New Mexico Remembers, Tape 1

We can remember. Yeah! Oh, hey, hey, hey, come back here. Hey, there's a kitten who's hungry over here. Oh, and there goes that kitten after her mama, and you know what she's going over there for. Oh, boy. Oh, hi. Hi, golly. You know what that was? That was a mama cat with her kitten. Now you're so well. What did we learn there? Remember, remember, remember, remember, remember. Oh, remember, remember, remember, remember. Remember that. We should shine like

a human. We should shine like a human. We should shine like a human. We should shine like a human. We should shine like a human. And you hope we don't save this? Yes, George, we did save it. You know, we're watching the same things that you're watching to see that montage. There are some wonderful folks in that montage. New Mexico remembers, hello, I'm Kathleen McVicker. And with me is Dr. George Fishbeck. And after all these years, there's no applause, no applause. Send money instead. Send money. Yeah, that's absolutely. Good friends, good friends. After all these years, we've been trying to think of all the things that we've done. You and I and Kathleen and the whole crew here plus the other people or other broadcasters around. We've tried to put a few things together that will both amaze and excite you. We don't want you to sit back relaxed. We want you to get

in and have some fun with us. Kathleen. And you know, George, it was fun. And it was exciting. But it was very unpredictable. You just never knew. Sometimes it was challenging. It was creative. But there were times when I don't know about you, but it was close to panic with live television. Just like now, you know. And there's a lot of things going on here and we are alive. Anytime you do things that are alive, things can go wrong. And I've always had a philosophy in life. If you want to be a success, double your rate of failure. Lord, we had failures. We had things go wrong constantly. But we found out why. We tried not to do them again. And we learned from them. Well, George, we have some folks that are going to be here with us. And I know that you're going to want to stay tuned to Channel 5 because, gosh, just let me tell you from my notes here. Who else is going to be here? George Morrison, Dick Niffing,

Howard Morgan. Andrew Heavenstreet, Bill Prevedi, Johnny Morris. Jerry Dansiger, Max Flowers. And we're going to have some pictures from the past and some outtakes. That maybe we'll surprise George and I as well as you. You know, when we got started back in the late 50s and early 60s, there just weren't any models. There wasn't anybody around to tell us how to do that. I think particularly for those of us who came from the educational setting here to K &Mee. And I guess K &Mee originally started. It was a vision of Tom Popejoy from the university and Charles Spain from APS. And even though K &Mee was just beginning, the whole broadcasting all over the United States of New Mexico was just beginning. It all started with the Russians. Yes, the Russians sent up Sputnik in 1957. And every science teacher in the country was at fault

because the United States wasn't up first. And I remember that I was on a curriculum improvement committee and I ran out of pipe tobacco. I could smell some somewhere in the building and I tracked it down. I borrowed it and the fellow said, what's your name and what do you do? I told him and I said, I teach science. He says, we're thinking about. When they use that phrase, boy, that's a dandy. We're thinking about starting a television station. Would you like to do the science program? My entire audition. And you haven't stopped yet, have we? Well, science led to some other things like music. And TV, kindergarten. And the people we worked with, you know, there were three original music teachers if you remember. Jean Hook. She was sixth grade. She was, I think, we had them a grade level. She was fourth grade. And then I did the fifth grade. And Nancy Johnson did the sixth grade. And of course, Joyce did TV

kindergarten. And there were some folks from the university who were doing some classes at the time. But mainly it was, we were, the whole mission of canony was to try to, our roots were educational. And we were trying to work with schools and kids and teachers. There were a lot of colorful characters, though. Yes, yes, they were. I tried to think of some of them. And we had, we had not only people. We had colorful animals. We had skunks in the air. Oh boy. We had the only camera crew that had hazard duty pay. Things went off and they went off. They set fire to the studio one time. If I remember correctly. Anyway, Kathleen, I remember the day. I first saw this charmer. She is a lovely lady. Wow. And when I saw that lady. And she was in, what was the story, Kathleen? Well, you know, you and I both remember. And maybe some of you folks remember that we first began

over in the old studio on Roma. And George was lucky enough not to have the audition. I guess you'd say lucky. But the music department decided that we should audition. And so I wasn't quite sure whether that was something that I wanted to do. But I went ahead and decided I'd do it. And I walked into that old sorority house there on Roma. And I was pretty nervous. And George happened to be sitting in the lobby. And he started to chat with me. And he said something that I know we both remember from the days of Wayne Bendy, who taught us both. It was a mentor to both of us. And he said, remember, Kathleen, it's one person out there you're talking to. And I don't know if there was something about that that made me feel like, you know, but I could do this. And I've never been sorry. It's been a wonderful challenge for me. I've met many wonderful people and had a real interesting life doing television here at Cana Meade. That talking of one person, one

on one, as Dr. Bendy said. That's important. Right now, you can't say, hello everybody out there in television land, baloney. It's you that I'm talking to. You only talk to one person at a time. But to have, well, Don Herbert is a friend of mine. Mr. Wizard, he lives near me out there. But remember, he always had those two little kids with him. And he talked to them. I said, Don, get rid of those two little kids. Talk to me because I'm the one person watching. Explain those things to me. He said, George, my way works, doesn't it? He did, didn't it? But my way worked too. Oh, get out of there. We always come down to the edge of the table of desk and talk to the one person who was watching. You know, we, the live television, the days of live television, as we said a moment ago, so many things could go wrong. And I, I know George has many stories like the mom of cat and the dog story and almost

