Oddity Archive: Episode 281 - TV Sign-Offs Vol. 2 (Nocturnal Emissions)

[@HazelAlford94]

Oddity Archive is about as close as you can get to an old school public access tv show. And I love it for that

[@loonypear]

I love how Ben is so casual about making a sequel to a 12-year-old video

[@Stephie2007]

It's kind of becoming a running gag at this point

[@emilyyamasaki4968]

ikr

[@ryankelly369]

"Casual" is the one word that probably sums up the Oddity Archive experience the best. :D

[@l33tsaber]

"Don't forget to turn off your television" gives me the same sort of creeping lonely sense as the "It is now safe to shut off your computer" message in older operating systems.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

I heard something from a message that would have played during a nuclear attack saying “Mine is the last voice that you will ever hear. Do not be alarmed.”

[@michaelstevens8624]

I have very specific memories of very specific nightmares that message (the version from Windows 95 in particular) gave me. Still makes my skin crawl a bit to think about.

[@aWildJellieAppeared]

@@TheMediaHoarder ohh yeah I heard that too. Another similar one was a planned speech to be read out on Radio 4 in the event of a nuclear strike which included the words “Remember, there is nothing to be gained from trying to get away”. Was intended to discourage people from leaving shelters and exposing themselves to fallout etc, but gave me chills.

[@missbleach8767]

💻📺📻

[@MrBonesSrIII]

If you let the static play too long, the ghost notice...

[@homogenized]

Next time I mix up my words, I'm gonna say "Teeth in the wrong order" lol Also busted out laughing at that Thomas guy immediately undoing his tie before even leaving the set. My dude was DONE

[@brianhebert6152]

Lovely British way of brushing off live-on-air screwups

[@CantankerousDave]

A TV station going off the air each night is such an alien concept to younger generations. A key part of the movie Poltergeist goes right out the window.

[@brianhebert6152]

That's why that in-name only "remake" mostly went for being an hour or two of jumpscares

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

​@@brianhebert6152Sad.

[@AdeleEevee]

I'm a teacher and one of my fourth graders tried arguing with me that you couldn't watch TV without internet 🤦‍♀️ made me want to bring in my tv and antenna to blow their little minds lol

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

@@AdeleEevee Do it! 😎

[@AdeleEevee]

@@ChristopherSobieniak Those kiddos are on their way to fifth grade but I did bring in a rotary phone and taught them to use a phone book 🤭 they used to say why do you always talk about old stuff 🤣

[@ApoplecticDialectics]

I would rather a television station go off the air, and be left sitting in silence, alone, in the dead of night, than see even ten seconds of a damn infomercial.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

Always wondered who actually watches those other than for a laugh, certainly wonder who actually buys what they’re selling.

[@brianhebert6152]

​​@@TheMediaHoarder Many people watched the Magic Bullet infomercials and liked them, so there's that

[@eletronictoenails]

What about how the Australian ABC 2/3 channels do it, having a message saying that they will back up around 6am and having the ABC Jazz station playing in the background

[@IanGorton]

You aren't on your own there. Having said that they must move some merchandise otherwise they wouldn't put them on at that time if night.

[@roxygaming5968]

From the title, I kind of expected this to be one of those garbo analog horror VHS things, but I've found a pleasant and fun look back at the tech of the past with a great host.

[@Baphomets_Kid]

For better or for worse, this channel is stuck in 2007-2010 era KZbin. In fact it was stuck in the past ever since the first episode.

[@OddityArchive]

...and didn't even debut until 2012.

[@JohnMeshelanyJr]

I'm very ok with this.

[@ToxPhy]

Well considering most people from back then don’t even post to KZbin anymore I’d say it’s for better.

[@Dsun4456]

I like this channel, because it recreates the look and feel of a small independent television station from the late 20th century.

[@daftoptimist]

Given the subject matter I expect it comes with the territory. At any rate that’s why us fans are here.

[@MichellePamelaLyons]

6:08 "Don't forget to switch off, and unplug because of the... fires..." WHAT WHAT FIRES WHAT FIRES ARE HAPPENING "...Goodnight. Sleep well." NO, I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE FIRES

[@PhilMante]

Some older Television models would catch fire if left on for too long, hence why the TV-sign offs would ask viewers to shut them off for the night.

