NBC News: Today, November 4, 1969-Part 1

[@rigid1454]

An ad for Watergate hotel during a broadcast featuring Nixon speeches. Priceless !

[@timburr4453]

This is how I prefer to receive the news. Straight, informative...no BS

[@bldali]

This is in pristine condition! Thank you for sharing this episode, and for posting the entire two hours!

[@willmilton2922]

This is when the Today Show was a real news program with real Journalists rather than models who broadcast fluff these days.

[@karlc2869]

IKR but remember, Joe Garagiola Sr. is a former baseball star so he is a celeb.

[@JosephPratt1986]

How exciting is this! I've always wanted to see an episode of The Today Show from the '60s.

[@jtinaman]

I vaguely remember the Today show using this format and music. I was very young but I do remember the host and cohost doing Alpo commercials with live animals.

[@don64]

Straight news as it should be,no BS love fest between the reporters and tabloid filler, like it is with today's morning news shows.

[@whitcwa]

That's Willard Scott at the very beginning doing the station ID. He worked for WRC-AM and WRC-TV before moving to the Today show.

[@fromthesidelines]

Note how NBC let their affiliates know there was a commercial break coming up during "TODAY", "TONIGHT" and their daytime game shows during this period: about a minute before the commercial(s), they flashed a small white rectangle on the upper right hand corner of the screen [12:00, 12:46].

[@sexymama1966]

+Barry I. Grauman I've seen that same rectangle on "The Doctors", which is currently airing on Retro Tv

[@a.b.s_productions]

Angelique Collins That's the first thing I thought of when watching episodes of "The Doctors" "The following program is brought to you in living color."

[@TheRhNegative]

Ya! And they used to refer to it as a "station break"

[@JohnSchipp]

The white box was called the NQD - Network Queuing Device.

[@tperk]

It was about this time when I was 10 that I noticed the "more to come" card for the Today show station break was similar to the "more to come" card on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

[@victorkreitner754]

Fur coats for sale..man how times have changed. PETA would be all over this today. Glad to see Morris the cat was doing well though. They need to bring 2020 version of him to tv, he was so cool.

[@dallaskenn]

13:09 A commercial for the Watergate Hotel; how ironic!

[@jashary15]

The day P. Diddy was born. The world hasn't been the same since.

[@altfactor]

Back then, "Today"'s top-and-bottom of the hour news summaries were longer than they are now, and the only local news cut-in during each hour of the show was at :25 past the hour (nowadays, local stations also have a cut-in at :55 past the hour).

[@rascal211]

Seems much more serious than today.

[@kevinnelson66]

It was the 1960's, a rather serious decade. Vietnam, assassinations, racial tension, riots, etc.

[@JasonDelarosa2000]

Longer peacock intro in 1969? 🤯

[@GFI888]

Interesting the interest rates were higher then - 6 percent to buy a condo at the Watergate - but prices were more affordable. Forty thousand now would be about $250k, and condo's there are now well over a million.

[@wmarkdyer]

The Watergate is butt ugly.

[@nathancoleman7235]

GOSH there was actually a commercial for the Watergate complex(12:52,I even noticed another earlier commenter made reference below).with a certain 20th century American president of the period having made a speech at the begining of this 1969 "Today"episode I am not sure weather to regard this as an interesting or as an eerie spooky coincidence.

[@deeptime5]

I was kinda hoping for the sneezing NBC peacock !!

[@RickinBaltimore]

Interesting to see Hugh Downs and Barbara Walters on a program...not 20/20 and not on ABC

[@TheParkeightykid76]

The same day that Marhew McConaughey and Diddy or P. Diddy are born.

[@karatgaming5792]

Kinda funny how Nixon sounded presidential, yet the commercial that played after his speech would be dark foreshadowing.

[@kevinnelsonukoll3783]

Meanwhile, at the Watergate hotel...

[@batterymakermarkii2654]

When today was news, not a girly coffee klatch

[@Nigelrathbone1]

The visuals - set staging/style/mood so business like, plain and drab compared to today's morning news/talkshows. No bright colors, digital visual effects, no mood music for segment intros, segues, and outros. Seems like less commercial time. News readers all using hand-held hard copies, no prompters. News direct no-nonsense style. No greenscreen weather map. Just a plain non-interactive map. Only one or two studio cameras.

[@kevinnelson66]

Watergate Hotel, the place to break into and deny involvement in said break in.

[@rjhyden]

Imagine having an NBC newscaster today having the following quote said about he or she, Cathleen M. Londino opined in her book, The Today Show: Transforming Morning Television that one "reason for his success seemed to be that because he was so expressionless in reading the news, he read it in a completely objective manner. 'One could never tell where he stood on what he was reading. In all of his 22 years on the air, nobody can remember hearing him express a single viewpoint.'" This how I remember the news until the Reagan years and going downhill ever since. Pure trash.

[@garycogswell5499]

Important news for 69' jergens lotion

[@YO3A007]

I was in basic training Ft Ord California.

[@JasonDelarosa2000]

Where I think the hot Grey DeLisle was born!

[@MJBYouTubeNetwork]

Ahh...the great 20/20 team. Barbara and Hugh Downs. I didn't know Hugh Downs was here!

[@fromthesidelines]

58:10- "'THE DEBBIE REYNOLDS SHOW', tonight at 8!"

[@sfdatman8097]

12:50 commercial for the Watergate Hotel before Nixon made it infamous.

[@Mark-ej4uf]

I am not a friend of Federico Nicky. I just maintain diplomatic treatment.

[@OceanPatriot777]

@35:15-Dark Shadows fans will recognize this dude

[@donaldcasalone4243]

Didn't know Garagiola had a twin.

[@rgjraccoon]

Interesting that even though the show here originated from Washngton, WRC used the network feed, as evidenced by the rather muddy 5 kHz net audio after a clean and bright local ID. Apparently NBC Washington was completely separate from WRC as far as video feeds were concerned?

[@whitcwa]

The main set was in DC, but the switched feed went to NY for insertion of other elements. Those include the newsreader, taped pieces, and commercials. It is still done that way today for a remote show. So WRC gets the same feed as all other affiliates.

[@wmbrown6]

Makes you wonder how the DC feed would have sounded if this were taped off of WNBC-TV New York. (Didn't Lem Tucker anchor WNBC's 7:25 and 8:25 local news updates at the time - I presume they were called "Today in New York"?)

[@kevinnelson66]

Is NBC still on the air? (sarcasm)

[@collegeman1988]

Watergate. The place to break into!

[@JunshuLiu]

00:10 iOS 7 Photos app Logo!

[@vimfuego1]

24 days before I was born

[@DanKirchner5150]

chrome dome69>reporters even nixon had a peninsula style plank o hair barely shading his dome . ,advancements in wig technology have made the dome vanish

[@darrenmarchant1720]

the Watergate commercial blew me away.

[@ordinaryk]

I know, right? Only $40K for a condo? Take me back to the good old days!

[@Gaylel1]

Now kids this was before Matt Lauder ..

[@itiswhatitaintanditaintwha1427]

Hell, this was even before Tom Brokaw!

[@MJBYouTubeNetwork]

Before Tom, Jane Pauley, Hell even Bryant Gumbel and Katie.

[@deanmyrick7848]

I didn’t think I could think less of Nixon than I already do. I was wrong! Seeing him say things like “only Americans can defeat America” and other things like that with the knowledge of the immense amount of damage he, Reagan, GWB, and Trump have done to this country and it’s democracy makes me SICK!!