burning down the studio with one of his science experiments that went awry. But some things that I remember, we used to wear these big, old, heavy, lava -lear mics. I mean, they were gosh, maybe this long and this big round. And not a nice little small lightweight mic like these. And I remember once mine fell off. And right down on the floor made this big loud noise. I also remember that we, on the music shows, we used some charts of music that the cameras panned. And one day the charts fell down. And I mean, this is live and the set is falling apart. So there wasn't anything I could do except to suddenly burst into song. And George, I guess I had an advantage there because something went wrong for you. You had to figure out how to do another science experiment real quickly. But I could always burst into, this land is your land or do you dare you? You know, the difference between our program and

anything else, the ones that you and I watched, it was a difference. Hours was not educational television. All television is educational. All television. Whether you're watching but hadn't been, that's educational. It may not be the kind you want. But it is, you're teaching something. Hours here was television for educational purposes. Our purpose was to share some of this good knowledge that was all around and we tried to share it with you. And we wanted you to learn. We wanted desperately for you to learn. And we did. We did. Yes, I think, boy, I couldn't agree with you more, George. Television is a wonderful learning tool. And it depends, it's around us and the kids in the classroom. You know, but did learn quite a bit, I think. At least I hope so from you. And I think we've heard through the years that they did. There's a class watching television. That must have been one of the first music shows that we did.

I think that might have been nine instead of jeans or Nancy's. But that's a group of kids watching the show there. And the things we tried to do working with the teachers, you know, it was original team teaching, you know. Original team teaching. Well, how would you express that in Dr. Bundy's words? Complementary spelled with an E. Yes, we were not supplementary. We didn't try to supplement what the teachers were doing. We didn't try to take all of the cream off of the learning and leave the teachers with the hard things. We tried to do the hard things that dangerous. There's Joe Saffel looking over the shoulder. Joe Saffel, you know, when Uncle Roy died, I asked Joe Saffel, how do you get to be a man like Uncle Roy? And Joe said to me, George, you start awfully early. Not true. But we wanted to help the teachers out do a better job. We didn't want to take anything away from them. And I think that was the reason we were a success,

where other programs may not have another survive. Well, I think what I know that the whole philosophy was that, just as you've described, that K &M wanted to be very much a part of the community. And we wanted to be a part of the schools. We wanted to work with the teachers and the kids. And remember the guides we had to write? And so the teacher would have a guide to follow. And it was the original team teaching. And we tried to bring the outside world into the classroom. And I think that was a forerunner for a lot of the things that K &M has been noted for now through the years, 35 years of service to the community. That community is a bit, that's Dr. Wayne Bundy right there. Yeah, our mentor. Yeah, he was not on campus. He was our non -campus mentor. But you know, I have never felt that I was an albuquerqueant. I've always felt that I was a new Mexican.

I felt that my home was in Roswell or Farmington, or in Coyote, or in Pouls. First fan letter I ever got was from Rancho de Pouls. Or for any of the Pueblos, they watched us out in Jefferson Elementary School in Gallup, as well as everywhere. And my community was a little bit bigger than people who felt, well, we are from Albuquerque or Santa Fe. Well, Lonnie, we're the whole state with 200 miles in every direction. And that's the way I like it. Wasn't it fun when we used to visit the classes? I remember once going to Guyina, New Mexico. I had never been to Guyina to visit classrooms. I remember Roswell. We went to Roswell to visit classrooms. And of course, Albuquerque as well. But we tried to really make the programs, that we were doing, our instructional programs, a part of the classroom lives, of the teachers and the kids, and the parents.

We had lots of parents who watched the programs at home. I still have moms who call me and say, you know, I surely do wish that we still had those programs, because I remember my kids growing up with those programs. And, and, and, canony has been a part of all that, of helping the community in a variety of ways through the years. It's been a real force and is a real force in the whole community. Kathleen, you know, is a story here. At the end of every one of the programs, the floor man would do this means wrap it up. And I, you know, that's where I got it from. Every time I finished, I always say, are you else? Muchachos. Muchachos. And that, we just got the wrap up sign right now. Yes, we did. New Mexico remembers will be back in a few minutes. But first, go to your telephone and call in your support so that canony TV can continue to bring you and your family

quality television. Now, you know that in addition to everything else, I was a weather man at the New Mexico National Guard as well. And I started doing the weather on KLD in the evening, moon lighting, you might say. And they had a tremendous crew over there. Think of some of them, Tom Doyle. That's it. That's the news inside. Thank you. And good night. And Johnny