[@VibbyABibby]

he sounds so shaken by it too 😭

[@brianhebert6152]

He said "fire hazard"

[@tommynesbitt4837]

"Good night, sleep well" *DISORIENTING TONE*

[@kez963]

Remember to turn off your device to prevent burn-in screen of our logo.

[@woolium]

CRT and OLED. they go full circle.

[@GatorGirl]

I've mentioned it before, but the original sign-offs episode is what got me hooked on Archive in the first place. I've always had a strange fascination with them, and I'm really glad you did another one. Looking around on KZbin I've found some pretty interesting ones. A couple of my favorites are what I call international signoffs. I don't mean signoffs from other countries, I'm talking about stations in border towns that can be picked up in two different countries. I knew about XETV, essentially a San Diego station that broadcast out of Mexico that was required by Mexican law to play the Mexican national anthem. They also played the Star Spangled Banner. But I also found one from, I think, Buffalo, NY. They had a group of Canadian schoolchildren singing Oh Canada, and then they pretended to call across the border to a group of American children who then sang the Star Spangled Banner. I thought that was pretty cool. :)

[@Baphomets_Kid]

That might be included in part 3 which might be released in 2036.

[@teh_supar_hackr]

The San Diego one sounds interesting

[@thekidfromiowa]

Became a sign off enthusiast in 2008. Back when 3 stations in Des Moines still signed off. WOI 5 (ABC) KDSM 17 (Fox) KCWI 23 (CW) KCWI ceased signing off sometime in the fall of 2008. I last watched their sign off (2AM on Monday) on Labor Day and a went on semester break in December and therefore could once again stay up that late. Much to my disappointment they no longer signed off. The sign off was a slideshow of scenes of rural life like a tractor in a field with rays of sunlight peaking through the clouds or an elderly farmer sitting down set to the National Anthem KDSM continued to sign of at Monday at 2-3 AM until sometime in 2012. My channel has that film. WOI was the last holdout and was even more unique in that they still signed off nightly. The stopped sometime in 2013 or possibly as late as 2014. It was a modest sign off that consisted of a worn out footage of a flag waving with audio of a lady singing the National Anthem. I forgot IPTV would sign off nightly but forget when that ceased

[@teh_supar_hackr]

@@thekidfromiowa Interesting how channels as late as 2014 still did traditional sign offs, even with the national anthem!

[@thekidfromiowa]

@@teh_supar_hackr Which means Zoomers would have exposure to sign-ons/sign-offs in the event they happen to be up early enough. The last new generation to ever experience them.

[@Stephie2007]

The UK also had the "Don't forget to turn off the tv" reminders. But theirs included a reminder to unplug the set because back then appearently, TVs were a fire hazard.

[@tgheretford]

The UK had two "hidden" channels that broadcast after shutdown. The more well known one was BBC Select, a service for professionals and business during the downtime for BBC One and BBC Two in the 1990s, brought about after the Government wanted the BBC to generate revenue in its downtime hours. Some programmes were encrypted. The less known one was The Computer Channel from British Satellite Broadcasting (different from the Sky run channel from the mid to late 90s) - broadcast during the downtime of The Sports Channel (which became Sky Sports) for businesses and was a promotional tool for their data streaming service, Datavision. And then there is the well known hidden programme by the IBA known as Engineering Announcements for the Radio and Television Trade on ITV, later Channel 4 until 1990.

[@brianhebert6152]

Don't forget the odd pirate, like Telstar TV of Birmingham or the Voice of Nuclear Disarmament (a radio station, no less) of London.

[@LifeinAnalog]

I had a feeling Joanna Lopez would be in here! When I was a kid, late 70s/early 80s, our PBS station would actually do 2 sign offs in the Summer. After kids shows in the morning they would go off air until late afternoon as there was no need to air classroom programs during the break. So, if I was lucky, I could see 2 sign ons and 2 sign offs in a single day.

[@Robslondon]

Really interesting video. There’s an episode of the early 80s BBC comedy, ‘The Young Ones’ which parodies the ‘switch off your set’ message- Vivian, being a psychopathic punk, gets excited because he *wants* the TV to blow up!

[@phillip5245]

"Go to bed, Spotty!"

[@GeoNeilUK]

"What does that white dot mean?" "It means something really heavy, it means there's no more telly and it's time to go to bed!"

[@Robslondon]

@@phillip5245 😀

[@Robslondon]

@@GeoNeilUK Ha ha ;-)

[@HayaoYokogawa]

Rarely comment on videos but I felt like clarifying that yes, the "Don't forget to turn your TV" part is indeed real, it was aired and it did exist on Soviet TV, but the footage you've found is one of those many recreactions/reconstructions, a rather popular genre here amongst old TV stuff enthusiasts. This particular card is also not the only kind that exists afaik. What gives away this footage in particular as fake is fake noise, odd cuts, no flicker on "Second Channel" (II программа) card and equally no flicker on the last card. After this card from what I know should go a yellow clock on the bright blue background and once it reaches the end of the hour, it switched to УЭИТ test table with 1kHz tone. Love your channel btw!

[@MechOrganism]

But at least this reconstruction accurately reflects the procedure that was performed at the end of the broadcast. The clock was broadcast for ONLY a few seconds before the message "Don't forget to turn your TV" appeared. And what happened next was just a UEIT with a 1 kHz tone until transmission shutdown. I can also note that in the early 90s, almost all channels got rid of this message, except for Channel One Ostankino (and Channel Four Ostankino may be too, but we dont have any trustworthy recordings now). And on the channel itself this thing was modified. It came immediately after the end of the broadcast ID and looked almost the same as the ID itself. This message remained in existence until the fall of 1995, despite the fact that the closedown ident was removed a year before.

[@fixman88]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ooWXYaGKe8arbbc

[@wakefieldoutlaw]

Here in Yorkshire Television-land, our legendary continuity announcer Redvers Kyle would end with "...and a very good night, especially to you." Whuch was nice.

[@roadstuffs6682]

12:35: the music makes it sound like I should hear Ricárdo Montalbán talk about “rich Corinthian leather.”

[@brianhebert6152]

Nocturnal Emissions were my favorite early-2010s indie pop band 0:19 So what you're saying KLAK is run out of a "dumpy little building", just like Jack FM? 1:54 Comrade Benjiy Minnottovich 5:08 Now I'm having horrifying flashbacks to those "Virus detected! Call this sketchy telephone number!" pop-ups 6:08 Nice that they got Bill from the nursing home to do continuity that evening 6:45 "Oi! Edward! You turned the fader back on!" 13:12 Never knew of this spin on the "religious message" sign-off 18:55 That's a lot of words for "Here's some radio filler... for those who wanna listen to oldies while working at a 24-hour 7-Eleven" 22:16 Reminds me of the tsunami map (I think) shown during Japanese earthquake warnings 31:42 "Ladies and gentlemen, our national anthem. Ignore those subliminal messages you saw in another version of this video, a bored intern just wanted to screw with some tinfoil hat wearers" (My personal theory on that "version" of the video is that it was part of some failed proto-analog horror project, judging by the only other video on the channel that uploaded it)

[@Thoucraggyknob]

Vol1 is still my favourite archive episode. Been waiting for this for 11 years.

[@PeterBellefleur]

I have a weird post shutdown story, I can recall over a couple of decades ago when WSBK was still a "Superstation" and would shut down on saturday nights, for some reason my Hartford CT Cable system would suddenly start showing a channel with a guy selling C-Band Satellite equipment...it may have even been the infamous Shawn Kinney of VCii hacking "greensheet" fame, but it's too fuzzy in my mind. I do recall flipping it on, (when the video on headbanger's ball wasn't interesting) and he was mentioning that someone else had contacted him that his show was bleeding onto a cable system somewhere else. He was wondering if whomever was uplinking WSBK to satellite had some sort of fallback when the video when offline and it happened to grab his channel.

[@brianhebert6152]

@hahayeahokaynope I'm guessing a station a couple hundred miles away was running a Creature Feature

[@brianhebert6152]

On the subject of that show (and as somebody from WSBK's market), I'd like to see if there's any surviving recordings of that C-band satellite home shopping network thing.

[@PeterBellefleur]

@@brianhebert6152 My memory is super fuzzy, but my interests in all things scrambled and descrambled sent me down a path and I found a few videos on this channel, kzbin.info/www/bejne/oWSxqaanaJuZb5Y This *may* have been what I saw way back then, but its been (ouch) 30 some odd years.

