WOR-TV...In "RETRO"spective.

Way back when our family got our first satellite dish (you know, the ones as big as a UFO and looked like we should be getting signals from Neptune), I was enarmored with the fact that we could watch TV from anywhere in the world and had access to literally hundreds of movie channels for free! Remember, this was back before they charged for (and scrambled) everything. If I recall, these salad days were around 1983-1987.

But even after that, there were still good channels to watch on a regular basis (Hey, I could still watch The Playboy Channel for awhile, so life was good. ; ).

Then I found the big-city channels (or super-stations) from Chicago (WGN) , Los Angeles (KTLA) , Denver (KWGN) and even Aspen, Colorado (KUSA). And then there was New York City, baby!

My favorite channel was WOR (or WWOR), and I usually watched it intently, especially for their local news reports - oddly, I'm still fascinated by local news stories from other cities. The weather guy always cracked me up with his "HEL_LOOOOOOOO!!!" greetings to different NYC boroughs.

Anyway, there are many things that I've found concerning WOR that bring a smile to my face and a wistful tear to my eye. And make me think of the good old days of satellite TV, when you could still watch ANYTHING.

Remember with me now, won't you?

First we have an intro to their "Million Dollar Movie"; I think they still used this in the '80s....



Here's a commercial block between parts of their "4 O'Clock Movie"...



Crazy Eddie was a fixture in NYC at that time, because of his chain of retail stores, low proces and a tad of scandal that happened later on. You can read about that here. But here's a couple of Crazy Eddie commercials:

Commercial #1...



...and Commercial #2.



Another WOR ficture (and I'm sure for any New York TV channel) were ads for Carvel cakes. Basically, decorated ice cream cakes in unusual shapes. Here's some to give you an idea.

Cookie Chick...



Cupid The Nut...



Cookie Puss and Cookie O'Puss (for St. Patrick's Day, you know)...



and Santa and Chanukah cakes, too!



And to wrap things up, here's the typical RKO Television logo that came at the end of any WOR-produced TV show.



Ah, I wish I had a full tape of just one day in the programming of that station, circa 1984 or '85. The memories....

(wipes away a nostalgic tear)

Dope out.

-TGWD