WMAQ Channel 5 - Weekend (Opening, 1979)

Here's the opening moments for an edition of one of the 100 or so newsmagazines NBC attempted until finally hitting it in the 1990's with Dateline NBC. This is of Weekend, which had aired every so often since the mid-1970's (in the first year or so of NBC's Saturday Night Live, Weekend aired once a month in that same time slot). The hosts at this juncture were Linda Ellerbee and Lloyd Dobyns, who would later co-anchor the short-lived NBC News Overnight together from 1982 to 1983.

Includes:

PSA promo for March of Dimes Superwalk for May 6th in Metro Chicago (voiceover by Ed Grennan?)

Opening 'N' animated bumper

Weekend opening titles, followed by Linda and Lloyd introducing each other and previewing the following items:

- An interview with former President Gerald Ford in Palm Springs

- A look at the parents of Karen Ann Quinlan, still in a coma at this point (she finally died in 1985 after ten years in that state)

- The dire situation faced by runaways in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Commercial: Tang breakfast drink with Florence Henderson - "Do Something Good for Your Family" (ending voiceover by ??)

Commercial: Wendy's Hot and Juicy Hamburgers - with shots of multi-handed Indian, two women (twins?), a suited individual and a young hat-wearing girl each partaking of same (voiceover by ??) (hard to believe they were advertising nationally prior to Clara Peller's "Where's the Beef?")

Shot of set with super: "Little Old Ladies Can No Longer Afford Tennis Shoes."

Commercial: Chrysler - with Neil Armstrong pitching the '5-50 Protection Plan' (just before Lee Iacocca became their spokesperson) - protects for five years or 50,000 miles "whichever comes first"

Promo for World Premiere TV movie, "Sanctuary of Fear," with Barnard Hughes as Father Brown, for Monday, April 23rd at 9:00pm (8:00pm Central and Mountain) - "right after Little House" (voiceover by ??)

The first two minutes of the segment of former President Ford's interview, with Lloyd setting it up by starting off with Richard Nixon's August 9th 1974 resignation, Ford's pardon of Nixon, and his failed 1976 election bid; this interview is in relation to his recently published book, A Time to Heal, with Linda and Lloyd peppering questions to the ex-President including his thoughts of Nixon's resignation speech (the tape cuts out about a half minute before the end of this file, as Mr. Ford explains why he thought the speech was an indication of Nixon losing touch with reality).

This aired on local Chicago TV on Sunday, April 22nd 1979 between 9:00pm and 9:09pm.

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