Uploaded July 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours 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:
Where was my hat? And what an awesome, "vintage Earl" outfit - orange shirt. Yellow. Polka. Dotted. Pants. Colin Baker, eat your heart out.
Nothing says "we have to do this in one take" like a cat's butt winding up in your face on TV. Might as well have been live.
Laura was about to lose it, because our Special Guest was looking for the exit.
Just between you and me, I really miss that outfit. Man. I could be spotted from orbit in that.
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:
Where was my hat? And what an awesome, "vintage Earl" outfit - orange shirt. Yellow. Polka. Dotted. Pants. Colin Baker, eat your heart out.
Nothing says "we have to do this in one take" like a cat's butt winding up in your face on TV. Might as well have been live.
Laura was about to lose it, because our Special Guest was looking for the exit.
Just between you and me, I really miss that outfit. Man. I could be spotted from orbit in that.
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.
