, say, a TV from the early 80’s.

I wonder how many viewers couldn’t stand it and tuned to the (normal-looking) TNT broadcast instead.

I assume that the music used at the start of the broadcast was the original Suns TV music from 1968. I was hoping that they would have used Suns TV music from the 80’s in the 2nd quarter while transitioning to commercial...but that didn't happen.

As far as the retro atmosphere at the game itself…what an incredible let-down. It seems like everyone except the players themselves was sporting retro jerseys. Why? I recall the Suns having worn those 1968-1992 jerseys on occasion in recent years, particularly when playing road games televised by ABC on Sundays. Also, I was extremely disappointed in the way they did the starting lineup. I was really hoping that they’d resurrect “Eye in the Sky” by Alan Parsons Project for this one night, and perhaps show the video of the basketball going through the Grand Canyon and down the Colorado River, as it descends towards America West Arena U.S. Airways Center, with Jeff Munn at the mic. But no...it was just Cedric Ceballos doing his usual thing, with some oldie (surely something played ad-nauseam on KOOL) blaring in the background. (The normal musical selection is the horrific "Firestarter" by Prodigy.)

Two seasons ago, Retro Night took place when the Celtics were in town. It was a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the triple-OT Game 5 between the Celtics and Suns in the '76 Finals. The atmosphere and execution that evening were FAR superior to last night's attempt.
 
justthenumbers said:
I attended the game but DVR’d it as well.

My thoughts on the TV broadcast:

It was a good idea but poor execution. For example, I don’t think they really needed to have the first quarter in black & white. Just having the retro graphics would have been good enough. The white graphics on a black & white screen were nearly impossible to read…I cannot imagine that it looked that bad 40 years ago.
Click to expand...

I can't believe that those graphics were still being used in Phoenix in 1968. They looked like the ones ABC used during their NBA days circa 1962.

And, according to Wikipedia, the games originally aired on Channel 12, not Channel 5. Karl Eller, who was one of the original Suns owners, bought KTAR radio and TV sometime in 1968 (not sure of the month). Needless to say, he put the team on his station.

I'm sure a mid-market NBC affiliate like KTAR-TV had much better graphics in 1968 than what was shown on KUTP last night.

The pseudo-color in the second quarter was rough on the eyes. The electronic advertising banner that surrounds the arena reflects on the court a lot, and whatever sort of camera setup they were using at that point just did not look good on TV.
Click to expand...

That was just as bad as the B&W segment. It looked like a cheap home vidicon camera from the early '80s. An actual broadcast from that era would have looked much better.
 
Channel 5 eventually did get the Suns broadcasts sometime in the mid-70s. It may have been around the time that Gannett bought KTAR and changed it to KPNX, though I'm not sure. In any case, whoever the decision-maker was at the time thought it would be better for a network affiliate not to pre-empt the network shows for NBA basketball and Channel 5 got the rights. They simulcast Al McCoy's radio play-by-play.

Two ironies here:

1. Channel 12, then as now an NBC affiliate, blew off the only pro franchise to show NBC shows when that network was mired in dead last place. (Anyone remember "Supertrain"?)

2. Although the Suns have always been popular here, this was back in the days when the NBA Finals were shown on tape-delay, so giving up the local broadcasts wasn't as insane as you might think.

Things have changed a bit since then.
 
buster2 said:
1. Channel 12, then as now an NBC affiliate, blew off the only pro franchise to show NBC shows when that network was mired in dead last place. (Anyone remember "Supertrain"?)
Click to expand...

I thought KPNX had once again started broadcasting Suns games in the early- and mid-1980s (I remember seeing the station logo in Dire Straits' "Walk of Life" music video with sports highlights). Then around 1985 or 1986, KNXV, which had been taken over by Scripps-Howard, became the flagship, but at a bad time (remember the 1987-88 season coached by John Wetzel?). KUTP, which had yet to build an identity in the Valley, retained the rights in 1988, just as the team's late-80s resurgence had begun, and never looked back.
 
I know that logistics would have been a major problem (an under statement), maybe the 40th celebration could have been played at the Madhouse on McDowell?
Who's to say it wouldn't have been a bad idea instead of simulated cam smear and "scratchy" film effect.
The blocked font was cool as was the supered clock.

Perhaps for the 50th?

KeithE4 said:
And what? No A-1 beer commercials? ;D
Click to expand...

Some retro spots would have been nice.
 
justthenumbers said:
I don’t have a HDTV…I shudder to think what it would have looked like on there. I bet it would have been more bearable if viewed on, say, a TV from the early 80’s.

I wonder how many viewers couldn’t stand it and tuned to the (normal-looking) TNT broadcast instead.
Click to expand...

that would be me. I didn't pay all that money for an HD so I could see what my crappy old t.v. used to look like.
I noticed it got better throughout the game, but the HD broadcast should have remained HD.

Throwback uni's are o.k. Throwback broadcasts are not!
 
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