When TV Stations Had Technical Difficulties
Sometimes I Miss TV's Technical Glitches and Broadcast Blunders
We have gained a lot of convenience when it comes to streaming TV and movies. Besides outages or unexpected content drops, services like Netflix or Amazon Prime serve up what you want, when you want. Having grown up before that period, I can say, with a few caveats, streaming has been pretty great. But part of me misses a few things. Number one would probably be the act of discovery. Finding something that just happens to be one and watching and enjoying it. The second thing I miss is the unexpected.
With broadcast TV, when it wasn’t live, you generally knew what was going to happen. But occasionally a technical glitch might pop up that changed the course of your viewing. It could be breaking news that cut into your favorite show, or it might be a technical issue. Technical issues were fascinating to me as a kid, they felt like a breaking of the fourth wall with whatever I was watching. One minute you are on the bridge of the Enterprise and then…
Just like that, you are reminded that this show is being served up from a location and that a human is there monitoring it. There is something magical, but also something that made me feel uneasy when it happened. Whenever it did happen, though, it would be all my friends would talk about the next day at school.
The above piece interruption or “Temporary Fault” is from a 1985 broadcast of the Star Trek episode, The Return of The Archons. The film appears to break, and then a person’s voice is heard. They then play what sounds like Westcoast Trip by Bob Mahaney. The music seems very incongruous for Star Trek, but seems very fitting for the situation.
This version is sort of a best case scenario. Often you would just get silence when a problem came up. Here is an example of that from one of my childhood local stations, WPIX in New York City. When your TV goes silent, it definitely captures your attention, and then what do you do? Wait in silence, hoping to learn why it happened, or do you change the channel? I usually waited and then programming would resume and I would learn nothing. Here is another version that is equally silent. It happened during a Courageous Cat & Minute Mouse cartoon.
(If you have retro finds you would like for me to share, I want to hear them. What old useful website are still lurking on the web? Some old TV show streaming online? Old tech being brought back? Let me know.)
ONE COOL VIDEO
Not all technical issues are an accident. For example, the Max Headroom incident occurred in 1987 when a hacker interrupted two Chicago TV broadcasts by hijacking the signal, showing a bizarre, masked figure mimicking the character Max Headroom. The distorted visuals, eerie voice, and unsettling behavior were super creepy. The randomness and lack of explanation behind the intrusion made it even more disturbing to viewers.
TEN THINGS RETRO
📺 Television - The “real” Max Headroom peaked in popularity in the mid-eighties, just before the incident I mentioned. At the height of his popularity, the faux-CGI character was interviewed by Terry Wogan at the BBC.
🏠 Scarebnb - As I mentioned previously, the house from the film Poltergeist was for sale. Sadly, I wasn’t able to make an offer, but someone did, and they are turning into an Airbnb. I can’t wait to stay there and see what’s on the TV.
🌈 Art - Do you need to be cheered up by colorful rainbow-infused eighties pop culture mash-up art? Check out the art of Amy Greenbank. A lot of it reminds me of Lisa Frank.
🎵 Music - Amazingly, The Cure hasn’t released a new album since 2008. That drought of new music ends on November 1st with their new album, Songs For A New World. The first single came out, Alone, and it’s great.
🃏 Card Games - You remember the video game, Centipede? It’s back, but as a card game.
🐉 Dungeons & Dragons - In the 1990s, they released a “Starter Set” to help introduce people to the 2nd Edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I had been playing AD&D for a while at this point, so I never picked up this large box set. But I was always curious what was inside it.
📞 Phones - The 1990s were the high point for 1-900 numbers. They took some wild chances on themes, that still puzzle me 25+ years later. For example, who is paying money to a phone line to be insulted?
📼 Cassettes - You might hear the word cassingle and become nostalgic for simpler times, but is the cassingle worthy of your nostalgia? Learn a little about the history of the cassingle.
📖 Magazines - Twilight Zone Magazine lasted eight years, and you can often find issues of it for sale online or at flea markets. But if you prefer to read digitally, the Internet Archive had the magazine’s entire run available to read.
🖥️ Computer Games - Do you like to play old-school style computer role-playing games on modern systems? Check out SKALD: Against the Black Priory.
SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATION
All this month, the other podcast I contribute to, The Video Store Podcast, is recommending Halloween-appropriate films. Sign up to get updates when new episodes are released (weekly).
FROM THE RETROIST ARCHIVE
Let's take a moment to look back at four posts from the Retroist's past. I have been at this a long time.
One Year Ago…
🌭 Hormel’s Frank ‘n Stuff Hot Dogs
Five Years Ago…
👻 Six Flags Great Adventure Fright Fest (1995)
Ten Years Ago…
🌰 Magnum P.I’s John Hillerman for Mauna Loa Macadamia Nuts
Fifteen Years Ago…
👁️ Ads that promise they can teach you how to Hypnotize People
this is my era - I was born just before the transition to full time color broadcasting in the U.S. My father was a television Engineer, so I heard many stories.
Such as : late at night the station would receive satellite feeds for recording for the next days broadcast. Engineers working the graveyard shift would sometimes entertain themselves by watching un-encoded porn channel feeds while they worked. This was big trouble if they got caught.
Well, one late-night engineer hit the wrong switch and sent the porn feed out over live -to-air.
There was an investigation because the FCC doesn't like that. Needless to say, someone was looking for a new job.
>who is paying money to a phone line to be insulted?
So.... back around '86 or so I was in high school and home sick. For some reason I was getting calls from random weirdos all day, and since I was a LOT less patient back then I'd let them know how I felt about their calls. Quite vociferously. Couldn't figure out why I was getting these calls until I went back to school and found a "Dial Abuse" card with my number on it. A friend made them and as passing them around the school. So yeah, for a limited time folks could have had this for free....