I love your site. I have a couple of stories that do not date from the "early" years of TV but do go to prove that even with all our modern
technology, stuff happens...

Back in the 1970's, when WEVU-TV was a new, struggling UHF station in the Ft. Myers market, they used to run "el cheapo" movies late at night. One night, a Lloyd Bridges flick was scheduled. The night man at the station took the reel out of the can, threaded it up, rolled it, and then retreated to a corner to read his Playboy magazine, never looking up at the master control monitor. Well, whether by design or error, that can did not contain a Lloyd Bridges movie, but rather a very bottom-of-the-gutter XXX porno flick. The movie ran for A FULL 38 MINUTES before someone called the station to complain. Which goes to show one of two things -- either this small struggling station had no audience at that hour of the night, or the audience they did have was enjoying this new programming change!!

More recently, in the early 1990's or so, the local CBS affiliate WCPX-TV (they've changed their calls recently to I don't know what) was ready to inaugurate their new state-of-the-art news studio with its first broadcast.

They had a man standing outside the station, in front of a lake, waiting to do a "tease" for the upcoming newscast between commercials. Well, they cut to him way too early, and the reporter was seen standing, with his mike, staring off into space. All of a sudden, you could hear a voice in the
background, loud and clear and as plain as day, exclaim, "Oh my God -- WE'RE F***ING LIVE!!!" Truly a moment that, to my dying day, I will regret not having caught on tape.

As I said, I don't know if this even fits the theme of your site, but I hope you found these anecdotes amusing nonetheless.

Hurly Coward
Orlando FL
hcoward@genesis.ispace.com