[@PeterBellefleur]

@@brianhebert6152 I posted a reply but as I feared it was auto-killed by the anti-spam bots. There is a channel here run by a guy named MrSquibman that has a couple of videos from what I *think* was what I saw...but its been 30s years so I can't be certain but it sure has the same vibe. Video ID is k3Nxsq36f94

[@r66fplaysgames]

33:02 From a post that I made over a year ago on Reddit: From what I've found out, via some old TV listings, apparently WMAQ-TV didn't signoff nightly for more than 30 minutes. Also, most TV stations, including WMAQ-TV, consider 5AM to be the start of their broadcast day & the TV listings, that I found, didn't mention WMAQ-TV signing off, this could be due to WMAQ-TV not passing along information, to the newspapers, about them signing off that night. In the early morning hours of January 14, 1989, between 3AM-5AM, WMAQ-TV was running the 1954 Frank Sinatra movie "Suddenly". According to IMDb, this movie has a runtime of 1 hour & 17 minutes (77 minutes) without commercials. At this point in time, commercial TV stations, like WMAQ-TV, usually aired about 12 minutes of commercials per hour (Due to the movies length, it was likely 15 minutes of commercials.), meaning that the movie likely ended sometime around 4:32 AM. The recording of the PSAs, Meditation, Sign-Off & Joanna Lopez 'Missing' Slide runs about 8 minutes. WMAQ-TV would have aired them immediately after the movie meaning that the Joanna Lopez slide would have aired, on that morning, around 4:40AM. Due to the movie ending early & WMAQ-TV not having any other TV shows to show, they then decided to sign off for about 20 minutes before signing back on at 5AM & showing an episode of the 1980's version of the TV show "Divorce Court" (I originally thought that the TV station aired 2 episodes of the TV show "Group One Medical" from 5-6AM, however, after checking the schedule again, almost a year after making my post on Reddit, I found out that only one episode of that show aired at 5:30AM.). I have no idea about the 1991 broadcast as I can't find an exact date as to when that one happened.

[@OM19_MO79]

In Mexico, during the 80s and 90s, sign-offs weren’t that ceremonious. Usually they’d put some old movie or cheap foreign filler program after the regularly ad-revenue scheduled programming, followed by the anthem, a test pattern (private Televisa would use SMPTE variants while state-owned Imevisión would use one like that Russian), then static. The sign-ins were the iconic ones, since they were 2 to 3 hour test signals before the regular, authorized for advertisement revenue, regular programming. They filled it with all kinds of stuff, like programming guides music videos and shorts. Then in the 90s, due to ad taxation during daytime, they started to fill parts of the nights and mornings with infomercials, then the government passed a reform that enforced a 24-hour service for commercial stations, which effectively killed sign-outs (and ins).

[@OM19_MO79]

In case you are curious, even though Mexico has a station-based TV broadcasting almost mirroring the American system, call signs for each with individual concessions, identifications with details were not enforced until later and, since most stations, both own and affiliated, worked mostly as relays of Mexico City stations, you could only get identifications for those stations even if the channel you were watching wasn’t XEW-TV or XHDF-TV and it wasn’t either channel 2 or 13. They would later, as the technology became available and less and less room for local programming and ads (including the actual station IDs) became available, they started to put an hourly brief text indicating the call sign, channel and market, overlayed on the screen (no matter what it was on), in a corner of the screen. This is still the mandatory practice for the IFT (Mexico’s FCC). Only some real local and unaffiliated stations (which are about a dozen or so) make their own IDs but don’t go into technical details, just state the commercial name of the channel. Due to the persistence of the network IDs by channel number instead of a name for decades, the IFT homologated the use of national virtual channels per network (unless there are reasons that would not allow the use of the in the area). The few stations that would go with similar sign-offs to the American ones up to this date, were the border blasters, as most serviced American cities and their programming had to be approved by both the Mexicans STC, SEGOB and COFETEL/IFT and the American FCC, so they have to comply with the sign-off ID (i.e. end of commercial broadcast day as they can’t turn off the transmitters). Only one is left, it would have gone off the air already if they wouldn’t have been forced by the IFT to pay for a 30-year concession some years ago.

