"We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

[cd637299]

I was born in 1959 & I remember watching Saturday cartoons a lot.

By early 70s I weaned off of them a bit....but I noticed by 1977ish that every kids' show had those things I mentioned in the subject line....it was as if the FCC felt that kids couldn't tell the difference between a show and a commercial??

What started all this, anyway? Seemed as an insult to children, if you ask me.

True, I know the story of "Linus the Lionhearted".....but I think I knew what the difference was.

Even the 7pm Sunday ABC block in the late 70s which included the horrible sitcom "Out of the Blue" had the disclaimers also. I mean, c'mon!

cd

 

[ixnay]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

I was born in 1959 & I remember watching Saturday cartoons a lot.

By early 70s I weaned off of them a bit....but I noticed by 1977ish that every kids' show had those things I mentioned in the subject line....it was as if the FCC felt that kids couldn't tell the difference between a show and a commercial??

Replace "1959" with "1961" and you describe me as well, cd. Although I noticed it at the beginning of 1975 when I was still in middle school.

I imagine Peggy Charren had a lot to do with it somehow.

Does Canada or other countries require bumpers on kidvid shows? Even local or syndie kidvid shows (at least on Philadelphia stations) started using bumpers around that time.

ixnay

 

[azumanga]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

The FCC began requiring these bumpers in the mid-1970s, as a way to set boundaries between the program and the ads; they also included the 7PM Sunday hour, as at the time it was considered to be a family hour.

Curiously, up through the late-1980s, ABC included the bumpers during the first two hours of "The Ten Commandments", as it started at 7PM -- after 9PM, the movie had no bumpers, other than the occasional one for "The ABC Sunday Night Movie". The ABc broadcast also had a special introduction explaining the film, no doubt to conform with FCC regulations.

 

[therealjm12]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

Before the FCC mandated the bumps for kiddie shows the bumps were used on a regular basis. They were used for roll times for commercials inserts for the nets and local stations. Generally speaking 2" VTR's needed five seconds to lock up and film chains three. That's why when you watch an old show show on DVD (or off air) bumpers are on them.
A local master control operator would roll tape as soon as the Gilligan's Island will return in a moment or when the Mike Douglas show would put up an art card with music & applause. For switching a local station break from the net, if the break came at :58.57 past the hour, you'd roll at :58.52 etc. The later Ampex & RCA cart machines only needed three seconds so the bumps weren't really needed anymore.

 

[milwaukee_dave]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

This is slightly off-topic, but I recall a practice in the 1980s and early 1990s that I believe was used on independent stations throughout the country. (A Milwaukee station, WVTV-TV, used it all the time, as I recall.) Stations would have an image, usually of the cast of the program airing, when going to commercial break. (There would usually be background music of some sort.) Generally, during the second commercial break, there would be an extended bumper with a voiceover reminding the audience what they were watching.

Here's a YouTube video from a local station, WVTV (now a CW affiliate, but billed as "Super 18" in its independent days) circa 1987: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM_mWLSkyx4.

Having grown up on WVTV as a kid -- they had all my favorite shows in reruns -- it's still hard to imagine syndicated product not having those little bumpers when going to commercial break.

 

[onairb]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

Yes, I remember plenty of those 'show-specific' bumpers identifying not just the station but whatever was on at the time.
KBHK TV 44 in San Francisco(a Kaiser/Field Communications station during my childhood) had some well-remembered bumpers, usually accompanied by the last few notes of the show's theme song.(Their bumpers for Warner Brothers cartoons tended to be more generic, rather than the familiar LT/MM themes; wonder if there were issues with local stations using that music?)

 

[azumanga]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

KBHK TV 44 in San Francisco(a Kaiser/Field Communications station during my childhood) had some well-remembered bumpers, usually accompanied by the last few notes of the show's theme song.

I think many Kaiser stations had a similar approach to bumpers, in which the commercial breaks included music and actual clips from the show -- I knew WKBD in Detroit and WFLD in Chicago did so in this manner.

Many indies, of course, employed a more low-tech approach, just by using a slide in silence to mark the breaks, with announcements used during kiddie shows -- WTOG in Tampa Bay did the bumpers that way through the mid-1980s.

 

[Ultimajock]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

KBHK TV 44 in San Francisco(a Kaiser/Field Communications station during my childhood) had some well-remembered bumpers, usually accompanied by the last few notes of the show's theme song.

