As you know, North Dakota Today is filmed live. There are no do-overs on live TV, which is the best part of live TV, like, 99% of the time. Within that 99%, it’s wonderful not to have to film, refilm, polish, repolish, critique, recritique; what you see is what you get, foibles and all. And mistakes? The blame always goes to the medium, and never the mediumer.
“Live TV, amirite?” You shrug as you kick over the camera, your top falls off, and you let loose a string of coherent and incoherent swears.
The worst part of live TV is the 1% of the time when you actually wish you could do it over. I once mispronounced my Nice Person of the Week’s name over and over and over again and then he PASSED AWAY (a year later, but still); that sucked. I speak too quickly not only on TV but all the time, and when it’s bad, it’s painfully bad. Also, it’s hot in the studio and sometimes I’m sweaty. Just this week, in fact, I realized I was sweaty midway through my segment and then had to gesture with my upper arms glued to my side like a T-Rex, and when I finished my segment I busted in on the meteorologist in the bathroom because I wanted to check how bad my pits were on television. I think we would both agree that the answer was not good.
As I said, though, 99% of the time it’s fine. Here’s how my segment goes: I sit down on the couch, we do a little “hello, how are ya,” and then I get into my Nice Person of the Week. I give an introduction, and then they show the person’s photo on the screen while I extoll their good deeds. Obviously, while the photo is up on the screen, you can’t see us sitting on the couch.
A couple of weeks ago, the photo popped up, our camera turned off, and Tatum (one of the hosts) scooted right up next to me.
A host scooting up next to me isn’t that unusual because I usually have something in my teeth or hair or Spanx showing or whatever, but in this case she scooted right up and leaned in and didn’t do anything.
“What’s up, Tatum?” I said on live TV because I have no tact.
“Your mic is off,” she said. “I need you to use mine.”
So, I leaned in and used her mic while she jiggled around my back and got my mine turned on. Meanwhile, the photo stayed on the screen until we got ’er done. Live TV, amirite? (Here’s that video if you want to see it.)
I was telling my dad about my latest live TV foible when he said,
“Reminds me of the live TV commercials I used to do when I was a kid.”
“What live TV commercials?” I, his daughter who had never heard this piece of information in my life, asked after a long pause.
For 100 years, my family ran a men’s clothing store called Silverman’s (click here for a refresher). Home televisions were a relatively new concept in the 1950s and shows shot on film like I Love Lucy were the exception, not the norm – meaning that most television programming was broadcast live.
“In those days, what we’d now consider ‘The News’ was split into separate shows: News, Weather, and Sports,” my dad told me. “Silverman’s commercials were on between the Friday night 10:00 News and Weather. This meant that on Friday nights, Grandpa and I would leave Shabbat services at the synagogue, go to Silverman’s, pick up whatever clothes or props he wanted in the commercial, and drive to the television studio.”
“The studio was located on Mill Road, across from the Mill. It only had one or two cameras back then, and so we’d get set up on a side area of the studio while they broadcast the News,” my dad continued. “They couldn’t put any digital words on the screen, of course, so the station had a sign that said ‘Silverman’s.’ The sign would get hung while the model got dressed. Sometimes the model was a Silverman’s employee, sometimes it was another kid, and sometimes it was me. Then we’d wait. Once the news was concluded, Ken Thorpe would walk over to our area and do the commercial.”
“The station didn’t have a meteorologist back then. Instead, they had a weather announcer named Ken Thorpe who also did the commercials – sort of like Ed McMahon on Johnny Carson,” my dad said. “Grandpa would give them a typewritten script, and they’d rewrite it out by hand on a teleprompter that looked more like a wide roll of toilet paper. When Ken read the script, someone would hand-crank the script, now hanging just below the camera lens. We didn’t always have a separate model; sometimes Ken would just gesture and point to a bust mannequin on a table or, a few times, he actually wore what was being advertised, like a winter coat.”
“Harry Gershman [author’s note: who also would have come from synagogue] usually had the commercial right after us, and he appeared in his own commercials rather than having Ken do it. He’d laugh through his whole commercial since he was ‘Happy Harry.’ We’d watch Harry’s commercial, and then we’d pack up, go back to the store, drop everything off, and do it all again the next week.”
“Were there ever any problems?” I asked.
“I’m sure, but I don’t remember any of them,” my dad said. “I just remember it was exciting.”
“It’s still exciting,” I agreed.
The photo above is of my very first time on North Dakota Today, and I get such a kick out of it whenever I see it because 1) that’s the best hair and makeup I’ve ever had on that show; it’s been downhill ever since, and 2) I look INCREDIBLY NERVOUS.
This week on North Dakota Today we talked about downtown Grand Forks’ Treat Trail featuring Jeff Kinney of Diary of a Wimpy Kid fame, as well as a great annual get-together to increase support of healthy relationships during National Domestic Abuse Month. (Valley News Live)
The Fargo and National Guard communities came out in force for Colin Bales after a diving accident. (Valley News Live)
The Great Plains Food Bank and Freedom Church have a new set of wheels for delivering refrigerated food. (Grand Forks Herald)
In Grand Forks? Head on over to 1307 South 18th Street for a free haunted house – called House of 1000 Nightmares – from 5pm to 10pm on Halloween night. (Facebook)
A reader named Robbie who owns a shop in Brainerd, Minnesota, would like to offer you all a free 3-page sampler for Christmas. Click here.
(By the way, if anyone else wants to send me free things for my readers, send away. I don’t charge an ad fee for it. If it gets out of hand I suppose I’ll have to stop, but in the meantime, free items and discounts are fun.)
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