[@bwc1976]

I'm in the San Diego area across the border from Tijuana, and one thing that sticks out to me when seeing their sign-offs/ons in the early 2000's was the SITATYR union logo and announcement, that was like a cute funky robot or alien or something.

[@FailSafe161]

Ben, you can't tell us to not look something up and then expect us to not look it up! My blood pressure is definitely significantly higher now, though... (great video as always btw)

[@carltechnocop]

particularly grim backstory to that one...

[@TheKnobCalledTone.]

If you've seen that episode of The IT Crowd with British-made fire extinguisher catching fire, you'll understand why British TV signoffs made such a big deal of turning one's TV off before going to bed.

[@thekidfromiowa]

That's exactly what I thought of too.

[@JuanDaMajikOne]

Omg! I totally remember the sign offs when I was a kid watching late night tv in the 70s and 80s but I also remember waking up early in the morning before Saturday morning cartoons or even early in the morning before school and watching the tv stations start their broadcasting day. Yup, I was that weird kid!

[@herbcraven7146]

Your sign off kinda choked me up a little. All those memories of the Happy Hamsters, Record Ripoffs, VHS Vaults, Civil Defense services, teletext... Happy summer, Ben! Looking forward to next season after the Fourth of July!

[@danthemainman1]

10:58 That’s Jupiter from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holst. He was a British composer of around the same era as Edward Elgar (who wrote Pomp and Circumstance), so I guess that makes sense. Also, yep, May/June graduations in the Midwest, sounds like typical severe weather season. Our graduation was held yearly at the local civic center on Memorial Day weekend (which meant that you really couldn’t have out of town guests, since all the hotel rooms were booked for the Indianapolis 500 despite it being over 100 miles away). So severe weather wasn’t usually an issue, but I do seem to remember at least one graduation I attended (either a sibling or on account of being in band and having to play Pomp and Circumstance) that had some severe weather interruptions.

[@GeoNeilUK]

"That’s Jupiter from the Planet Suite by Gustav Holst." Also the tune to "I vow to thee my country"

[@andynarain672]

The plugging off your TV part reminds me of an episode of The Young Ones, where one of the characters, Vyvyan (yes, that's how it is spelled) was watching TV, and the TV said to unplug your TV, then Vyvyan asked the TV why, the TV responded back, saying "The TV will blow up, you silly little boy!" So Vyvyan waited for the TV to blow up. It didn't happen.

[@brianhebert6152]

That episode is kinda like Poltergeist when you take into consideration modern generations who grew up on 24-hour TV

[@IanGorton]

It's never gonna blow up. I think I'll play M in the dark. (If ya know ya know)

[@erocktv]

@25:56 - interesting tidbit about Channel(s) 6, because they broadcasted up to 88 MHz, you could potentially find their audio at the bottom of the FM dial (unless there was already a radio station there). WRGB in Albany, NY used to promote heavily that you could listen to them on 87.7FM when you were driving.

[@danthemainman1]

22:10, aww, I would have enjoyed hearing all the random translator station locations in Newfoundland and Labrador. I hear about these places all the time on VOCM during their folk music program on Saturdays, so I guess I’ll just have to try to find this sign-off for myself.

[@brianhebert6152]

VOCM is one of the few surviving V callsign stations in Newfoundland.

[@sleepisaluxury]

My interests collide -- Oddity Archive and the Joanna Lopez case... amazing. I had a feeling when I saw the title!

[@wyattmanhabel644]

Finally someone who mentions it

[@jasonhaman4670]

'and unplug your tv'?? As I understand it, every mains outlet in the UK has its own built-in switch. Why unplug?? 'got my teeth out of order'... my brain filled in a mental image on that one, in a Pythonesque style. Excellent season ender, classic OA. And well done on both closedowns - the livestream-premiered one captures the OA humor, the one at the end here captures the nostalgia.

[@StuartClary]

Yes, UK sockets have switches but the older generations were a bit funny about electricity. I remember my parents/grandparents insisting on unplugging things at night. The switch on the TV set and the switch on the socket wasn't enough..... I'm sure some took the plug off and buried it in the garden or something

[@robmclean4352]

22:52 By my count, that's *87* re-broadcast stations covering every nook and cranny of Newfoundland. There were literally hundreds of these stations throughout Canada back in the analog days, and I always wondered...why? And how? Where did the CBC get the money to build and maintain all these transmitters? Did they have a team of technicians whose only job was to go to one transmitter after another, just to ensure they were still working and not knocked down by a snowstorm and/or some bored kids?

