RETRO FRIDAY: In 1972, ABC7 Invaded a Valley Family's Living Room to Produce a Newscast (WATCH)

This may be one of the most unusual local TV promotions ever: In 1972, KABC-Channel 7 held a contest to come and do a newscast at someone's home. Early that summer, that's exactly what the station did: They essentially moved into the San Fernando Valley home of the Jensen family, and did a newscast.

It was... awkward. Eyewitness News anchors Joseph Benti, John Schubeck, Ralph Story, Stu Nahan, and Alan Sloane, sat with the camera-shy family in their living room and around the dining room table.. and did the news. Sports anchor Nahan at one point thanks Mrs. Jensen for the "garbanzo beans and the hot dogs wrapped in tin foil." (I also love the son who doesn't take his sunglasses off.)

It's pretty amazing, and it's been saved in all its glory on YouTube. Watch below:



Broadcasting magazine covered the story; here's what they wrote in their June 26, 1972, issue:

Billed as the first complete TV newscast ever broadcast from a home, the event was the culmination of a two-month promotion content is which viewers were asked to tell the station what hearing the news from a friend means to them. Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Jensen of the Sepulveda section of the San Fernando Valley won the right to KABC-TV's housecall and they were inundated by the following:

• Remote truck at the site, powered by its own generator for running equipment and audio gear.

• Inside the truck monitors, switching equipment and studio staff.

• Cables from cameras to power units, with cable running through doorways of the home.

• Plywood laid to protect carpeting and floors. Various other protection used for walls and furniture.

• Direct telephone lines from the home into Studio B at KABC-TV Hollywood for news updates.

• A news teletype wire at the site.

• A Telco (telephone company) truck at the site, which transmitted the sound and picture via microwave signal to a Telco transmitter on Mt. Wilson, the highest point in Southern California.

Personnel at the newscast in the home included: a director, a producer (a second producer was located back at the station), associate director, stage manager, technical director, lighting director, video control engineer, audio man, two cameramen, two utility men (to handle microphones, set up equipment), engineering maintenance man, three electricians, two prop men and set designer. News personnel included the on-air news team of Joe Benti, John Schubeck, Stu Nahan, Alan Sloane and Ralph Story. Also on hand were a show coordinator and several newswriters.

On the newscast, the Jensen family was introduced on-air (the Jensens' 17-year-old daughter, Linda, actually sent in the winning entry). But the delivery of the news, for the most part, was presented int he normal fashion of the regular KABC-TV newscast.

 Dr. George Fischbeck also wrote about it in his memoir, and Time magazine even did a piece on it.

The other amazing thing about this newscast: Chuck Henry, who's seen reporting a story, is, of course, still active in Los Angeles TV as KNBC-Channel 4 anchor. Now that's career longevity!

RIP, "Dr. George" Fischbeck, L.A.'s Colorful Weatherman

Rough year for local L.A. TV legends. First KTLA's Stan Chambers passed away, and now famed weatherman "Dr. George" Fischbeck, seen on KABC-Channel 7 for years, has died at 92.
Dr. George was such a household name in Southern California that, as you see above, by 1987 KABC wasn't even including his last name in his identification. In 2008, the L.A. Times caught up with Fischbeck, and he was still going strong as a docent at the L.A. Zoo and in other volunteer work. (Read it here.)

More from the L.A. Times:

George Fischbeck, a science teacher turned weatherman who joined KABC-TV in 1972 and spent nearly two decades exuberantly delivering the local forecast, has died. He was 92.

Fischbeck, who was known as "Dr. George," died of natural causes early Wednesday morning at the Motion Picture & Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills, his daughter, Nancy Fischbeck, said.

A trained meteorologist, George Fischbeck was so enthusiastic about his subject that he sometimes forgot to talk about the next day's weather.

"I must begin with an apology," Fischbeck said on a 1978 broadcast. "Last Friday we got carried away again and we got everything in but the forecast."

When the rare inclement weather threatened Los Angeles, his newscast's ratings went up as viewers tuned in to see a seemingly real-life Mr. Wizard — complete with thick black-rimmed glasses, animated mustache and signature bow tie — race around the set.

Some people considered Fischbeck's weathercasts "madcap performances," according to a 1978 Times profile with the headline "Blue Skies for Dr. George." The "doctor" referred to an honorary degree from the University of Albuquerque.

"I'm Channel 7's father image," Fischbeck said in 1978 while insisting that he was not its comedian because he refused to do jokes. "I am not a phony. I am not manufactured or contrived."

He did, however, once call attention to the beginning of March by hauling a lion and a lamb into the TV studio.

The cult of personality that prevailed on local television in the 1970s "seemed to have reached a zenith" at KABC by 1979 when Fischbeck began receiving even wider play on the local news to exploit his huge following, former TV columnist Howard Rosenberg wrote in The Times.

In a 1981 report, People magazine compared Fischbeck to "a caged lion" who "stalks the weather map, prowls the sound stage ... and explodes into a frenzy of animation while delivering his forecasts. He candidly admits that cameramen should get hazard pay for trying to keep up with him."

Watch a Fischbeck weathercast here:



And check out this five-part feature from Dr. George and KABC on how the TV news is made: