TBS was better with "The Beverly Hillbillies" and the Braves

Same with Bird Stole The Ball; Over To DJ, Who Lays It In.

Those were the days.

Bob Neal and Doug Collins might be my all-time favorite NBA broadcast tandem.

Anyone remember Starcade? No, not the pro wrestling event, which had two R's.

The former was a WTBS game show where two kids would contest each other in the latest arcade video games. To a junior-higher in the early '80s, that was the coolest thing ever.

Oh, and how could I forget ... Night Tracks!

 

Awesome!

 

Too funny.
I remember in the early 80s, I was covering baseball and we were in Atlanta. One day it's pouring rain and the forecast was for rain all day and evening. We had a night game, but they called it in the afternoon before we even left the hotel.
But somebody arranged for all the writers to meet and interview Ted Turner if we wanted to. So a bunch of us go the TBS studios, we meet him in a conference room.
The one thing I remember from that interview was him saying that his goal was to make TBS the fourth network. He said the shows aired by CBS, NBC and ABC were "a vast wasteland" and he was going to become the fourth network and surpass them all.
So I raised my hand and said, "Uh, Ted, I was watching TBS at the hotel just before we came over here and what was on was 'Petticoat Junction' and 'Green Acres.' Tell me again about the 'vast wasteland.' "
He just started laughing and said, "Next question."

 

Atrocious Jeff Dunham? You, sir, have lost all credibility to comment on entertainment.

 

Night Tracks was a weekly ritual for me and my brother. Since it didn't come on until 12:05 a.m. (I think that was the time) and we didn't have cable in our bedrooms, we'd drag sleeping bags into the living room and stay up all night to watch Night Tracks. Sadly, we'd only get through two or three videos before we'd fall asleep. LOL

TBS was easily my favorite channel growing up, it's how I became a Braves fan.

 

He had "Petticoat Junction" and "Green Acres" on back to back?

You, sir, were in the presence of a visionary.

 

Skip Carey said one time that WTBS stood for:

Watch
Ted
Bawl out
Skip

When he started CNN, Turner said it would broadcast until the end of the world, or something like that. Somebody asked him how CNN would cover that event and said "we'll play Nearer My God To Thee and then sign off."

Ted Turner is an interesting dude.

 

Thank you. "Tush! "was, in fact, awesome. And let's not forget Bill Tush's 4 or 5 a.m. newscasts. I believe it was called "17 Update Eary in the Morning." Some great stuff, and I think you can actually find footage of it somewhere if you look hard enough.

 

Who could forget this great move?




After signing free agent Andy Messersmith and issuing him uniform No. 17, Ted nicknamed him "Channel" and had that name put on the back of his uniform. MLB put the hammer down a day or two later, but not before some free advertising.

 

That was probably the same year (or close to it, anyway), ol' Teddy gave Clyde King a leave of absence and became manager for a day.

 

Now that was entertainment, watching the Andersons do hammerlocks for 20 minutes before the jobber submitted. And Tully Blanchard would shake his opponent's hand, then be totally unsporting for 10 minutes till the jobber was toast.

 

Good luck finding anything worse.

One of my best friends since childhood works on that show, and I bitch to him all the time about its negative, inaccurate portrayal of sportswriters. He laughs and collects bigger paychecks than mine. I love and hate that son of a bitch.