[@Losaru]

I dunno about the technicians, but there may have been a lot of transmitters because of elevation. Some places on the island are in deep valleys with tall moutains and rocky terrain which can make picking up signals hard (Case in point, trying to get a f***ing cellphone signal where my mom lives.) so having a lot of transmitters may have helped. That's just my hypothesis though.

[@Lcd101]

Fantastic episode! Even though it was overshadowed by the skit, the original sign-offs episode holds a special place in my heart. I’d love to see international material covered more because seeing Thames pop up in an Oddity Archive episode made me extremely happy.

[@brianknoblock8873]

17:31 "Terry Towelling Weaver"? I'm picturing a guy who has to painstakingly stencil the letters on the aspirin. 22:28 BINGO!!!!!

[@sracine10]

I had a feeling you were going to pick on WMAQ! As a comfort when I first moved to Chicago in 2011- I used to watch those sign off on YT (I know it’s odd). The ‘Joanna’ slide did freak me out when I first saw it. Excellent episode!

[@AdeleEevee]

As soon as he mentioned missing person slides I knew it would be her.

[@williamsheets9539]

@26:38...Is that Alex Trebek hawking a "deal of the day"?

[@r66fplaysgames]

19:06 The weather ticker directly below the "KOMO TV4 Seattle" looks like the old weather ticker that the Weather Channel used for a few decades, or so.

[@missbleach8767]

Hi I’m bleach and I lost on roblox but I am happy. Roblox

[@sw2442]

Great episode...I loved the portion which featured L.A. sign-offs from the 70's....I remember those. I was six, seven, eight years old then, and, if I was sick or awake because of a bad dream, would sneak into the living room, turn on the TV, and see these sign-offs.

[@Pensfan5919]

19:05 Found the year of this KOMO clip, 1984. Carbonneau actually had the winner in two career games against Chicago that ended 3-2. This was actually the penultimate season before Chicago made their Black Hawks team name all one word.

[@RickinBaltimore]

17:25 - Pages from Teletext! (OR Ceefax if it was the BBC)

[@zetametallic]

My drunk viewing after a night out. 😂

[@aWildJellieAppeared]

@@zetametallicsame, would fall asleep in front of it after a night out 😂

[@zetametallic]

@aWildJellieAppeared I like to think we are ladies of fine cultural tastes! I'd always drink coffee listening to the cheesy music. ITV Nightscreen had some banging tunes but without the teletext it wasn't quite the same; plus I'm 48 now so there aren't so many drunken nights out anymore or all nighters. Not worth the 4 day hangover!

[@aWildJellieAppeared]

@@zetametallicsome genuinely good music on there! And yeppp my partying til 4am days are pretty much over 😂

[@zetametallic]

@aWildJellieAppeared still pull the odd all nighter as a mature student I will admit. Subbed you as your channel is 😀

[@WillmobilePlus]

You had me at 19 cent tacos.

[@fixman88]

"Flippin' Eck!"

[@imrustyokay]

I'm so glad that more off air stuff from the Channel Islands has been uploaded. It's funny that it's part of the UK considering they're closer to France. Great episode, as always! Especially the little nods to the teletext episodes! Of course, overnight TV is a whole 'nother bag of crisps, especially in the UK. Even has one of the biggest controversies in British TV History with Hotel Babylon. (Long story short: Heineken funded the show, and Heineken wanted to see fewer black people on it. The show was effectively dead the moment that leaked to the press.)

[@svofski]

I fully share this sense of disconnect after station signoff. It's something hard to put in words, you did it well. In the late 80s-early 90s in St.Petersburg Russia there was a phenomenon named "Russkoye Video". Once a week after the official local TV station would sign off, they would take over and broadcast a movie. Usually something that would now be considered an 80s classic, some older classics sometimes. There also was this eerie feeling about the whole thing, watching something not typically shown on TV and not in the printed programme, very late at night at hours that never had any broadcasts before.