I think many Kaiser stations had a similar approach to bumpers, in which the commercial breaks included music and actual clips from the show -- I knew WKBD in Detroit and WFLD in Chicago did so in this manner.

...and they all used Dr. Don Rose (also the morning man at KFRC San Francisco at the time) as the announcer on the kiddie show bumpers...

 

[radiorob2.0]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

Slightly off topic but relevant, the "IN COLOR" bumpers prior to ABC show are a distant memory. Though I remember some syndication packages did include them.

 

[cowboybud]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

This is slightly off-topic, but I recall a practice in the 1980s and early 1990s that I believe was used on independent stations throughout the country. (A Milwaukee station, WVTV-TV, used it all the time, as I recall.) Stations would have an image, usually of the cast of the program airing, when going to commercial break. (There would usually be background music of some sort.) Generally, during the second commercial break, there would be an extended bumper with a voiceover reminding the audience what they were watching.

Here's a YouTube video from a local station, WVTV (now a CW affiliate, but billed as "Super 18" in its independent days) circa 1987: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM_mWLSkyx4.

Having grown up on WVTV as a kid -- they had all my favorite shows in reruns -- it's still hard to imagine syndicated product not having those little bumpers when going to commercial break.

Then-KHTV Houston did that for a while in the 80s, except it used about 5 seconds of show footage.

 

[azumanga]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

Slightly off topic but relevant, the "IN COLOR" bumpers prior to ABC show are a distant memory. Though I remember some syndication packages did include them.

And it was these syndicated repeats that gave me memories of these as well, as its usage on network TV was before my time -- early episodes of "The Brady Bunch" and "The Mod Squad" originally had their "In Color" opens in syndication, though over the years, they were removed when the prints were freshened and transitioned from film to videotape.

More-recently, when Encore's Plex channel carried "The Avengers", the color episodes still had the "In Color" opens. And when the WWOR EMI Service was still around, "It Takes A Thief" and "That Girl" began with their "In Color" intros.

 

[cd637299]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

And don't forget, all the way up to 1982, "Police Squad!" was shown "IN COLOR"! ha ha

cd

 

[gregg75]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

I liked those local BUMPS at the top of the hour where stations often showed a local photo/slide
and the announcer would annouce the station ID. I could never understand why those went away. Later years they would often show videos of flowing fountains and such. MARK MY WORD someday they will return.

Those were a lot more enjoyable and less hypnotizing than the constant ID which most show continuously today........then the commercial starts.......and they magically disappear.

 

[onairb]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

Slightly off topic but relevant, the "IN COLOR" bumpers prior to ABC show are a distant memory. Though I remember some syndication packages did include them.

And it was these syndicated repeats that gave me memories of these as well, as its usage on network TV was before my time -- early episodes of "The Brady Bunch" and "The Mod Squad" originally had their "In Color" opens in syndication, though over the years, they were removed when the prints were freshened and transitioned from film to videotape.

More-recently, when Encore's Plex channel carried "The Avengers", the color episodes still had the "In Color" opens. And when the WWOR EMI Service was still around, "It Takes A Thief" and "That Girl" began with their "In Color" intros.

AFAIK, Batman always retained its 'In Color' tag in syndication...don't remember if FX kept them or cut them.

 

[Ultimajock]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

More-recently, when Encore's Plex channel carried "The Avengers", the color episodes still had the "In Color" opens.

...interestingly, those were originally American-only opening tags, as the U.K. and Australian commercial TV clannels were still in black&white through to the time where the Diana Rigg episodes ceased production. They've served an additional function for rerunning the series in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand ever since ;-) ...

 

[azumanga]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

AFAIK, Batman always retained its 'In Color' tag in syndication...don't remember if FX kept them or cut them.

When the series aired on The Family Channel (back when it still was Pat Robertson's baby), the telecasts did not include the "In Color" open.

More-recently, when Encore's Plex channel carried "The Avengers", the color episodes still had the "In Color" opens.

...interestingly, those were originally American-only opening tags, as the U.K. and Australian commercial TV clannels were still in black&white through to the time where the Diana Rigg episodes ceased production.

No doubt that was the reason "color" was spelled American style, without the "u". Of course, the ITV companies had their own special color opens, once they began colorcasts in 1969.

 

[ixnay]

Re: "We'll be back after these messages"/"And now back to our show"

Azumanga and onairb, didn't TV Land drop the "In Color" tags from "Batman" when they aired the Dynamic Duo +/- 10 years ago?

ixnay