Mars. Well, Johnny Mars was an anchor over there, wasn't it? Let's see, who else? I wrote down a few of them here. It was Gordon Sanders. Mike Roberts is still on, isn't he? And all of the others. Now, let's see, we had an interview with Johnny Mars because he couldn't be here tonight. It's ratings month, you know, sweeps. So he's here on tape. Let's watch him. You know, I've worked with many friends and one of the greatest friends that I've got is sitting right here with us. And, of course, he's still working though. Hey, warm handshake on a cold day. Have you seen again, George? Oh, my goodness. I'm going to look back on some of those old times how TV has changed for one thing and some of the good times we used to have. It's always fun to look back anyway. It seems like things were a little easier than they weren't quite as hectic and frantic as they are now. I met an old timer here the other day and I said, I guess you've seen a lot of changes. He says, yes, and I've been against every one of them. But they went ahead and did it

anyway. That's right. They didn't take his advice. Well, you and I were pretty hot article back in the early 70s. See, I came in 71 and you were already on Channel 4 at that time. And it was an instant chemistry. That's right. We had it. Oh. And you and I, Gordon Sanders, Mike Roberts. Good friend. And do you remember Bob Ansel? Oh, Bob Ansel. Good friend. I hope a lot of our viewers remember these people. And sure they do. Yes, because we really had the ratings at that time. We gobbled up the whole audience for a while. Wow. Then you had to decide to leave, George. George went big time, went to California in 1972. I think it was. Under 1970. Yeah. I got on that airplane. There were three other guys getting on that plane with me. From Albuquerque. There was Ron Say and Steve Garvey and Tommy LaSorta. And all four of us going out there. All Dodgers. Those guys all did well, though. Yeah, they sure did. Well, you certainly did

well out there. Well, but I'm here. You know what? I was here just a few, just maybe a month ago. And I figured, gee, it's nice to have been asked. Anybody can be asked once. Yeah. That's an accident. Twice is a coincidence. They asked me three times, then they really mean it. Everything's going to come back to work, too. Oh, boy. Work is a... It never has been work. As soon as it gets to be work, I'm quitting. Well, that's the way I felt. If it's no fun anymore, then why do it? Yeah. But you're still working pretty much out there now, aren't you? Yeah. Well, I'm going to start winding it down. Yeah. No, it's too many things to do. Well, I remember one of the things that you picked me up on a Saturday morning. You just mentioned that briefly before we went on today. I had just come to town and you and schoolteacher named Wayne Prentice. Wayne Prentice. We were going to go out rock candy or fossil honey. That's what it was. We went out by the real porco on some BLM land out there.

I didn't know where we were. I don't think I'd ever been in the desert before. But we were... You had a hammer all set for me and we were out there cracking rocks. And I've still got some of those... Those little puzzles. Sure. These things. And I also remember that day that... I said, George, was there... You ever see any rattlesnakes out here? George said, as long as I've lived in New Mexico, I've never seen a rattlesnake. I looked under this little bush and I said, George, what's that? You said, that's a rattlesnake. Stay away from him. A little, little rattler was there. But we let him go. Yeah, sure. Why not? If he was in my backyard, it would be a different story. But I was in his backyard. That's absolutely nice. That's the way to often. That's right. And we had a couple of good times. I see Gordon Sanders every so often on the golf course. He's in his brother, Jim, or still out there whacking away at the golf ball. You know, John, it's a strange thing. I haven't seen Gordon in 20 years. But in my mind's eye, I can see him exactly the way he was. He

has not aged one year, terrific. And that's the beauty of this. All of my friends here in Albuquerque have not aged one bit in my mind's eye. It's a real thing. It is absolutely for real. You have not aged until I see you. Oh, I look in a mirror and that scares me. No, you haven't aged. You've aged very little, George. Well, thank you there. Well, we had fun on the air. We'd bring in animals. You had a skunk on one pond, didn't you? Yes. The skunk's name was Sally. No, Sally was the Salomon. That's right. Sally was the Salomon. What was the skunk's name? I remember. But he's a good friend now and I don't want to. But I took him to California. You cannot keep live animals, wild animals as pets. And that's a very wise ruling. So Sally, the Salamander, which came from the sisters of

Santa Cruz in Espanola. That one. So I kept Sally. Yeah. But now, you also had a pet. I'm not sure it was a pet, but you had a tarantula. Oh, yes. And tarantulas are pretty fierce looking things if you don't know what they are. But George kept insisting that tarantulas are not dangerous. They don't bite. You know, unless I suppose if you provoke them. But anyway, make this story not too long. This tarantula, you were displaying the tarantulas and showing how friendly he was. And he was crawling along your hands. Crawled up your leg and all of a sudden he got behind your back. And I think he went down your coat and reached him. And George started to sweat just a little bit back there because I suppose if I got confined, he couldn't probably get a little nasty. But we've always kept them at home. They're bite. They have fangs. Look underneath. You see two fangs like this. And the fangs, they have them. They have them. It's somewhere between that of a mosquito bite and a bumble bee sting. I mean, yeah, honey bee sting. And my daughter was

stung one day. And my wife properly worried. But I suggested this wait a while and it went right down my ears. But that's the way to start a school year. You come into the classroom the first day of school. I did this one at Ernie Pyle and at Lincoln in that Monroe. And you come in there and you wear a white shirt. And you show the tarantula. And then you put them down on your cuff and you start talking. And he always crawls on up your arm. And you know I had less discipline problems than any other teacher. Because it's an interesting one. Well, that would be an attention getter wouldn't it? It could probably wouldn't be listening to what you were saying. But they'd sure keep their eye on that tarantula. Amen. Got their attention. Not many people know this, Johnny. But you two were a weather man. Yes, that's right. I did weather up in Minneapolis. And I did radio news and TV weather. Wonderful. It's amazing

how many people in the news business got started in the weather. Yeah. And of course you stayed with it. I still feel like something continued doing. But I came from a very, very weather spot in New Mexico. I was raised down in arid counting over there down there near evaporated New Mexico. Outside of the great dry lake. Oh yeah. And by jingles it was the weather down there was exciting. It was so hot one time I saw a garden hose. Crawl 20 feet to get into the shade of a barbed wire fence. Now that was hot. Probably looking for water. Yeah, he was happy for it. Mike Roberts, you know, was he was with us at that time. Mike Roberts did the sports. He's confined himself pretty much to radio sports now. He's the play by play guy for just about everything in town now. And Mike is a rancher too. Mike has a ranch down by mountain air. I've been invited down there and I keep wanting to get down.