[@ScreamingAllTheTime]

Whenever I think about tv sign offs, I always think about how around 2007-2010 my local CBS station, WWNY used to run this slide that was an ad for some financial counseling group or something of the like. It said “BILLS KEEPING YOU UP?” With their contact info or something of the like. But it had this face I always found so creepy as a kid. It was probably some clip art for a sad, tired face but it was REALLY ugly and the whole slide just felt super eerie as it ran all night silently. I’ve got a tape with it on but my transfer device always records audio out of sync so I never copy anything over.

[@Thereviewer-lg6yr]

That's pretty easy to fix, thankfully! What capture devices do you use?

[@teh_supar_hackr]

I'd like to see that creepy ad. I remember seeing things like that often very late at night on those odd channels with the digits going in the thousands my cable provider (Spectrum) has for some reason.

[@danmount9462]

Im a Watertown resident myself. (I work at the ABC station.) Now there's mattress and car ads at night.

[@ScreamingAllTheTime]

@@Thereviewer-lg6yr my capture device is just one of those cheap Roxio devices, inputs to USB. Sony SLV-N60 VCR, VirtualDub software on a Windows 8 desktop. I want to start using a newer computer, but the drivers were linked to a product registry code I no longer have, and they are proprietary.

[@ChrisMezzolesta]

WXXI signoff music is Variations on a Theme by Erik Satie (Trois Gymnopedies), the first (and last) track on Blood Sweat & Tears' 1969 eponymous 2nd album. Guitar by Steve Katz, flutes by Dick Halligan.

[@Desertskyobservatoy1925]

Great memories! Back in the 1970-80's KABC-7 Los Angeles used to sign off but then would cut to KABC AM (790 I believe) which used to play all-night talk shows. KTLA-5 I believe signed off during the week, but they are famous for their "Movies "Til Dawn" on the weekends broadcasting 24-hours Friday/Saturday.

[@michaelcarpenter2498]

5:19 what I always thought the ENS bot would look like. This is a great one and a stupendous way to end this season. 6:39 the Thames clock and a whoops. Great work Ben.

[@Commanderraf]

Part of a small history lesson: Some years ago, Arturo González Camarena (grandson of Guillermo González Camarena, television pioneer here in Mexico) uploaded the animation which was used to sign off XHGC (a broadcasting station that still exists to this day) every night. According to the comments, this sign off was used daily since the mid 1950's until the late 1960s (so it is way before my time). Anyway, I've always found it intriguing: it is artistically beautiful, musically sober (with Lex Baxter's Lunar Rhapsody playing in the background) and kind of eerie, not only for the way it starts, but for the poem that's read aloud. XHGC has always been aimed towards a children/teenager audience, so the poem strikes as something odd for the kids but I think it hits the adults watching with a sense of nostalgia. And, as a comment in said video reminds the viewer, this animation was made before any kind of computer animation aids existed. Being three minutes long, it is a nice time capsule of what Mexico was in the mid-1950's. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKempZVqm9dnjM0

[@fixman88]

I just watched it, it was amazing (my jaw hit the floor)!

[@gog2250]

4:46 Спокойной ночи - good night 4:53 II программа - program 2

[@OddityArchive]

Correct.

[@AdeleEevee]

Benny boy, I have to say that ending rendition of the anthem brought a tear to my eye. Thought for a second it was going to be the Happy Hamsters singing it 🤣 Congrats on wrapping up another season of Archive (can't believe it's been 12 already!). I'm excited to see what you do with lucky number 13. Wishing you comfort, strength, and rest through the off-season of Archive and this season of life.

[@coolpup6385]

I’m a bit late but I’m glad you made a sequel for this topic! One of my favorites that I don’t see people talk about

[@rionthemagnificent2971]

You should ask Sergei of the USHANKA SHOW channel see if he has any USSR recordings. He's from Ukraine and grew up during The USSR. He's very informative of how things really were like from a boy to an Young adult during the USSR's reign. I learned a lot from him. We were really not that different, just different political ideologies.

[@engineergaming5566]

The audio feed on WOWT (25:12) was likely from KEZO-FM, which would flip to a rock format 6 months and 2 days later.

[@OddityArchive]

It is KEZO. I just failed to name it.

[@mix3k818]

Thank you for covering the international sign-offs too!

