Wow, they even took commercials in the middle of shorts back then? How lame. I'm glad we had our station that only showed commercials between shorts, not during.
Yep, that's how it happened back then! I had completely forgotten the music bed and that bored sounding kid on the bumpers. I remember I had to learn how to pause recording on our giant Quasar vcr, because the tape wound back 2 and 1/2 seconds or so for "smooth editing". Hell, all that did was cause blue and red lines to wiggle down the screen right where the Stooges were broken up for ads! I still remember, though, where many of those breaks happened (not always at the reel change) as I watch the shorts these days.
Also, the Stooge pictures always looked spliced-up and damaged right where the commercials would happen. The way the picture rolls to black and the soundtrack trails off, the technicians must have let those films run right off the reel of the telecine, leaving the end flapping round and round on the take-up reel like a projector in a classroom before threading up the next half!
These clips from '83 are, no doubt, from the first-ish year without the funtime players-- a group of adults acting like dopes doing "comedy" sketches between the films. Anyone remember their Christmas who-done-it contest? Jerry Homan (sp?) as Little Edgar who had his presents stolen and had some really great dialogue:
"Gee! All my presents are gone and I bet it was some real neat stuff."
Right you are, Edgar!
Funtime also featured some of the earliest appearances of Bill Tush, who went on to be a SuperStation news/variety dude for many years.