And for some reason we never get down to see Mike's ranch but one of these days. Yesterday morning I talked to him when he was on the air on KLB. And they had coffee there and they ran out of milk and they said Mike brings some milk. And he said if I try to milk any of these animals I'm in trouble. Mike used to be a newscaster as well. Yes, he did. He sort of combined news with sports at one time in his career. Well now you've got an interesting fellow on KLB that I've worked with, Brother Dawson. And he was sportsman out there and we worked together a long time. And now he does the new hour news on KLB. That's on the curky I think. I think on Channel 13. Is it 13? Yeah, I think he's on Channel 13. It is on 13. That's right. So he worked in California you say? Yes. And yeah, lovely wife Joyce. That's just fine. He could move around in this business.

Thank heavens. Thank heavens. I never could. We believe in loyalty. He stayed there. We are. Well once you get to Albuquerque it's kind of hard to leave. I know you didn't really want to leave at the time. I really didn't want to. It wouldn't have taken a whole lot to get you to stay as I remember. It was a lot of pressure. We don't talk about the pressure there. But I'm sure you're glad you left at the time and it's worked out well for you. Yes. Everybody thinks I went for the money. But when I got out there I signed the contract and then I got the horse laugh. I signed below Union minimum. And they had to give me a raise in order before I could go on the air. Money isn't my button. That's all right. You've always had fun with the kids. I think that's been a big part of your life. Do you know that out there? I've got all these file cabinets with

things that I have collected from my former students. I've got things from Lincoln, Jr. High, and I've got a lot from Monroe. You know, over at Ernie Pyle, one of my students, I was in on the... Ernie Pyle Warrior as the advisor. One of my students was Harry Moskots. He said, we ought to publish every other week instead. I said, Harry, you want to do it, do it. You wound up... You wound up editor of the... That's right. That's right. I've always been probably the oldest one in the newsroom, at least for the last 10 years or so, which gives you sort of an advantage in a way because you're working with a lot of young people. And you hope that they start to look to you for some experience most of the time they do. And you've pretty much gone through the same thing, I'm sure. All right. I got a... You know, I just hope this tells... Let's put in a word for the telephone itself. All right. We seem to have a budget up there in Santa Fe, that's overwhelming. The

money's flowing out. I haven't seen any of it down here. And it still relies on people. Any time you have public television by golly, if you were selling something, we'd have salesmen out there. You know what? You and I are salesmen. That's true. For public television. Yeah, it's TV worth watching. I don't know if that's still the slogan, but that's one of the best I've heard. And it is worth watching. It is worth contributing to. You know, in a way, even though it's no longer classroom teaching, think of the things that are broadcast on... Public television. Yeah. I love it. I do too. But I also need to news, and that's the reason that we were... And let's just hope that everyone kind of opens their hearts on their pocketbooks and doesn't hesitate to... That's what it takes. You know what? When you do this, it says, Adios Muchacha's Muchacha's. George's great singing again. Hey! We'll talk again. Yes, we will. At now, Channel 7, 6 o 'clock

report. A concise but complete look at weather, local news, and national news. Good evening, everyone. This is George Morrison with the 6 o 'clock report. Beautiful. And we have him right here live along... George Morrison, Albuquerque's first newsman, and Dick Niffing long time. Highly respected news anchor. Well, in the center world. The Civil War or what? Handsome devil. I'll say that. That's a film. The BBC team over here and did. With me as the central character and the staff of the then Channel 7 news team. And they did a 30 -minute article on it. And I loaned it to you, and you used it. Good for you. I was, I guess, the first... First television newsman that I know of in this work. I came here from here in Los Angeles. I had already worked for Metropolitan Daily. It's the Seattle Post Intelligence, and I worked

for a college newspaper, and I had worked in a radio station in Louisville where I graduated. And I wrote the newscast for both the radio and for television. And I came out here on a... Just on a... Yes. It's something you can... You were till B first, right? Right, 53. And stay there till 57. And Time Magazine sold the station to its present owner. And then they took me back to Indianapolis, where I had many adventures. And Dick and I met up in the next episode of me in New Mexico, it was a Channel 7. I came out here with Harabba Max Skler, one of the really legendary figures in business in the state. He is. He had taken the station literally off the auction block. And with the financing of Southern California Congressman, he had started. And I went to work for him at that time and stayed with him through my graduation from law school in 1968. The hard dick when I started law school in

1965 to write my newscast for him. I had started at 1663 at KGGM. You paid him 225 an hour. That was a lot. And I got 275 an hour. Anyway, we worked together very well. We were very main friends over the years. Although I've been out of broadcasting for well over 20 years. And as a matter of fact, I've retired as an attorney. I'm fully retired now. And Dick has gone on in the traditions that I thought were the best that we could come up with. That was my parting remark when I left Delaware in 1968, was that I'm sure he will carry on in the same manner that we've all come to be proud of. They tried to hire him out in Los Angeles at our station as well. Oh, yeah, I know they did. But George really was a mentor. And he really was in this market.

