Time travel IS possible. Part I

The only drawback is you can’t jump to the future and you can’t control where in the past you land. But with the right amount of junk in your basement you can easily find yourself tripping across time.

Take yesterday morning for example; I was trying to find some photos of a past work place and a binder of notes from a TV production class. To my surprise I unearthed something almost as cool as those photos of me with 50 extra pounds and a porn star mustache.

In the mid nineties I had graduated from art school, worked a couple of different graphic design jobs and found myself at the local ABC affiliate. I worked there as a studio camera operator and the night graphic artist. While there I had a chance to collect some goofy, but fun, memorabilia. And now, seeing the light of day for the first time in almost a decade, here is an example of the stuff that finds its way into the trash at a TV station…

“The Six Million Dollar Man” camera-ready artwork to be used as a bumper or slide: (A bumper is a static image or video indicating the transition between a show and a commercial break. You don’t see them much anymore.)


“Planet of the Apes” camera-ready artwork to be used as a bumper or slide: Notice that there is no text or logo like appear on TSMDM slide.


Now, here is the same slide with the clear overlay and text in place. This photo was glued to white card stock and the clear plastic sheet (with transfer lettering) was taped to the card for easy removal, allowing for different text to be added later.


Here are the cover images from the 1996-97 Fall Prime Time Season press kit sent out by ABC.



The press kit has three sections, one for movies, one for specials and one for series. In the series section is the lineup for the 96-97 Season:


I’m still chuckling - There are shows on that schedule I don’t even remember! “Second Noah,” really? “High Incident?” “Common Law?” Where are they now, right? But a few shows are still on the air: “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” “Monday Night Football,” and “20/20.” We’re going to come back to this press kit in a different post.

This next image is my favorite thing to come out of my trash-picking treasures. It is an autographed promo photo of actor Robert Urich from his show The Lazarus Man. The photo was part of a syndication press kit sent out by Turner in February of ’96.

The Lazarus Man ran on Turner Network Television for 22 episodes and was cancelled when Urich was diagnosed with synovial cell sarcoma. He did work in film and television during treatment but ultimately died from the disease in 2002.

Anyway, I always liked Robert Urich. From S.W.A.T. to Vegas to Spencer: For Hire he was one of my favorite TV actors, so having his autograph is kind of neat.