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Remember "Let's Go To The Races?"
- Thread starter CrankyYankee
- Start date
K
kirkiefan
Guest
WHIO-TV in Dayton aired it in the summer/fall of 1966 with IGA as sponsor.
WIMA-TV in Lima (now WLIO) also aired it also in the fall of '66 with Pangles Master Markets as sponsor.
Other variants emerged including "Harness Racing Sweepstakes," "Grehound Derby" and "Race To Riches" (using NASCAR footage). They fizzled out by 1968 I think..since they used archived film footage from all of the races and the participating stores' "game cards" had all of the losers...inasmuch nothing more than a gimmick to help generate increased store traffic for the sponsor.
WIMA-TV in Lima (now WLIO) also aired it also in the fall of '66 with Pangles Master Markets as sponsor.
Other variants emerged including "Harness Racing Sweepstakes," "Grehound Derby" and "Race To Riches" (using NASCAR footage). They fizzled out by 1968 I think..since they used archived film footage from all of the races and the participating stores' "game cards" had all of the losers...inasmuch nothing more than a gimmick to help generate increased store traffic for the sponsor.
bpatrick said:
Makes sense because he stopped doing White Sox games in 72.
Your best chance of winning was to get a game card
in a low-traffic area (meaning a small town or somewhere
where the store wasn't doing much business). My parents
won a few bucks on the early races ($2, $5, etc.), but
winning the top prize was almost impossible. In Norfolk,
where the top prize was $1000, they'd post the names of
all the previous week's winners and there might be one
$1000 winner.
I vaguely remember "Harness Racing Sweepstakes," but
it started airing in North Carolina just about the time I
moved to Virginia; it wasn't carried there. A chain in
eastern North Carolina, Red & White, even sponsored
something called "Southern 500 Racing" on WITN, but
they ran out of films pretty fast.
in a low-traffic area (meaning a small town or somewhere
where the store wasn't doing much business). My parents
won a few bucks on the early races ($2, $5, etc.), but
winning the top prize was almost impossible. In Norfolk,
where the top prize was $1000, they'd post the names of
all the previous week's winners and there might be one
$1000 winner.
I vaguely remember "Harness Racing Sweepstakes," but
it started airing in North Carolina just about the time I
moved to Virginia; it wasn't carried there. A chain in
eastern North Carolina, Red & White, even sponsored
something called "Southern 500 Racing" on WITN, but
they ran out of films pretty fast.
An ealier run of "Lets Go to the Races" in the late 60's was sponsered by Publix Supermarkets in the Tampa Bay Area and most likely the those races were taped at Gulfstream in Hallandale,FL (just north of Miami in Broward county), it almost seems to me that after Publix during that time period; another supermarket chain got involved; maybe Pantry Pride (long since gone from the area) or Winn Dixie. (not gone but fading fast).azumanga said:
The later run in the 1980's may have been taped at Tampa Bay Downs, in Oldsmar,FL just west of Tampa and east of Clearwater(may have been called Sunshine Park then as mentioned in another post).
drt
st. petersburg,fl
B
BaltimoreJack
Guest
It played on & off in the Binghamton & Elmira NY markets in the 1970's, and was sponsored by P&C Markets there.
WAVE-TV and later WLKY-TV showed the show in Louisville from the mid '60s until about '71. Winn-Dixie Food Stores sponsored on WAVE, and market newcomer Giant Foods sponsored for a short time on WLKY. It always ran at 7:00-7:30 PM EST/EDT Saturdays.
I remember my grandparents' Saturday evening after-dinner routine well...do the dishes, break out the game cards for "Let's Go To The Races" and watch the show on WAVE-TV, watch "Hayloft Hoedown," a local C&W show from WHAS-TV, then to WLKY for "The Lawrence Welk Show" and "The Hollywood Palace"...exciting stuff, eh?