And really around the country, he was the first of the anchorman. People sometimes say, well, anchorman, they're just sort of goofy guys who sit up there and read the news. But it really is a demanding profession. And George was sort of the prototype. He knew news. He was a terrific writer. He was a great writer. And he had this wonderful old typewriter that when he started law school, I used to write his news for him and I'm a typewriter. And it somehow mysteriously ended up smashed when I put a judge, another of the great pioneers that came through this territory and left his mark here, was our nightmare. And you came in one morning with my typewriter with a mess on the floor and I asked him, what happened? I don't know. I was just looking at it and he fell off the table. That judge who is now a producer for the today show, and who was here at K &A for a while, and also introduced Carla Aragon to Albuquerque with PM Magazine and Gary Dahl, I think, in the 80s at KOB. Anyway, George really was the prototypical anchor. I mean, he could think on his feet. He was very well spoken, very articulate, good writer, good news person. And he was quite a dude

too and still. Well, we had to do our own thinking. In the pre -interview period for this program, I was telling Kathleen, I think it was that we put on a three -act opera in a studio about half the size of this one. And half the size, I mean, was the engineering portion, the transmitter portion, was everything right there and it also included the studio. And the name of the opera was Amal and the night visitor. I'm sure lots of people recognize that. And it was put on by the University of New Mexico. Music department is the absolute perfect production. It was live. Every inch of it was live. And they would change sets in such a way that you couldn't believe that people were that adept at thinking on their feet and creating a work of our recreating, a work of our capacity. And all the while, of course, we were right out there by the airport and the TWA constellations were flying over the middle of.

But, you know, I'm glad you mentioned Max because I don't think that there was a more important figure for television in Albuquerque to Max Schlor. Really, he resurrected KOAT. By the time I'd gotten there, it was already resurrected. But he is a man who could think and who could make decisions like this. Sometimes you have to talk about it, some of the decisions. But I mean, he was a very decisive guy who never would rest if the competitor was doing something that we needed to do or we needed to do first, he was a great competitor, great think, great television man. He really, he's very stingy too. I'm not going to film. I'm not going to film. I'm not going to film a black and white film. And which he had locked in his safe in his office and which he handed out to me at 830 in the morning. when I came to work. And that's all I had to work with that day. Things had gotten better by the time I got there. We had considerably better. But we would do three

news stories on that 100 feet of black and white film. That was three minutes of film. Editing inside the camera. We're using the old Bell and Owl and whatever we could find. Bollocks as I guess. Bollocks is, when I was at 13, we used Bollocks at 7. We used the Bell and Owl. Dale Britain was our chief photographer in those days and was great at editing in the camera. Dale died a couple of years ago. But he was a wonderful figure in early television and later television too. He was around for a long time. Someone asked me, I think, before the show started with why did I get out? At the time that I did, I had some inner feeling that the job that I was in that had so much fun with, or 20 years or more, was designed for younger people, or was being redesigned for younger people. And I was getting past the age when I wanted to go to law school and get it over with. And so I left and passed the baton on the hem. You make a lot more out of it than I ever did. I literally did make 275 an hour at the start at the start.

You know, this is going to be a wonderful thing in that video that they're making right now, that VHS right now, to have these comments that we just heard. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, everybody asks us, what was it like to be in television then? Well, it was all together different. It was new. It was brand new. I don't know when Albuquerque got his first station, I think, was 1949. It was 48. 48. I think he'll be included. Time magazine, no. No, the Albuquerque Journal on it. And then Time Magazine bought from them and owned it for a while and turned it over. But there was literally no control over what we were allowed to do. Pretty scary. Scary, in some cases. But I think that we lived up to our responsibility. Well, we're all young people out of college. Most of us English majors, who had no idea what to do with an English major, except rely on your teachers that it would improve your ability with a crossword puzzle. I'd say George was a great teacher and he was a great mentor, too. And I learned a lot

from him. And the thing that we all learned a lot from, I think in the early days of television, was that we all had to do everything. We had to shoot our own film, write our own copy, edit our own film. 100 films, right? Anyway, you wanted 100 films. When I went to seven, it was a big improvement. At 13, we had our own processor. We had a processor on film, and I hated that. I hated being in that dark room with that tank and trying to staple that film to the leader and make sure it was lined up right. So it didn't break in the tank. But at seven, we had a commercial lab over on two lanes that did it for us. That was a great luxury. Let me scare some of these people on the floor here. And gentlemen, we used to, first of all, do black and white film at K -O -B back in the 50s. We processed the film to negative. And we did not make a print. We didn't have the ability to make a print. And we then had to re -phase the projectors. And we had to give them a certain amount of time between the beginning of a story that would carry this film. And

the time being necessary for them to re -phase from negative to positive. And then from positive back to negative again. That doesn't scare you. You don't really know what's scary. See, by the time I came along, we were already out of that phase. We were just playing a little black and white film. And we didn't have to worry about negative. And then remember what a great leap forward it was when we had color film? Wow. Color film. Well, I had already seen it in Indianapolis, but it didn't get out here until 68. And I was just about gone. Just when it came. Just when I was leaving. Absolutely fascinating, fascinating. 100%. I remember Dick, when we were talking with you a couple of weeks ago, and we were discussing the kinds of things that happened when you're doing live news to cast. And I think everyone has a fly story. But I thought yours was the best fly story I think I'd ever heard. I was a weekend anchor. George was still there and was a Saturday night. And I was very eager to impress and trying to be really good newsman and everything. And as still happens, flies fly into the studio. They're just always there for some reason. I don't know what it is.

