KCRA Channel 3 Sacramento sign-off 1986

[PortPowerAZ]

This got me to thinking of when my dad used to repair airplanes at McClellan AFB from the 70's until its decommissioning in the early 90's.. I would see this not soon after George Michael's Sports Machine, broadcast from WRC-TV until a few years ago, thanks to 24/7 sports news killed it..

[eyeh8nbc]

@PortPowerAZ Their Sunday late-night line-up consisted of Sports Machine at 11:30, At The Movies at 12:00, then sign-off, except for a while in 1986 they added "The New Candid Camera Show" at 12:30 which was actually from the 70s. They aired that most weeknights at 2:30 too. Many of those had the original "promotional consideration" tags at the end, which already looked quite old.

[Ronbo710]

AWESOME!! I grew up in Manteca just south and I always found these cool sign offs spooky lol. Back when there were only three stations in the Valley :).

[paintmn1]

Even if you went to bed early... people would set there alarms just to get up and watch this.That's about all the exitement one could stand in those days.

[ums07]

Where can I get a copy of this?

[bloodurine]

A station here in Las Vegas played the High Flight/Air Force part, luckily we didn't have to endure the song that follows. Fantastic story about the poem and how the original copy was sent to Dad and now resides in The Library of Congress.

Oh how I miss those days of my youthful innocence. Thanks for posting a real gut wrencher. (Added to favorites)

[owadave]

I have wanted to see this version of High Flight for decades. Thank you so much for posting this!

[g0thchik77]

I remember seeing the beginning High Flight when I was a kid. It still spooks me to this day.

[educatedlime]

holy crap, this is byfar the most boring video on youtube. I think id rather stare at a jar of mayonaise for 7 mins..

[wannawatchu66]

Kcthatsawinner,

Your "YouTube 'fact' of the day" is incorrect. KCRA-TV was NOT Sacramento's first TV station. It was actually the third, behind KBET Channel 10 (March '55), and KCCC Channel 40 (1953). KOVR Channel 13, while located (now) in West Sac, is actually a Stockton station. In fact, when 13 signed on in November '54, they did so from their E. Miner Ave. studios. Don't know when they moved operations to 1216 Arden; probably after moving their transmitter to the Walnut Grove tower.

[goldcylon]

My dad used to work for the TV 40 back in the 50's, and Ice Land that just burned down.

[Warren316]

I think this is the best High Flight video of them all! It broght back good memories of when I watched the WTOP (before that channel 9 tv station had the WDVM and WUSA call letters) back in the early 1970's. And yes, WTOP's version did not show the senes before the two F-15s split apart from their formation.

[mbrstooge]

KXAS-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth, TX used a shorter version of that video as their sign off before going 24/7 in the late 90s.

[Reubenhubert]

That was a really long sign off. In Cleveland, Ohio I remember High Flight followed by the National Anthem. Not long at all.

[junoxtc]

totally awesome! and rad ... ty for posting this .. i loved the music in the beginning part and the ending was classic too

[kcthatsawinner]

Here's something for YouTubers to think about: John Gillespie Magee, Jr.'s 'High Flight' was printed on September 5, 1941. KCRA 3 signed on the week of September 5, 1955 as Sacramento's first TV station. And that's tonight's YouTube fact of the day!

[spershall]

This is the longest sign-off I've ever seen!

[rd2mms]

Who owns the Walnut Grove tower? KCRA-TV3 or KRBK-TV31 or both?

[tryanr]

Wow... this brings back so many memories from my childhood. I used to stay up late just to hear this poem =)

[akarpowicz]

I used to stay up late to watch KCRA sign off just for Highflight and Bluebird of Happiness. But I saw an older version of highflight, which I prefer - not so much background music. Thanks for including Bluebird of Happiness. (We lived on the coast 120 miles south of Sacramento. We had a TV antenna on top of a 40 foot power pole. We would aim the antenna south and catch the signal reflecting off a hill. We got perfect reception from two Sacramento TV stations. The good old days...

[jaybee1973jaybee]

I guess that you were far enough north not to have any signal inference from KEY-T in Santa Barbara. But I think that the Santa Ynez Mountains block KEY-T from even reaching northern Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County, both within KEY-T's "area of dominant influence."

[RapIsDeadly]

@akarpowicz

Haha....I stayed up so many times myself and saw this. It was kind of memorizing

[Bsbkftv1]

excuse me eyeh8cbs, they can do hi-Q now. just re-upload and add &fmt=18 at the end of the url.

[chrismarshva]

Yes, William Conrad sounds like the voice in Buck Rogers intro!

[chrismarshva]

This is just like the one we had on (used to be WDVM) WUSA-9 Washington 9 but they never showed the the sequence before the F-15s split off.

[o0901325a]

Isn't that the same voice that did the buck roger's intro?

[Cherokee5of6]

41K was in the open blue, and as I watched my altimeter with watchful eyes, I wondered when I would reach out my hand and touch the face of God? Then in a instance it dawned on me, he had been there all along, for I had soloed all alone...

[gshowguy]

Ah... when KCRA didn't suck. (As a kid visiting a town near Sacramento, I watched Channel 3's news quite often.)

[co678]

Man KCRA was much better then, now its just crap, I never even touch KCRA 3 non-primetime hours, then again most Sac area TV sucks.

[mrpchill]

That last part with all the classical music and the nature reminds me of the scene from Soylent Green where Sol Roth is dying only to be made into Soylent Green. They showed all these pictures of nature and whatnot while he was checking out....

[txgal70]

Wow, that brings back memories....I always hated it when the poem was over and the screen went blank. Glad those days are gone. Thank goodness for satillite TV!

[delmontoon]

Jeezus! Almost 10 minutes of sign-off with porn music and "The Fatman."

