ABC Weekend News with John Drury (Complete Broadcast, 4/10/1977) 📺

Here's a complete Easter 1977 edition (seems to be a network feed) of the ABC Weekend News as anchored by WLS Channel 7's own John Drury (reporting from New York) (complete with the crummy 5-kHz telco audio we all know and love).
Opening and closing voiceover by Bill Owen.
Includes:
Newscast open (with Scanimate graphics by Dolphin Productions), followed by items:
- Pursuant to new fishing rules enacted March 1st, Soviet trawler Taras Shevchenko is seized by Coast Guard after violating a 200-mile limit on fishing off coast of Massachusetts, its captain faces fine, jail time and loss of his ship; Bill Stewart reports, film from WCVB Channel 5 in Boston, MA; quote from Howard Nickerson of the New England Fisheries Steering Committee
- In Calhoun, GA, President Carter says he had no choice but to order seizure, as Sam Donaldson reports
Commercials for:
Visine Eye Drops
Liquid Woolite Cold Water Wash (with Holland Taylor)
- 250,000 Pilgrims gather at St. Peter's Square to hear Pope Paul VI's annual Easter address
- Lynn Jones, in Moscow, reports on Soviet attempts to clamp down on religious expression
- Greg Dobbs, in Pineville, KY, reports on town residents celebrating Easter at First Baptist Church after a week of storms and floods that hit town hard; Pastor Charles Jones speaks
Commercials for:
Crock Watcher - from Hamilton Beach
General Tire - "Quality, Choice, Price"
- Israel's Labor Party names Defense Minister Shimon Peres party leader, replacing Prime Minister Menachem Begin
- France to airlift supplies to Zaire, Morocco has 1,500 troops ready to fight rebels in Shaba Province, President Mobutu bitter over U.S. not coming forward with any aid and holds rally in Kinshasa as reported by Hilary Brown
Commercials for:
RCA CB Co-Pilot
Listermint mouthwash (with Julia Duffy) (posted separately here: • Listermint with Julia ... )
- In sports, Tom Watson edges out Jack Nicklaus for championship at 41st Masters Tournament in Augusta; Ernie Nims reports on highlights
With that, John closes newscast (listen closely to closing theme - didn't it seem the basis for part of the theme of World News Tonight that would premiere next summer?)
Promo for The Laverne & Shirley Birthday Show and ABC Monday Night Baseball (main voiceover by Dick Tufeld) (ending voiceover by Bill Owen)
This aired on local Chicago TV on Sunday, April 10th 1977 during the 11:45pm to 12:00 Midnight timeframe (due to the annual showing of "The Ten Commandments.")
This is from a videotape donated to the Museum of Classic Chicago Television as part of the John Drury Family collection.
About The Museum of Classic Chicago Television:
The MCCTv (FuzzyMemoriesTV) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose primary mission is the preservation and display of off-air, early home videotape recordings (70s to early 80s, mostly) recorded off of TV (in Chicago or other cities now too); things which would likely be lost if not sought out and preserved digitally. If you have any old 1970s videotapes recorded off of TV please email: [e-mail] Even though (mostly) short clips are displayed here, we preserve the entire broadcasts in our archives - the complete programs with breaks (or however much is present on the tape), for historical preservation. For information on how to help in our mission, to donate or lend tapes to be converted to digital, please e-mail [e-mail] Thank you for your help!

[@KT72273]

I grew up watching John Drury in Chicago for years and never knew he did network news!

[@judith_thordarson]

John Drury and Fahey Flynn. John lived in Glen Ellyn (my home town).

[@zbsx]

It was never permanent. Drury, Joel Daly, New York's Bill Beutel, Detroit's Bill Bonds, and many other local ABC O&O anchors would rotate and will in on these weekend shifts. The practice still happens on some of the national weekend morning shows, especially for weather coverage. Most of the current WLS meteorologists have appeared on Weekend GMA.

[@wmbrown6]

@@zbsx - At least one weekend newscast (from 1974) was anchored by Mr. Bonds' longtime WXYZ co-anchor, John Kelly. I wonder if any weekend editions were anchored by Mr. Beutel's 1970-86 co-anchor in New York, Roger Grimsby?

[@kenadams]

Holland Taylor for Woolite

[@kresblain]

The precursor closing theme was "Jettison" by John Scott for KPM Music.

[@peterq.george6834]

Yup. Good old 5K network audio. But things were to change the following January with full quality 15K audio!

[@MichaelBradley1967]

I remember John Drury, Joel Daley, Fahey Flynn, John Coleman, Tim Weigel on ABC-7 Chicago. Taft, Giangreco and Rose too. I was 9½ when this one aired, though I don't remember watching much national news.

[@bmasters1981]

Probably the direct ancestor of the Weekend Report that would be from Washington (sometimes from New York), and would have Tom Jarriel.

[@wmbrown6]

Oh, it was . . .

[@tkaye2]

Jarriel was already in the weekend rotation. He replaced Bill Beutel when AM America started in '75.

