Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's the complete broadcast of one of the last episodes of Fantasy Island, "Mermaid and the Matchmaker / The Obsolete Man" (S07E18) as transmitted over WLS Channel 7.
By then, Herve Villechaize (a.k.a. Tattoo, or "De plane, boss! De plane!") had left, and was replaced by Christopher Hewett (the future Mr. Belvedere, AKA Brocktoon) as Lawrence. It just wasn't the same.
In this edition, a mermaid seeks to shed her immortality, and after Mr. Roarke refuses her, vows her revenge on him, after meeting a deep-sea diver; and a banker fears being replaced with a woman's computer at work.
Guest starring (in alphabetical order) Richard Anderson, Dennis Cole, Bert Convy, Gloria Loring, Michelle Phillips, and Shanna Reed. (Also in a minor role was Estelle Getty, more than a year before a little series called The Golden Girls got its start.)
Includes:
Show opening titles and Prologue
Commercials for:
Kleenex Huggies Disposable Diapers - "Jill the Cheerleader" featuring the "saggy diaper that leaks"
Formby's Furniture Refinisher (with third-generation refinisher Homer Formby)
Act I
Commercials for:
California Raisin Advisory Board - "A Touch of Magic" (much less-remembered campaign than the claymation one a year later)
New Vanish Bowl Brite toilet bowl cleaner
Kleenex Huggies Disposable Diapers - "Jill the Cheerleader" (repeat - two breaks in a row? Why?)
Promo for Hardcastle & McCormick and "Alien" (main voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Allan Jefferys)
Animated ABC ID with lower-third WLS-TV station ID
Act II
Commercials for:
AT&T Phones - "We Set the Standards"
Sprite soft drink - "Only Sprite"
Promo for "Best Kept Secrets" (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Bumper (voiceover by Ricardo Montalban)
Promo for Three's Company, Shaping Up and Hart to Hart (main voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Allan Jefferys)
Commercials for:
Dominick's Finer Foods - sale on USDA choice sirloin steak
Zayre stores - "We'd Like to Make Zayre Your Store"
Station ID / promo for "The Last Detail" (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Eyewitness News Brief with Lonnie Lardner (opening voiceover by Wayne Atkinson)
Act III
Commercials for:
Purina Sea Dog dog food - "The Taste Your Dog's Been Fishin' For."
Kleenex Boutique tissues (in different colors)
Promo for The American Sportsman (Lauren Hutton looks into a pygmy culture) and USFL football (Chicago Blitz vs. New Orleans Breakers or Jacksonville Bulls vs. Los Angeles Express) (voiceover by Fred Collins?)
Act IV
Bumper (voiceover by Ricardo Montalban)
Commercials: IDS American Express Personal Financial Planners (with Jason Robards)
Partial commercial for something else, possibly DuPont
Epilogue (which had to be drawn from another source, as the off-air recording ended early)
This aired on local Chicago TV on Saturday, March 24th 1984 during the 9pm to 10pm timeframe.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv We preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!
Here's the complete broadcast of one of the last episodes of Fantasy Island, "Mermaid and the Matchmaker / The Obsolete Man" (S07E18) as transmitted over WLS Channel 7.
By then, Herve Villechaize (a.k.a. Tattoo, or "De plane, boss! De plane!") had left, and was replaced by Christopher Hewett (the future Mr. Belvedere, AKA Brocktoon) as Lawrence. It just wasn't the same.
In this edition, a mermaid seeks to shed her immortality, and after Mr. Roarke refuses her, vows her revenge on him, after meeting a deep-sea diver; and a banker fears being replaced with a woman's computer at work.
Guest starring (in alphabetical order) Richard Anderson, Dennis Cole, Bert Convy, Gloria Loring, Michelle Phillips, and Shanna Reed. (Also in a minor role was Estelle Getty, more than a year before a little series called The Golden Girls got its start.)
Includes:
Show opening titles and Prologue
Commercials for:
Kleenex Huggies Disposable Diapers - "Jill the Cheerleader" featuring the "saggy diaper that leaks"
Formby's Furniture Refinisher (with third-generation refinisher Homer Formby)
Act I
Commercials for:
California Raisin Advisory Board - "A Touch of Magic" (much less-remembered campaign than the claymation one a year later)
New Vanish Bowl Brite toilet bowl cleaner
Kleenex Huggies Disposable Diapers - "Jill the Cheerleader" (repeat - two breaks in a row? Why?)
Promo for Hardcastle & McCormick and "Alien" (main voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Allan Jefferys)
Animated ABC ID with lower-third WLS-TV station ID
Act II
Commercials for:
AT&T Phones - "We Set the Standards"
Sprite soft drink - "Only Sprite"
Promo for "Best Kept Secrets" (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Bumper (voiceover by Ricardo Montalban)
Promo for Three's Company, Shaping Up and Hart to Hart (main voiceover by Ernie Anderson) (ending voiceover by Allan Jefferys)
Commercials for:
Dominick's Finer Foods - sale on USDA choice sirloin steak
Zayre stores - "We'd Like to Make Zayre Your Store"
Station ID / promo for "The Last Detail" (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Eyewitness News Brief with Lonnie Lardner (opening voiceover by Wayne Atkinson)
Act III
Commercials for:
Purina Sea Dog dog food - "The Taste Your Dog's Been Fishin' For."
Kleenex Boutique tissues (in different colors)
Promo for The American Sportsman (Lauren Hutton looks into a pygmy culture) and USFL football (Chicago Blitz vs. New Orleans Breakers or Jacksonville Bulls vs. Los Angeles Express) (voiceover by Fred Collins?)
Act IV
Bumper (voiceover by Ricardo Montalban)
Commercials: IDS American Express Personal Financial Planners (with Jason Robards)
Partial commercial for something else, possibly DuPont
Epilogue (which had to be drawn from another source, as the off-air recording ended early)
This aired on local Chicago TV on Saturday, March 24th 1984 during the 9pm to 10pm timeframe.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv We preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!
![KXAS Channel 5 [Fort Worth-Dallas, TX] - Emergency Broadcast System Test (7/30/1979)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oGJOsPDG-k8/mqdefault.jpg "KXAS Channel 5 [Fort Worth-Dallas, TX] - Emergency Broadcast System Test (7/30/1979)
Heres another example of how Emergency Broadcast System tests were handled by local stations back in the day - in this case, from KXAS Channel 5 in Fort Worth-Dallas, TX.
(NOTE: Another EBS test from another Dallas-Fort Worth station - WFAA Channel 8, from 1978 - can be seen here: https://youtu.be/_9SvldZ8zs0 )
Includes:
Ending of PSA for The Family Place (a shelter for battered women) (voiceover by ??)
This is followed by the obligatory Emergency Broadcast System test (voiceover by ??)
The test - two tones, played simultaneously at 853 and 960 Hz, per FCC guidelines - only lasted a bit more than 23 seconds. The rest in this 60-second test were the This is a test... intro at the start, and the outro script at the end (both of which were also shown on screen as they were being read). However, there is no indication (between the actual emergency spiel and This concludes this test...) of which area this station serves (which would have been the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex).
Station ID / promo for The Muppet Show (voiceover by ??)
First few seconds of Act 5 of Days of Our Lives
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This aired on local Fort Worth-Dallas TV on Monday, July 30th 1979 within the 12:00pm to 1:00pm timeframe.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: tapes@fuzzy.tv Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail tapes@fuzzy.tv Thank you for your help!")