I remember my grandparents' Saturday evening after-dinner routine well...do the dishes, break out the game cards for "Let's Go To The Races" and watch the show on WAVE-TV, watch "Hayloft Hoedown," a local C&W show from WHAS-TV, then to WLKY for "The Lawrence Welk Show" and "The Hollywood Palace"...exciting stuff, eh?
>>I remember my grandparents' Saturday evening after-dinner routine well...do the dishes, break out the game cards for "Let's Go To The Races" and watch the show on WAVE-TV, watch "Hayloft Hoedown," a local C&W show from WHAS-TV, then to WLKY for "The Lawrence Welk Show" and "The Hollywood Palace"...exciting stuff, eh?>>
Some similar stuff in my family too. They sure knew how to have fun ;D
Some similar stuff in my family too. They sure knew how to have fun ;D
The show, which was first produced in 1963, was produced by TeleCom Productions, and it's been shown in various markets since then.
In the area I grew up in, the program was hosted by Eagle Supermarkets (a division of Lucky Foods) in 1967 and part of 1968. The Eagle store chain (which went out of business in 1996) was based out of the Milan Illinois, which is part of the Quad Cities area (i.e. Rock Island Illinois), and the show ran on TV stations in the surrounding Eastern Iowa, Western Illinois, and Southern Wisconsin area (this being before cable TV was available in that part of the country). Eagle gave out one game card (an approximately 10" square piece of paper) for each visit. Since our family generally made several trips to the supermarket during the week, we'd often have several game cards, and we'd usually know who the winners of each race before the show was run; they were the numbers that we didn't have any of. The prizes Eagle awarded ranged from $2 to $500. One week, we had a "sure thing" in the $5 race, as we had a ticket for every horse. Having multiple tickets was sometimes a hindrance, as there would be little point in cheering for the horse out in front by eight lengths in the $500 race when we had six tickets with its number and were certain that it would be caught (usually by a nose) at the finish (since only 2 winning game pieces existed).
That wasn't always the case, though. The show had one major mixup in 1981, in which the Samsons (Maine/New Hampshire) food chain issued 502 $1,000 winners, instead of the 2 it was supposed to give out. Samsons ended up paying the 330 or so winning tickets that were distributed and claimed, and entered into negotiations for reimbursement by TeleCom.
The show still exists today, as well as several TelCom-produced spinoffs and variants.
In the area I grew up in, the program was hosted by Eagle Supermarkets (a division of Lucky Foods) in 1967 and part of 1968. The Eagle store chain (which went out of business in 1996) was based out of the Milan Illinois, which is part of the Quad Cities area (i.e. Rock Island Illinois), and the show ran on TV stations in the surrounding Eastern Iowa, Western Illinois, and Southern Wisconsin area (this being before cable TV was available in that part of the country). Eagle gave out one game card (an approximately 10" square piece of paper) for each visit. Since our family generally made several trips to the supermarket during the week, we'd often have several game cards, and we'd usually know who the winners of each race before the show was run; they were the numbers that we didn't have any of. The prizes Eagle awarded ranged from $2 to $500. One week, we had a "sure thing" in the $5 race, as we had a ticket for every horse. Having multiple tickets was sometimes a hindrance, as there would be little point in cheering for the horse out in front by eight lengths in the $500 race when we had six tickets with its number and were certain that it would be caught (usually by a nose) at the finish (since only 2 winning game pieces existed).
That wasn't always the case, though. The show had one major mixup in 1981, in which the Samsons (Maine/New Hampshire) food chain issued 502 $1,000 winners, instead of the 2 it was supposed to give out. Samsons ended up paying the 330 or so winning tickets that were distributed and claimed, and entered into negotiations for reimbursement by TeleCom.
The show still exists today, as well as several TelCom-produced spinoffs and variants.
It was sponsored in Memphis by the Big Star grocery stores. I had not thought of that show in years!
I'm not sure who ran this in Chicago in the late 60's or early 70's but it ran on VHF, so it was probably WGN.
We got the cards at the Jewel supermarket, and the shows ran on saturday night.