[@blackphoenix77]

I was only two months old when this aired

[@Pdasilva0324]

I was 2 and a half weeks old. My 1st Easter, and crazy to think that president Carter was already in his 50s by then and is still alive today

[@RJS1974]

In 1977 ABC broadcast its national feed from both Chicago and NYC. This is when Chicago was still the second largest city in the country and The Chicago Tribune was a legacy newspaper that rivaled The NY Times. In other words, Chicago was still an influential city. But Drury signs off from NYC.

[@tkaye2]

Drury says he is in New York during his signoff.

[@RJS1974]

@@tkaye2 Yes It was 1979 thst max Robinson was doing World News Tonight from Chicago.

[@hmbpnz]

Chicago still *is* an influential city, you muppet.

[@StudioZ7]

Bill Stewart, a former anchor-reporter for WCCO-TV Minneapolis-St. Paul, was murdered on camera just over two years later while reporting for ABC News in Nicaragua on June 20, 1979.

[@GFI888]

I remember that very well. All of the networks aired it. A lot of shock and anger followed. Even the U,S. could no longer support the government after that.

[@SagittariusQueen1980]

This happened a year before I was born but I remember seeing that video on KZbin of him getting unalived. So shocking and sad.

[@wmbrown6]

Is it just me, or does this have the feel of a newscast from before Roone Arledge took over the reins at ABC News?

[@joerouse7908]

It was. Arledge took over in 1978.

[@tkaye2]

Did anyone from KGO ever do these weekend newscasts? (If so, I'd imagine it would have been Jerry Jensen or Van Amburg.) I think I've seen someone from all the other O&Os.

[@wmbrown6]

More likely Jerry Jensen. But it begs the question: Who among the KABC anchors in L.A. did ABC weekend newscasts?

[@tkaye2]

@@wmbrown6I did a little newspaper search and found a 1976 SF Examiner profile of Van Amburg that mentioned him doing the weekend news "two months out of the year." Nothing on Jerry Jensen. From KABC, Judd Hambrick, John Schubeck, Chuck Henry, Jerry Dunphy, and Christine Lund all rotated through at some point. I was surprised to find Terry Murphy from WLS did a weekend report in '77. I was a bit surprised that Jac LeGoff apparently never got called up from Detroit like Bonds and Kelly.

[@wmbrown6]

@@tkaye2 - I presume that article said nothing about whether Roger Grimsby of WABC was called up? As noted, his longtime co-anchor Bill Beutel did quite a few "Weekend News'." But yeah, I'm a bit surprised, given Amburg's particular flair for showmanship in his delivery, vs. Jensen's being the "straight man" foil (in the "straight / funny" comedy act sense).

[@tkaye2]

@@wmbrown6 The article was just about Van Amburg. I found listings that showed Grimsby did Sunday nights for most of 1969. As for showmen, when Fahey Flynn did the weekend news, it was "How do you do?" and all. Really all the O&Os under Al Primo had one showman (or curmudgeon) paired with a straight man.

[@judith_thordarson]

Julia Duffy pushing Listermint.

[@iVenge]

very pretty

[@phantom6226]

Why does the promo for Monday's prime time programming end with the promo music for "ABC Wide World of Sports?"

[@wmbrown6]

Sounds like they drew from the same library disc that had it . . . besides, "Monday Night Baseball."

[@andyrose5616]

A couple of years before this, ABC was using “Gathering Crowds” as their news theme. That’s the production music better remembered as the closing theme for This Week in Baseball.

[@67nairb]

This broadcast was only 14 minutes long? I thought all news broadcasts were 22 minutes long minus the commercials.

[@FuzzyMemoriesTV]

Not on the weekend.

[@wmbrown6]

@@FuzzyMemoriesTV - And not just ABC. CBS' late Sunday night newscasts were also 15 minutes (including commercials, of course). Except CBS used its own "talent" (such as Dan Rather or Morton Dean or Bob Schieffer). NBC was the only network not to have any late-night weekend newscasts of 15 minutes' duration.

[@67nairb]

@@FuzzyMemoriesTV Well maybe in the 1970's, but today it's not.

[@RussellPavlov]

@@wmbrown6, let's not forget the late Ed Bradley, the late Charles Osgood and the late Bill Plante - they all anchored the late Sunday Night CBS Sunday Night News into the 1980s. ABC on the other hand started using their own network news talent for the late night weekend newscasts in the late 1970s (Tom Jarriel, Max Robinson, Brit Hume, Carole Simpson, Barry Serafin, Jack Smith, Charles Gibson, Jeanne Meserve, Anne Garrells, Rita Flynn, Karen Stone) they all anchored the late night ABC Weekend Report at one time or another.

[@wmbrown6]

It would have been really ironic if that Listermint ad with Ms. Duffy were to have aired on an episode of "The Bob Newhart Show" - given her co-starring on his later series "Newhart."

[@RussellPavlov]

I think my ABC affiliate (WYTV 33, Youngstown, Ohio) was among the ABC affiliates that carried the ABC Weekend News/Weekend Report back in the day.

[@samcolt1079]

NOT BAD ENOUGH THIS IS ON EVERY WEEK END. NOW WE HAVE TO WATCH THIS STUPID CRAP ON KZbin. GET BENT