WBBM Channel 2 - Channel Two News - Coverage of Sam Giancana Funeral (1975)

Here's coverage of the funeral of slain mob boss Sam Giancana from Channel Two News on WBBM Channel 2, anchored by Walter Jacobson (Bill Kurtis was on assignment), and reported by John Drummond. Includes:

Channel Two News opening (voiceover by Ed Roberts)

Walter leads the newscast with a story of Giancana, prior to being murdered, about to be indicted by a Federal grand jury for perjury; as well as him demanding the mob get the Justice Department off his back, and the bosses concluding that this was a signal he was about to rat on them before Congress, thus their deciding to rub him out.

This leads to a report from John Drummond about the funeral which was held at the Montclair Funeral Home, with nary a mob boss or associate in sight; and that Giancana's one-time girlfriend, Phyllis McGuire (of the McGuire Sisters), was rumored to be in town for the funeral, but was not seen by any reporters. The funeral had attracted many onlookers and gawkers, including some who managed to climb up to the funeral home's roof (reporters were barred from the service). At the Queen of Heaven cemetery, Channel 2 News cameramen spotted singer Keely Smith among the mourners. A shot of the Giancana crypt is also seen.

After the report is over, there is much channel-flipping among WBBM, WMAQ Channel 5 (airing NBC Nightly News) WLS Channel 7 (with John Drury reporting on someone with kidney failure) and WGN Channel 9 (where a very brief snippet of a True Value Hardware ad is seen); on WBBM, for example, Walter is in the middle of a report about jail superintendent Nathaniel Brown and a prison escape.

Technical Note: While this report originally aired in color, as presented here it was recorded on an early reel-to-reel home videotape recorder in black-and-white. Also, while Franklin Gothic was still being used for the newscast title onscreen (and the anchors' names in Helvetica Medium), WBBM had already fallen in line in using the early computer-based character generator Vidifont (and their 28- and 18-line sizes that were modeled after Rudi Bass' CBS News 36 font).

Cool Note: A portion of this clip was featured in a recent episode of AMC's The Making of the Mob: Chicago. The episode was the Second Season finale, entitled "Last Man Standing" and premiered on August 29th 2016. After notorious mobster Sam Giancana meets his end, one of the characters watches the evening news for updates. See a screen shot from this episode as well as our end credit here.

This aired on local Chicago TV on Monday, June 23rd 1975.

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