Let’s Go Back 37 Years To A WOTV Anniversary Video
It's a weird time twist, as the video is almost equidistant between the two points covering over 70 years of TV broadcasting.
The video is what was referred to back in the day as a 'sizzle reel', put together to show off the station's ratings success as an advertising pitch to potential clients.
But it shows off the entire history of television in the Grand Rapids market, and it's strange in this age of the internet, where visual communications have shifted from sitting in front of what was essentially a piece of furniture to the ease of punching an icon on your smart phone, how strange TV was to its early users.
The video shows how a theater sold out for an early demonstration of television to GR residents in 1949, and goes on to show how modern 1984 developments were for the News team at 8, which seem kind of quaint now.
This will bring back many memories of past TV personalities like Geha and Roberts and how important local news was in 1984, and still is, even though the delivery system is different now.
It's funny to see the station brag about technology that is almost obsolete now, but was considered modern in 1984. Do TV stations even have helicopters any more?
The video also features a lot of snippets of some of the local shows Channel 8 (which started as Channel 7) produced back in the day like Fireman Freddy, Captain Woody (pictured), Miss Jean, Buck Berry, Carole Duvall and Gordon Kibby.
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