The ABC Sunday Night Movie - "Amber Waves" (Complete Broadcast, 3/9/1980) 📺

Here's the complete, first-run broadcast of a made-for-TV movie, "Amber Waves," as aired on The ABC Sunday Night Movie over WLS Channel 7.

This film stars Dennis Weaver (McCloud!) and Kurt Russell (just before "Escape from New York") in a tale of a drifter who takes a job offer from a wheat harvester contemplating suicide over his cancer and financial issues but ends up becoming a father figure to the young man. Also starring Mare Winningham, Fran Brill (of the Muppets), Wilford Brimley, Ross Harris and Grainger Hines, and co-starring Eloy Phil Casados, Bill Morey, Michael Talbot, Robby Weaver, and special guest star Penny Fuller.

All show and bumper voiceovers are by Joel Crager.

Includes:

Station ID / promo for "Playmates" (voiceover by Gary Gears)

Show open and film preview

Commercials for:
Visa travelers cheques
Wendy's Hot & Juicy hamburgers
Maybelline Nail Color and ManiCure System
Pontiac Grand Prix

Act I

Commercials for:
Congoleum Contemporary vinyl flooring (voiceover by Richard Kiley)
Miller High Life (herding cattle on ranch) (voiceover by Gene Barry)
Nabisco Cheddar Triangles
Pontiac Bonneville

Bumper

ABC ID (voiceover by Allan Jefferys)

Commercial: RC (Royal Crown) Cola (voiceover by Hal Riney)

Station ID / promo for "Playmates" (voiceover by Gary Gears)

Act II

Commercials for:
Chevy C-10 Pickup Truck
Tame Conditioning Clean Rinse (for the "frizzies")
Promo for That's Incredible! (voiceover by Ernie Anderson with Dick Tufeld)
Promo for When the Whistle Blows (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Animated ABC ID (with station ID)

Act III

Commercials for:
McDonald's (a kid moving to another town)
Care-Free sugarless gum (on expedition)
Polaroid One-Step camera (with James Garner)

Bumper

Promo for When the Whistle Blows (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Commercials for:
McDonald's (Shamrock Shakes and Shamrock Sundaes) (ending tag voiceover by Wayne Atkinson)
Tropicana Orange Juice

Station ID / promo for "Playmates" (voiceover by Gary Gears)

Act IV

Commercials for:
Dodge Mirada (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Orville Redenbacher's Gourmet Popping Corn (with the man himself and a fortune teller)
Sears Super Values on gas grills and sewing machines
Olympia Beer (with mountain climber)
Promo for Three's Company, Taxi and Hart to Hart (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Act V

Commercials for:
1980 Mazda GLC (to tune of "Just One Look")
Close-Up toothpaste
One-a-Day Plus Iron (voiceover by Peter Thomas)
Johnson & Johnson O.B. Tampons

Bumper

Promo for That's Incredible! (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Commercial: Datsun - "It's a Long Way to Empty"

Station ID / promo for "Playmates" (voiceover by Gary Gears)

Eyewitness Newsbrief with Jay Levine (voiceover by Wayne Atkinson)

Commercial: John M. Smyth

Act VI

Commercials for:
Soft & Dri anti-perspirant
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Promo for Family and Stone (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)
Promo for When The Whistle Blows (voiceover by Ernie Anderson)

Act VII

Commercials for:
Hellmann's Real Mayonnaise
No-Nonsense Panty Hose
Hawaiian Punch (with Donny & Marie and Len Maxwell as "Punchy")
Honda Prelude (voiceover by Burgess Meredith?)

Ending credits (with voiceover promo for Good Morning America by Hugh Downs, and for That's Incredible!, Family and Stone by Allan Jefferys)

Recommended by National Education Association

Time-Life Television bumper (once seen at end of, say, many a Monty Python episode on WTTW Channel 11)

Show ending titles

Promo for ABC World News Tonight (voiceover by Fred Collins)

Preview for Eyewitness News at 10pm with Jay Levine

Commercials for:
Wickes Furniture - Grand Opening Celebration Sale for new North Riverside store
Bahamas Ministry of Tourism (with Florence Ledgister, Tom Heffernan, Barbara M. Lyszczasz, J. Michael Peterson, Juliette Fritz and Stephanie Heckler)
RC Cola (voiceover by Hal Riney)

Station ID / promo for "Playmates" (voiceover by Gary Gears)

First 17 seconds of Eyewitness News (also featuring weatherman Tom Hale and sportscaster Al Lerner at open) (voiceover by Wayne Atkinson) (complete newscast posted separately here:    • WLS Channel 7 - Eyewitness News (Comp...  )

This aired on local Chicago TV on Sunday, March 9th 1980 during the 8:00pm to 10:01pm 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: [email protected] 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 [email protected] Thank you for your help!