Maybe it's the heat and the lights and that. I was reading the news and one flew in my mouth. I had to think real quickly. I only had two choices. And being very ambitious, I swallowed. There was a little woman who swallowed a block. I never heard that before. New Mexico remembers will be back in a few minutes. But first, go to your telephone and call in your support so that K &M TV can continue to bring you and your family quality television. K &M TV Hello, we need to start the fun. Well, people I

worked with back in those days. On camera people, particularly Ken Donnegan, I succeeded him on the morning talk show. Of course, my great -old golfing partner, Gordon Sanders, He was on another TV station for a while. I'll tell you another one. When I was on 7, that's Dr. George Fishbeck. He influenced me considerably in doing the weather because of his completely wild and really approach to the whole thing. And on camera, I like to think of myself even to the recent days, which Channel 13 is an entertainer rather than a weatherman or a sportsman or anything like that. Fishbeck planted that in my mind. He was the greatest bar none. See how many people you influenced, George? That was the late great Rex Munger. And at one time, he did say, and said, George, you were the one influenced my career. But nobody can... Each person is an individual. All you can do is aim them in the right direction and pat them

on the back. And boy, he took off, didn't he? Wonderful, great guy. Speaking of patting people on the back, we have Howard Morgan here, K -O -A -T, Weatherman, Longtime Broadcaster, and Drawer of Thermo. Sure, that's what I love to do is draw. And that's really how I got started in television, George. Back in Nebraska, someone called me and said, would you like to be in television? I said, what's that? And he said, I was only a person in town who can make a slide. And those days we made slides on two by two glass plates. So I come out as an artist, an illustrator, and a photographer. And then on the day we're going on the air, they asked, you know, how they used to do in the early days, they'd say, whoever didn't news in radio, you go ahead and do the news. And I think the guy who had something to do with selling fertilizer, he became the sportscaster. And then they turned around and said, you've got that. You're a little slow right now, George. We'll keep moving. They said, you know anything about the weather? And I said, yeah, it's going to snow outside. He said, tell the people that. And that's exactly how I got started, really. But I had to learn the business. We fall into more good things than we could ever plan

for. Really, because I found out that I could use everything that I like to do, and I'm still doing it. I was on the air the first night, and I came home, you know, and people said, I said, did you see him on TV? And they said, uh -huh. There was that strange feeling, the way they said that. So I thought, well, maybe something went wrong. You know, in the second night, I did that, and I was a little bit shaky. So one of the older salesmen said, why don't you draw a picture? So like all the other weathercasters said, I will. So I sat down, just like I'm doing right now, and I took my pen, and I drew a little character like this. And I drew the character, and I used him on the weathercast, and some said, what would we name him? And they said, well, what we're going to do is we'll list all of the weather things like barometer and psychrometer and thermometer, and see, that's what he looked like. And they came up with thermoport thermometer. See, so that's how I got the weather character. And then what I would do each day when I put him on the map, see if it was cold, I'd put a hat on him, just like this, and then put a coat on him like that, and that way the people could tell that it was cold. That's how I got started on the weather business. And I'd do

the whole weather drawing. And we have that, and give somebody a chance to see them. Because I've been enjoying this one, and I think other people ought to get a chance to see him too. Oh, there, the cameraman went for a break. Oh, that's all right. That's all right. Oh! That's the one he just made. And you're fast at this old buddy. Well, I'm probably the fastest drawing the West when it comes to this only. But that probably was my skill, and that's really what I'm doing today. Except today I'm drawing in a computer now, using a lot of the high -tech information, but I'm still doing it exactly the way I did. And we were talking just before we got on the airhow. Well, in this case, I turned around one day and said to the audience, would you like a picture of thermal in about four or five thousand people wrote in? So, now it reminds me of a little kid show out of it. So they put me on. Since my name is Howard, they call me Uncle Howdy, which did pretty good. And then we had to wear something, you know, I picked up some elaborate, garish -looking coat. People have asked me, why did they wear that coat? I had no idea. It was red and gold. I mean, if I were at the day, I'd probably be embarrassed. But it was nice, and

I wore that and wore a straw hat. Then what I would do, well, here, you join in. What? Draw a scribble there. This is exactly what I used to do. This is, you only time I had fun now in 40 years of television. Let's make a scribble. That's very good. Don't pad your part. Give me a hand here. Okay. Now, this is what he drew, you see. I mean, there's his nose right now, and there's his... I drew an H -M Howard Morgan. Okay. This is going to be Howard. You wound up drawing yourself, see? You know, you never tell a cameraman what to take. Oh, I'm sorry about that. No, no, I did. And I apologize. Now, where's the H? Here's the H. And here's the M over here. You're getting a little hot. I'll say, here, how? Man, great. Then the other thing I did. Kathleen, you've got to get down there. Oh, you bet. Just right. You bet. And he's good. How about, wait a minute. This is what we used to do. Make it really tough, I'd say. Draw some dots. But you draw the dots like little circles, because people up there are hard of seeing. Okay, very good. And I'll connect the dots. Put one dot down here. Okay. Now, what you want to do is tell me, oh, hi, George. Do you want to say something? No, I was