I know it was VHF because we didn't get a UHF TV ( Zenith Chromacolor II transistor/tube hybrid ) until Christmas of 1973.
We got the cards at the Jewel supermarket, and the shows ran on saturday night.
I know it was VHF because we didn't get a UHF TV ( Zenith Chromacolor II transistor/tube hybrid ) until Christmas of 1973.
David67 said:My Mom watched that Religiously on WAGA in Atlanta in 1976,She always thought Her horse would win! It alway seemed like it finished last or close to it(Those fleabags were probably turned to glue or dog food :) The things you remember growing up(I was 9 then).
Are you sure it wasn't WXIA (and later, WTBS)? I seem to recall that in the fall
of 1976 11 Alive had it on Sundays as a lead-in to its 6 PM news.
I remember seeing the 70's version from Gulfstream on Seattle TV, probably on KSTW. It was sponsored by Associated Grocers, that group of independent grocers here in Western WA (they still have that big storehouse south of Boeing Field - you can't miss it off Southbound I-5). Another run aired on KIRO a few years later with (I think) John Maynard (of local radio duo Robin and Maynard) as the local host.
BTW: there's a whole episode from the Drees series at archive.museum.tv. Registration's required, but it's a freebie!
BTW: there's a whole episode from the Drees series at archive.museum.tv. Registration's required, but it's a freebie!
1966 or so--Channel 9 Chattanooga [M&J Super Markets; I forgot who the local host was]
1976 or so--Channel 10 in Tampa-St Pete [Big Star, before they were bought out by Grand Union; Atlanta sportscasting favorite Bob Neal, then with Channel 11 in Atl., but later with TBS, was the host, in regional syndication; Jack Drees returned to call the races, but this time, from the old Tropical Park in Miami, which later moved its meets to Calder Race Course]
1980 or so--Channel 44 in Tampa-St Pete [Grand Union; actor Bryan Clark hosted, again in syndication; I think this was the one that had the race portions shot at Gulfstream Park, but with Phil Georgeff, of Chicago's Arlington Park, serving as race commentator]
Jack Drees, by the way, was, indeed, the race commentator during CBS' coverage of the Triple Crown from 1964-68; I think he also worked for a time as sports anchor at CBS-Channel 2 [WBBM] in Chicago.
Let's Go To The Races and Win With the Stars were both packaged by Chicago-based TV producer Walter Schwimmer, so that may explain the similarities between those two shows in terms of local cut-ins.
1976 or so--Channel 10 in Tampa-St Pete [Big Star, before they were bought out by Grand Union; Atlanta sportscasting favorite Bob Neal, then with Channel 11 in Atl., but later with TBS, was the host, in regional syndication; Jack Drees returned to call the races, but this time, from the old Tropical Park in Miami, which later moved its meets to Calder Race Course]
1980 or so--Channel 44 in Tampa-St Pete [Grand Union; actor Bryan Clark hosted, again in syndication; I think this was the one that had the race portions shot at Gulfstream Park, but with Phil Georgeff, of Chicago's Arlington Park, serving as race commentator]
Jack Drees, by the way, was, indeed, the race commentator during CBS' coverage of the Triple Crown from 1964-68; I think he also worked for a time as sports anchor at CBS-Channel 2 [WBBM] in Chicago.
Let's Go To The Races and Win With the Stars were both packaged by Chicago-based TV producer Walter Schwimmer, so that may explain the similarities between those two shows in terms of local cut-ins.
In 1987 there was a VCR game from Parker Brothers called "Let's Go To The Races":
http://www.darwinsgamecloset.com/letsgototheraces1987.html
http://online.sfsu.edu/~hl/g.hr.html (see bottom)
Since this game had a videotape feature with pre-recorded horse races, was this game connected with the TV show?
http://www.darwinsgamecloset.com/letsgototheraces1987.html
http://online.sfsu.edu/~hl/g.hr.html (see bottom)
Since this game had a videotape feature with pre-recorded horse races, was this game connected with the TV show?
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