ABC Evening News (Complete Broadcast, 3/31/1978) 📺

Here's a full edition of the ABC Evening News with Harry Reasoner [Barbara Walters is (conveniently?) on vacation], a few months before the newscast was revamped and rebooted as World News Tonight (of which the roots are taking shape here).

Includes:

Opening titles (voiceover by Bill Rice) and stories:

- Tom Schell report on police linking one Peter Mark Jones to 2 out of 13 Hillside Strangler murders (Jill Barkham, 18, and Kathleen Robinson, 17) in and around Los Angeles; comments from L.A. Police Chief Daryl Gates

- Report from Bill Stewart in Boston on Jones friend George Shamshack taken into Federal custody; comments from Massachusetts Police Det. Lt. William Bergin and Alice Shamshack (George's mother)

Commercials for:
Geritol
Mazda GLC

- President Carter visits Nigeria after Rio de Janeiro trip reported by Geraldo Rivera in which he met with Brazilian clergy and Cardinal Arms over military's policies, and the night before he and Rosalynn had a night on the town

- Sam Donaldson in Lagos on Carters' arrival there, and Lou Cioffi on Carter's planned meeting over oil and Rhodesian issue; U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young arrived there before he did

Peter Jennings in London on re-arrest of American businessman in Nigeria, plus other items:

- Kidnapping of Rhodesian students to Botswana on orders from Joshua Nkomo; Howard Tuckner reports, interview with Lucas Khumalo (wife of school principal)

- Dissension on visit by Israeli Defense Minister to Cairo with Sadat, while Palestinians are hopeful over possible outcome, and quotes from interview with PLO chief Yasser Arafat in preview of Sunday Issues & Answers

Commercials for:

Oil of Olay (women of Denmark, USA, Rome and Ireland)
Tegrin medicated shampoo
Calgonite dishwashing detergent (with "The Spotmaker)
Ultra Ban II anti-perspirant

Frank Reynolds in Washington:

- Four steel makers raise prices $5.50 a ton, undercutting U.S. Steel's $10 a ton increase

- Trade deficit is $4.5 billion - the worst in American history up to that point, as reported by Stephanie Levinson

- Per Jules Bergman, Eastern Airlines seeks to buy new airbuses from French firm

- EPA rules Volkswagen Rabbit as new mileage champion; Lynn Sherr has details on that and other rankings

- State Department estimates 15,000 Cuban troops in Ethiopia

- Former congressman Otto Passman of Louisiana indicated in Korean influence-buying scandal

Reading of stock market averages

Commercials for
Subaru 4-Wheel Drive and Brat
"Straight Talk" booklet from Reynolds Aluminum
Arthritis Pain Formula
Jobe's Tree & Shrub, Fruit Tree and Evergreen spikes

- Explosions at Midwest Chlorine Company plant in Kingsbury, IN leads to 200,000 gallons of chemicals wafting through air and 2,000 being evacuated, as reported by Ron Miller

- John Wayne's son Michael denies reports his father will undergo open heart surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital

- John Martin in Germany in trial of two priests, Ernst Alt and Arnold Renz, suspected of exorcising and murdering Annelise Michel on July 1st 1976; her parents are also on trial; a look at a Bronx, NY exorcism ritual

Commercials for:
Krylon spray paint (with Johnny Bench)
Mazda GLC (with economist Eliot Janeway)

Harry recaps top stories (Hillside Strangler case, Carter in Africa, worst U.S. trade deficit, and Indiana chemical plant explosion) before closing newscast

Ending titles (voiceover by Bill Rice, who also promos upcoming Sunday Issues & Answers with Bob Clark and Jerry King interview PLO chief Yasser Arafat)

Promo for upcoming Donny & Marie (with guests Cindy Williams and Paul Lynde), followed by "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry" and ABC logo slide (voiceover by Bill Rice)

This aired on local Chicago TV (and other ABC Network stations across the country) on Friday, March 31st 1978.

This footage was donated to The Museum of Classic Chicago Television as part of The Mike and Britta Fayette Collection.

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] 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 [email protected] Thank you for your help!