Uploaded July 2015 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Sometime in 1994, at the first TV station where I worked, I got shanghaied into being on-air talent during kids’ programming. Our kids’ club talent had just left, and there was a perfect storm brewing:
* The Humane Society did pet-of-the-week spots in our kids’ programming, which helped the station to fulfill its “local public service” quota. Those spots now had no host.
* The station had just gotten a pith helmet in a National Geographic promo kit.
* I was already on the payroll.
With no contract, no additional pay, and no perks, I was suddenly… Explorer Earl.
Things that suddenly jump to mind upon watching this for the first time in years:
I had completely forgotten the "Pet Detective" thing that the station management tacked on; this was about the time Ace Ventura was brand new in theaters, and I guess they wanted to cash in.
My skills at interviewing a golden lab puppy are unparalleled. My skills at being on TV in any other capacity are virtually nonexistent.
The pith helmet was part of a promo kit for some syndicated National Geographic package that we had the rights to, but never showed - I guess we were paying to sit on it so none of the other stations could get it. (That actually happened more than you might think back in those days.)
I still have the pith helmet. But I'm no longer pithed.
A NOTE ABOUT VIDEO QUALITY
I began archiving my work-related video years before YouTube existed. It was an age of darkness, an age of limited web storage, an age of... {shudder} ...dial-up connections.
More to the point, my work archive at my site was all dependent on... {shudder some more} ...Adobe Flash. These videos were converted, usually from either the master MII or Beta tapes or from VHS dubs, with a program called Sorenson Squeeze. Sorenson is great for what it does, but with scenes featuring a lot of motion, there's often a lot of pixellation and motion artifacting that's considered unacceptable these days. The Sorenson files were also generated at a very small resolution, and thus the video extracted from them could only be the same resolution. (I no longer work at any of the TV stations for whom I produced these spots, and as such no longer have access to the master tapes.)
I hope you enjoy this little walk down local TV memory lane.
Sometime in 1994, at the first TV station where I worked, I got shanghaied into being on-air talent during kids’ programming. Our kids’ club talent had just left, and there was a perfect storm brewing:
* The Humane Society did pet-of-the-week spots in our kids’ programming, which helped the station to fulfill its “local public service” quota. Those spots now had no host.
* The station had just gotten a pith helmet in a National Geographic promo kit.
* I was already on the payroll.
With no contract, no additional pay, and no perks, I was suddenly… Explorer Earl.
Things that suddenly jump to mind upon watching this for the first time in years:
I had completely forgotten the "Pet Detective" thing that the station management tacked on; this was about the time Ace Ventura was brand new in theaters, and I guess they wanted to cash in.
My skills at interviewing a golden lab puppy are unparalleled. My skills at being on TV in any other capacity are virtually nonexistent.
The pith helmet was part of a promo kit for some syndicated National Geographic package that we had the rights to, but never showed - I guess we were paying to sit on it so none of the other stations could get it. (That actually happened more than you might think back in those days.)
I still have the pith helmet. But I'm no longer pithed.
A NOTE ABOUT VIDEO QUALITY
I began archiving my work-related video years before YouTube existed. It was an age of darkness, an age of limited web storage, an age of... {shudder} ...dial-up connections.
More to the point, my work archive at my site was all dependent on... {shudder some more} ...Adobe Flash. These videos were converted, usually from either the master MII or Beta tapes or from VHS dubs, with a program called Sorenson Squeeze. Sorenson is great for what it does, but with scenes featuring a lot of motion, there's often a lot of pixellation and motion artifacting that's considered unacceptable these days. The Sorenson files were also generated at a very small resolution, and thus the video extracted from them could only be the same resolution. (I no longer work at any of the TV stations for whom I produced these spots, and as such no longer have access to the master tapes.)
I hope you enjoy this little walk down local TV memory lane.