talking to these people out here. How wonderful. You go right in here. That's terrible. Now, we've got to draw. We'll make it really tough. What do you think I can draw out of it? Tant. Can't draw out of it. Howard, I think you could draw anything. Oh, well, that's not fun. Okay. Well, what we can do. Hop in an automobile, will that fit? Okay. Okay. You think I can draw an automobile out of that? Put the tires right here. And put the top right here. There's the top. This part here is the antenna. Okay. And then inside here is... George shows up in all of these drawings all the time. Okay. There he is. Oh, excuse me. You can't resist me. Anyhow, that's what I used to do. That's the kind of fun I used to have. But in a way, that's how I got started in television. And that's probably why I'm still continuing in it. Because I'm still having fun. Well, and it's obvious when you watch you on television. When you're doing the weather and you do your computer art now. You can tell you're still having fun. You're doing computer art, but it's lots of fun. Well, as George knows... In your gardening? Yeah. In the weather business, you take... The information has given to you. Then you've got to kind of put it together, assemble

it. About hundreds of pages of it. And do it in about three minutes. And it's really tough sometimes. And so your skill becomes how you portray it. You know, you had a nice way of portray... You used to come over and steal my weather symbols. You're going to admit that. The Polaroid that would move around. You could see the rain coming down. We tried different things. Polaroid... Right, symbols. We tried... I used to draw all of it. Hit them black and white. And you mentioned catastrophes. We have to admit this, right? The first days of television, we had these big maps on paper. Yeah. And what we would do is take a little pen with either blue or yellow and write the numbers down. You know, that's how we could see it, but the audience could see it. And so we'd write down Seattle 45, Chicago 57, and sound like we had a tremendous memory until one day someone erased all of them. Yeah. Then I took my pen and I discovered after the first one that it wasn't there. And I almost remembered most of them. I took my pen and I went through the whole thing and my pen ran out of ink toward the end. Well, in those

days television wasn't that good anyhow. What I mean is the signal, so some would fade in and out. So I got done with the whole thing and it turned around smile like I always did. But from that day on, I memorized everything I do in the weather. Yeah. But it's only good for one day, though. After that, I can't remember anything. I've got a comment. I sent in for Howard's Weather Gardening booklet. And it's a great one. Absolutely great. But one exception. I have tried desperately to raise a pineapple and they all rot on every single one. It takes almost two years to raise a pineapple. But they're rotting at the end of a month. Would you put the whole pineapple on the ground? No. Okay. It's all you do is cut the top of the pineapple. Yeah, and you put it in the ground? I thought you were putting it in the soil. Huh? Putting soil. Oh. Now. Well, I would have known how to grow a giant squash like the one we just saw. Oh, just dig a giant hole. Dig a giant hole. And with a giant seed. Yeah. And put in a great amount of

good soil. Lad it, water it, back off, let it grow. Well, I know that we all probably remember doing some shows from the state fair. I know we did some of our Academy programs out there. And it was hectic enough trying to get guests and dancers and singers and so forth. But I can't imagine what it must have been like to do the weather live out there. Well, the remotes were interesting because you didn't know what was going to happen. And I think that made it exciting. But we were prepared for it. I don't know about you, George. But to this day, if I have a weather cast, it doesn't make any difference whether the maps fall down, the lights blow up or what have you. I can stand there and do the weather, not all day long, but a good three minute weather cast, give the information. And that's what we prepare ourselves for. And I did not concern. And to this day, I don't really concern myself. Even if the like the computer has gone down a couple of times. And I just continue on because it's up here in my head. And I would already, I think, I'm explaining to the people. So I don't rely on it. And that helps. So if the dancer doesn't show up with the big band doesn't show up, you have to learn to sing it too. You can't teach it. That's right. That's exactly what you're doing.

In addition to Uncle Howdy, I remember that we had... Well, there's Uncle Roy. There you are. At the state fair. Uncle Roy was a cameraman. Well, I came to K -O -E -T. I was thinking about the about 57. I was in television. I was in television about 53. But the time I got to Albuquerque, Uncle Roy was a cameraman. And I was there. Came as Uncle Howdy. Then I moved from K -O -E -T and went to a... I used to love to help build new television stations those days. I started in Kansas and Nebraska. And then Albuquerque went to North Platinum, Nebraska. And in my absence, they said we need another kids personality. They keep on here. So Uncle Roy offered to do it. And of course, he was just the right side. Shall we put it that way? I had a little Derby hat and he fit in. He just loved to do it. So when I came back again, then we did each of us had our own show. I did the Uncle Howdy show. He did the Uncle Roy show. This worked out real fine because we had like sponsors who... One sponsor was for one kind of ice cream and another for another. So that worked out real fine. And... I think his son worked here at K -O -E -T. Yes. Go to Glenn Lowe. And he sure did. And then we had Captain Billy on

13, I think. And didn't Bill Pavelli? Well, Bill Pavelli did an afternoon show. He did a live... Well, everything was live then. And all the commercials were live. And the problems there was, how do we sandwich in? That's a pun. Because he did new levy hot dogs. It was about 14 inches long. How do we sandwich in these commercials? Sometimes we'd have to... Like, he had a dance band type of thing. And then we'd clear the kids out and drive in the automobile and try to sell the automobile. Drive that back out and keep this going. This was the problem. How do we keep it going without running over people? But it worked. And it worked. Fine. Talk of youngsters. Joyce Marin was miss... Miss Joyce on another... What was she on channel two? Joyce Marin. I think she did a proper run. Then she did TVK here. She was married to an engineer at the base. And it was becoming more and more evident that she shouldn't be called miss anything. One way to let her go. And we snapped her up as Mrs. Marin. She can have all of the kids that she wanted. And it was wonderful.

