WGN Channel 9 - Len Johnson and the News (Complete Broadcast, 3/5/1965) 📺

[Remastered] - Here's an incredibly rare find - an edition of Len Johnson and the News on WGN Channel 9 from 1965! This was a forerunner to their overnight Night Beat newscast that ran from the late-sixties well into the 1980s.

You'll notice that this was during that awkward transition phase from black-and-white to color with most of the broadcast appearing in black-and-white, but then interspersed by random color commercials and a few color slides.

Tech Note: Next to Len at the anchor desk is an Electro-Voice EV-667 microphone.

Includes:

Brief shot of multiburst test pattern with 378 Hz tone

Commercial (incomplete; recording starting a few seconds after commercial begins) for Salvo Low Suds Power Tablets

Commercial: Vicks VapoRub

Station ID slide with promo for upcoming presentation of "The Tall Men" at 10:15pm - with early appearance of "9" logo that first debuted in 1964 and would be used well into the 1970s - and, in some instances, as late as 1981 ("Tomorrow 10:15 PM" set in 18 point Gothic Condensed No. 1; though this slide is in black-and-white, there are color artifacts that give this away as being transmitted through an RCA TK-26 color film chain)

Opening title card slide (in color) for Carl Greyson and the News (Len was filling in for Carl on this day), set in Microgramma Bold; the chipper theme music ("Effervescence" by Dorf van der Linden) would be used for years thereafter on sign-off newscasts such as this Newsbreak from 1978)

Len gives preview of the news to follow

Commercial: American Airlines (voiceover by ??)

Len reads the following items:

- One American soldier is killed and another critically wounded in a double ambush by Communist guerillas in Laotian - Vietnamese border
- Relating to Dirksen's above comments, Russia has agreed to pay for damages to U.S. Embassy
- U.S. closing all informational activities in Indonesia

- Chicagoans pay their last respects to Air Force Captain (and Chicago native) Kurt Gareiss, who was killed on February 24th in a plane crash in South Vietnam

- 10-acre community in Natchitoches, LA flattened when a 24-inch gas pipeline (owned by the Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, which in turn was owned by Tenneco) explodes

- Novelist and Chicago native Willard Motley dies in a Mexico City hospital

- A hearing on a possible sanity test for Jack Ruby (assassin of John F. Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald) to be held Monday in Dallas; one of his lawyers, Chicago-based Elmer Gertz, is interviewed, with Gertz asserting that Ruby was insane both during the time he shot Oswald and afterwards (can anyone name the WGN reporter who interviewed him?)

Len then signals for a commercial break, with a tease on Albert Cardinal Meyer's condition

Commercial: Tums Antacid

Len reading the following items:

- Albert Cardinal Meyer remains in stable condition at Mercy Hospital, breathing through a tube and fed intravenously (though not mentioned, this was after he suffered a heart attack following an operation to remove a brain tumor; Meyer died on April 9th)

- A new underground parking garage in Grant Park South opens, with Mayor Daley's limousine crashing into a paper "wall" to signify its opening
- Earlier, the Associated Retail Bakers of Greater Chicago whipped up a 70-pound cake to commemorate the city's incorporation in 1837
- Women's Bar Association of Illinois holds a meeting on the topic of reapportionment, and both political parties debate the issue; features film footage of a press conference given by Rep. Albert Hackmeister (R-Chicago), Minority Leader of the State House, who charges that Democrats want an "at large" election for both Senate and House in 1966; Democrat Daniel Doherty, asked by WGN's Steve Schickel if that's what his party wants, denies this to be the case

Commercial: 4-Way Cold Tablets (voiceover by Phil Tonken, longtime WOR Channel 9 (New York) staff announcer)

Len reads sports scores along with:

- In baseball, Chicago White Sox announce that pitcher Joe Horlen has arrived in Sarasota to sign his 1965 contract after a holdout; he signed for $21,000 but wanted $3,000 more, and general manager Ed Short didn't budge

- Film footage of the Cubs at their spring training camp in Mesa, AZ,

- Golf scores at the Pensacola Open

Commercial: Calgon Water Conditioner - "Mommy's Choice" - animation done in the style of children's drawings (in color)

Len reads the weather forecast for Chicago and vicinity, including snow; and closes the newscast with mention that it was a presentation of Channel 9 News, written and edited by Charles Schreiber.

Title card slides (in color):

Len Johnson and the News

A Presentation of WGN News - Portions of the preceding program were mechanically reproduced

Commercial: Wrigley's Doublemint Gum - "Doublemint Time" with Tommy & Joy (in color) (recording cuts out in middle of this ad)

This aired on local Chicago TV early Friday, March 5th 1965 during the 12:28am to 12:49am timeframe