TV Guide's Do-It-Yourself Television (Monkees on Cover)

[Bixfan78]

There's a hilarious episode of "Headline Edition" where none of the remote field reports come in, and Taylor Grant has to do some fast ad-libbing; his announcer then tries to fill the remaining air time with a promo about how professional ABC news programs are, then begins to laugh hysterically.

[gilgamess]

@Bixfan78 "That kind of news reporting doesn't just happen!" I'm glad to put a name to that piece of audio.

[wmbrown6]

The announcer for this and all TV Guide ads from the early 1960's through 1981 has been identified: the late Taylor Grant, a longtime Philadelphia radio and TV broadcaster who anchored ABC's "Headline Edition" newscasts from the 1940's through 1953.

[jehobden]

I have this issue and have read the story. It was very interesting. The oldest TV Guide story that I've seen about home recorders was in a July 1964 issue.

[batterymaker]

That video system looks like the infamous Ampex--cost a fortune, probably one or two left in existence.

[wmbrown6]

One could argue that TV Guide's downward slope in quality began after Walter Annenberg sold it to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

[wmbrown6]

Even had the zoom-out of the cover in the end, just as into 1980. Only the "ON SALE NOW" is missing.

[wmbrown6]

This was indeed the same voice as used on TV Guide ads into 1980, all right - albeit a bit younger-sounding. I'm still wanting as to the name of that voice.

As for the Disney voice, it was announcer Dick Wesson, right up to his death (by suicide) in 1979 - not to be confused with the comedy writer/producer of the same name ("Petticoat Junction," "The Real McCoys") who passed away from an aortic aneurysm in 1996.

[gymnastix]

Does anyone know the name of the announcer heard on this "TV Guide" commercial? He did these weekly on TV back in the 1960's, maybe even into the '70's?

I have been wanting to know his identity, as well that of the announcer for all the Walt Disney film trailers in the 1960's, who also announced "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in the years when the Disney TV show aired on "The Peacock Network" (NBC).

[tapthat2012]

sounds like the guy who did the commercials thru the late 70s.

[MSTS1]

The TV Guide ad style I wrote about is much like what you (tapthat2012) have posted now..

[MSTS1]

Sound like it to me too. I don't know who he is, but I have 1 or 2 old audio recordings of the typical TV Guide spot with him on it (with the repeating, spacey 3-note electro-music bed). One from maybe, '72, he ended with- "Interesting reading- TV Guide".

[wmbrown6]

It seems that the "repeating, spacey 3-note electro-music bed" had been in use since fall 1968, when TV Guide altered its logo to what would be used up to 1988.

[fromthesidelines]

This is a January 1967 commercial for TV GUIDE magazine {"The Monkees" are featured on this January 28-February 3 issue, worth a great deal of money to collectors}- the article mentioned dealt with one of the first primitive "home video" {reel-to-reel} recorders available to the public, which cost over $1000, and was somewhat unreliable....