[cllewis1]

that's one heck of a tower!

[rustyshackleford01]

id hate to do maintence on that lol

[o0901325a]

3000 or so more feet and it would be a mile!

[c2thaj42877]

5,280 ft.=a mile

[jmcw627]

Awesome. My mom used to always have KCRA on our crappy 10" black and white tv in our kitchen. Ah, Sacramento... Where the news comes first.

[hocobo]

boards of canada

[MCCRIDLEY]

I remember this Sacramento been a good place to live when its not to hot

[keiichiudagawa]

Norio Nishikawa!

[vitoduval]

Rocket J squirrel

[McGregorradio]

Awesome! I remember this from back in the 80's.

[kmhtlfm]

Thanks vey much for putting this up. I used to stumble home from the Stockman's Club in Fair Oaks late at night, and this was often the last thing I saw as I fell asleep. I've thought about this for years, and am stoked to see it again. THANK YOU!!!!

[sszushi]

This brings back memories from the '70s when I sometimes watched "The Tonight Show" in its entirety, then kept the TV on to see what was next. Usually channel 3 just signed off at 1:00 am. Who filmed and produced the excellent Bluebird of Happiness "video" and where was the footage filmed?

Now, the only clip that could top this is Kaity Tong delivering the channel 3 news. Kaity Tong was my teenage idol (I was the teenager, not Ms. Tong. :)) No homework was finished until I got my Kaity "fix".

[jerrymouse16]

Do you Have Any clips Of KCRA Signing On?

[eyeh8cbs]

Not on tape, but I did get up early to see the sign-on a couple times. They showed more video footage of the station with the same music, then the announcer said "Channel 3 will transmit a test pattern for the next few minutes, then begin our broadcast day", and go to color bars as opposed to the white screen that usually stayed on all night.

[bradhasbrouck]

I think KBJR used that film back in the late 1970's and 1980's.

[boredmale32]

we used to get Duluth TV where i live and i remember them using this just before cartoons came on in the early 80s

[boyhowdy666]

I remember this vividly as a child who could never get to bed on time. This was always a bummer to see, because I knew a) I had to get up soon to go to school and b) I had to get up to change the channel if I wanted to watch anything. I was a really lazy kid.

[rjhaas01]

I have this video along with the "original" USAF High Flight Television Sign-Off film featuring the F-104 Starfighter, and another sign-off film with the T-38 Talon. My Compilation DVD also has recitations of High Flight from several other people such as Russell Crowe, Orson Welles, John Glenn and John Denver... google: "high flight dvd"

[columbusmediatalk]

Does anybody know the name of the music they play during the first 16 seconds of the video?

[eyeh8cbs]

I don't know the name of it, but it is production library music. I've heard it in a couple commercials and on the end credits of one of the first laserdisc demos, "Laserdisc: What It Is" from Pioneer.

[groucho1953]

@columbusmediatalk If you are talking about the ABC signoff it's called JUPITER from "THE PLANET"S.

My brother told me this  he works at Griffin observatory. I like that music too.

[tomservo2400]

touched the face of God huh?

[NowhereMan1966]

I also remember when TV stations used to sign off, especially our ABC affiliate WTAE Channel 4 here in Pittsburgh, at about 1 AM or so. WQED 13 used to do the same at midnight as well as some of the UHF Indy stations. KDKA-TV was 24 hours since the 1950's, having movies for people who came home from the night shift in the mills.

Still, a lost piece of Americana, I guess because of the 24 hour news cycle, most stations are 24 hours. I wonder when they do tranmitter maintenance?

[jimmyeightysix]

About the same time the cable goes out, I'd reckon, LOL!

[goriajk]

Thanks for bringing this on YouTube. To me, NBC stations signing off were always the best...KNBC 4 was clearly my favorite of all signoffs - Channel 4 had the longest signoffs (almost ten minutes long) with the Navy Hymn set to visions of the open sea (I hope someone has a copy of that and share it on this site) The Jan Peerce classic song "Bluebird of Happiness" just makes this one of the best signoffs I've ever seen. It's perfect. JG

[goriajk]

MY 'NAVY HYMN' DREAMS HAVE COME TRUE. Please check out the KNBC 4 SignOff from 1981 here on YouTube. Very grateful that Don had delivered this and thanks to eyeh8cbs for the KCRA too!!! Joe

[scuppino]

this was a nice treat. I remember this sign off well. used to be, all the channels had sign offs. A different time. A different Sacramento.

[JBauer2635]

The now sister station KSBW also used this as their sign-offs too back when they used to be sister stations with KSBY-TV.

[spudwas]

"Bluebird of Happiness" sung by Jan Peerce an opera singer.

[RolloSmokes]

What's the name of the traditional Irish song played in-between? I'd assume it must of had some tie-in to the Kelly family who owned KCRA back then...

[spudwas]

Thank you for this sign-off! I have been looking for this for years! THANKS

[JBauer2635]

This is a best thing I've seen in the 1980's. I now uploaded the only other station to stay with it's affiliation besides KCRA, KTXL. I have 2 videos so far but I'll upload some more.

[Murple333]

Heh... I remember when TV went off the air at night. Seems that the first Iraq War put an end to that, first with all night news coverage... then when they realized they could make ad money at night, the all night news was replaced with stuff like reruns of Magnum PI and MASH, and now there's new programs almost all day and night on broadcast TV.

Some sation in the DC area also used this signoff video.

[murielsartre]

The guy reciting sounds like William Conrad!

[TJOPootertoot]

It IS William "Cannon" Conrad! In fact, that's what it says onscreen when it starts.

[livecopter3]

I was the guy flying that jet...it sure was fun.  Ed Ray shot it.

[keysjom]

Wow...how nostalgic!