McCord Fellowship Meeting 03/18/25

1. ON THE ROAD / LICENSE PLATES #236528 CBS Evening News for Wednesday, Jan 01, 1975 This is one of my favorite pieces I have come across: it pairs a new technology: vanity license plates (came to california in 1972), with a fun and funny delivery. It’s fresh and creative and so charming. I want to know how long it took to put together—almost a stand up comedy bit. 2. PIG PRICE PROTEST #213190 CBS Evening News for Saturday, Jan 09, 1971 This one was just one of many protest stories I have seen from the 1970’s, the framing of the story, the pigs on the bus, the teasing that they may end up on the White House lawn, as well as the general spirit of protest culture all converge into something that is played serious— farmers participating in the protest culture of the 70s’. 3. FASHION / MEN'S SKIRTS #9817 ABC Evening News for Wednesday, Mar 04, 1970 Another moment of comedy, another moment of gender, this story presents the interviewer as almost antagonistic to kilts, before the reveal of his own, although preserving masculinity with his cowboy hat. 4. CAMPAIGN 72 / DEMO PLATFORM #223222 CBS Evening News for Tuesday, May 30, 1972 This is a very very small moment, but the framing of this final shot, along with the zoom in, seem like film techniques that are emerging in tv reporting as they develop a repertoire and practice. 5. APOLLO 8 #1044 ABC Evening News for Tuesday, Dec 24, 1968 The contrast of generated art to the actual video footage of the moon—which both looks like an ultrasound, but also is far more beautiful to me than the art, is another interesting moment in TV history and perhaps the power of the camera in particular to capture something specifically real although less detailed than our imagining of it. 6. POST OFFICE STRIKE / BLOUNT / EFFECTS #450359 NBC Evening News for Monday, Mar 23, 1970 The footage of the Air Force being bussed in to stay at an abandoned mail building is strange enough, but especially striking given debates around bussing that were still present at the time. 7. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. CBS Radio Workshop - The Theatre of the Mind. Featuring Aldous Huxley as Narrator. Broadcast on 27 January and on 3 February 1956. Aldous Huxely’s introduction is striking here, just one interstitial he does reflecting on the modern world in this radio broadcast. Additionally, the sound effect of baby production you hear in the background took an enormous amount of effort to create. 8. The Suspense Project: 1944-05-18&25 Donovan's Brain Orson Wells’s fingerprints will be all over these last three broadcasts—he was incredibly prolific. This particular story was original for radio, and uses the medium to tell the story of a man who brings a brain to life, and is slowly possessed by the brain. The brain cannot speak but makes the noise you hear here, to communicate with the protagonist. The use of sound is so story forward here, it’s really brilliant. 9. Mercury Theatre on the Air, Heart of Darkness, November 6th 1938. One of the early broadcasts of Mercury Theatre, I really really want to know where the chanting comes from, who was chatting, and why. 10. Mercury Theatre on the Air, Dracula, July 11, 1938 Clips from the last part of the Mercury Theatre’s first broadcast, I think it’s really of not that not only had Nosferatu come out almost 20 years earlier, but Bela Lugosi had given Dracula a voice in 1931’s Dracula. Why Welles chose this particular story to adapt, and why he chose to give Dracula the voice he gave him, are among some of the bigger questions I have.