Well, you know, that's something we have in common. I think I miss it today. We call them kid shows because we work directly with kids. Yeah. But there was a rap where we had that we could... Like, as you mentioned, while we go, we teach them. Not directly. The things we did. In many... I've had pretty well grown up. People say, I watch you. And you rank on how to draw. And today, I draw an almond artist. And that gives you a pretty warm feeling. Just like I'm sure you do with science. But you work with kids that came in the studio. Everything didn't work out exactly the way you want. You know, but you played games with them. And you got to know them. So now they're grown up and you meet them on the street. And it's great to know that you had some good influence on them. Absolutely. You know. Tell you some good influence. I was speaking out at the terminal island in California. At the Federal Correctional Institution. And my goal is two of the people in the audience. One of them was a guard and the other one was... Both of them were my students. Heck, students were in on two counts of federally controlled narcotics. And both of them were my kids. You claim them all forever.

That's right. I know what you mean about kids growing up and then coming back. You know, we often had kids on the Academy shows here. And sometimes several kids, like a whole chorus or something. And we had some interesting experiences of kids passing out because they stood too long. Well, we're scared to death, you know. Yes. And it's a little warm in here now, but nowhere near how hot it used to be at the television. When we first started. All the lights had... It was necessary. True. Very bright for the cameras and they got hotter and hotter. And some of the kids, you know, we're squirming. You had to go with this little room and we're hungry. But this was all part of it. Howard, you are a good friend and that's the main thing. Everyone who watches you instinctively feels that you're a friend. I'm very afraid. I appreciate that. And I'm very fortunate in this day of structure of television where everything is minutely prepared, particularly in news. When it comes to the weather, I'm on my own. I mean, I have to add a little bit. I don't use the prompter. I pretty much set up the weather maps as I want to use

them in my order. So it's really, you know, it's the best job in the world. You know, you're from Channel 7 and everyone who is at 7 reveres Max Sclour in one way or another. And we've got a tape up here. Or do we? Yes, we do. I'd love to see this. It was kind enough to allow us to come into his home. And Max, I know you're watching and you weren't feeling real well that day. You said you had a really bad cold, but you were kind enough to let us come in and you shared some thoughts about television of the past and of the future. And thanks very much for doing that. Well, I came to Albuquerque back in the early 50s and I was in the billboard business. I had studied advertising and I wanted to be an advertising primarily. And I was in the billboard business for a couple of years and I had an opportunity to go with KOB radio, which I thought was a step up. It was a different form of advertising. And I was there for a couple of years when I got into television. Well, of course, a lot of

most of the people that I worked with were the news people, Digniffing, George Morrison, and even back at KOB with Tom Doyle, Marilyn Roper, News Director, and News Personality, Johnny Morris. We had a very good chief engineer at KOAT, Jim Charman, who recently retired. He helped a lot. And there were people at the network that helped us a lot. Julius Barnathan is one that I remember who was head of the broadcast engineering and facilities. He helped us. One of our biggest problems was that we didn't have a link with AT &T like the other stations did. So we had to literally to get live programming, build our own microwave system from Phoenix to Albuquerque. And that was a big undertaking. And it put us in as somewhat of a disadvantage to the other stations because sometimes there would be a snowstorm on one of the mountains

and the dishes would turn and we'd be off the air. So that was the rather trying time, but in 1982, ABC went to satellite delivery of their programs. And when we put our satellite dishes up in front of KOAT, that made our operation much more efficient. Well, I think that the competitive CS has definitely benefited the viewers. No question about it because it has led to, like you mentioned, better technical advantages, quicker, satellite, I think it's phenomenal that you can watch a war in Iraq taking place. Imagine during World War II, if you could have been in Berlin and watched bombing Berlin, for example. I mean, it's phenomenal what the technical advances have done. And I think competition drove that technology. And I think competition is definitely an advantage for the, and I has been for the viewer in news. And we'll continue to

be. It's led to the development of some wonderful news programming, specials. For example, Albuquerque has become a larger market now and is on more buys for national advertisers than it used to be. Thus, there's more revenue coming to the television stations than there sure was when I started. And as a result, they can afford to buy better equipment. They can afford to hire more reporters. They can afford to do things in a better manner than they used to be able to do. So, I think television and Albuquerque, you'll see continued improvement. Well, I think public television is doing a good job. It's hard to think offhand how to improve it, while commercial television does a lot of news, specials, and a lot of even cultural events. They can't constantly do that like

PBS can do it. And so, it gives the viewers a whole new variety of programs, band music, symphony music, educational programs on a steady diet that commercial television just was not meant to do. And it can only do to a limited degree. So, it complements it as far as I'm concerned.