[@HappySnoutHour]

The KTLA sign-offs must have been before they did "Movies 'til Dawn" in the late '70s. They were one of the first channels that ran 24 hour programming (they did do sign-offs at the time but it was from usually between a movie going off the air 2 or 3 in the morning and going in to Movies Until Dawn from what I remember).

[@OddityArchive]

Other way around--Movies 'Til Dawn, then all the legal stuff. I have an overnight posting on Archive Annex from KTLA with all that stuff in it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2aQomlnlMxkZ6Msi=LOrmJNs_GUAvfsch

[@HappySnoutHour]

@@OddityArchive OK, that's right. It's been forever since I've seen Movies 'til Dawn so the time eludes me occasionally. Although I know for sure on the weekends that it was shown until 6 AM (once again from what I remember).

[@tex1138]

I was just thinking that TV Sign Offs would be one of my top picks for a volume 2, so this episode is a wish granted. Also, don’t be down on yourself about the sketch in volume 1, it was excellent.

[@RickinBaltimore]

Ben if that's you doing the anthem on guitar, that's actually really well done. 36:27 - O!

[@OddityArchive]

It is. I wanted to redo it for this episode, but simply didn't have time. It's the same one from the end of "The Death of Analog TV".

[@goodkid457]

OH MY GOSH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DOING ANOTHER ROUND OF SIGN OFFS... ever since i saw your video on them ive been obsessed with seeing them ever since!!!! this is a dream come true, thank you ben!!!!!!!!!

[@jaycee330]

3:30 UK television sometimes had reminders to unplug the TV set as well. Those old bulbs could overheat and catch fire.

[@IanGorton]

The whole "and don't forget to unplug your set" bit makes me think of that episode of The Young Ones. "Why?" "It'll blow up you silly boy"

[@susanaltman5134]

I once picked up a Philadelphia's channel 6 in NYC. It was a children's program hosted by Sally Star. I was never able to pick up anything on channel 6 after that. Just a weird one-off. And while I'm reminiscing my brother used to receive QSL cards from stations he was able to pick up over a regular AM radio. I remember one's from Detroit, Toronto, Indianapolis and from Kentucky (Louisville I guess).

[@TheSonicNetworkTSN]

The sketch from the original sign-offs episode inspired one of my own videos that I made a few years back. Good to see another episode on this topic!

[@adambell9188]

Hahaha holy crap that Canadian one "Hey Russia, here's every transmitter tower in Halifax in case you wanted to know"

[@ElFuego35]

The Canadians were hoping us yanks would intercept the Russians before they got as far east as Halifax 😉

[@jonleibow3604]

Newfoundland and Labrador*

[@battra92]

at 11:19 I loved the John Trumbell painting of Burgoyne surrendering at Saratoga. Such a random choice! Also, they played Jupiter at your graduation?

[@jimscott2050]

We have a friend in need. We will not rest until he's safe in Andy's room. Now let's move out!

[@Losaru]

22:07 That's my home province and yes, they did list them all, just not at the chipmunk speed.

[@JL-sm6cg]

That was funny. He was just speeding it up to get through it.

[@AdeleEevee]

How long did that full signoff last??

[@Losaru]

@@AdeleEevee I'd say a good 5 minutes or more. There's a video online from RetroNewfoundland that's 9 minutes long but also includes the color bars

[@AdeleEevee]

@@Losaru Looked it up and I'm surprised, signoffs are before my time but that's not bad for an entire signoff sequence- seems pretty standard if just a tad bit long. Ben wasn't joking in the first part when he mentioned the mini-sermons and national anthem and interstitials ours had lol

[@Losaru]

@@AdeleEevee Oh yeah. We also have NTV that while it would have a sign-off, they were one of the first 24hour stations and would have some random shows on during the night, sometimes some really trippy stuff. I used to get up at 4am as a kid sometimes to watch America's Funniest Home Videos with Bob Saget until Mom caught me. XD

[@pacmancdi]

I'm sorry Ben but that missing poster is creepy! Imagine falling asleep with the TV on and waking up in the middle of the night to see that...

[@SaturnTubes]

I have always found all missing persons posters creepy. IDK, the idea that there's a higher than not likelihood that the person is dead used to give me nightmares as a child and it doesn't do much to quell my fears today

[@kinksfan86]

Thank you for doing a second round of this. I love this kind of nostalgia. I've been watching your videos since back on Blip. Keep them coming.

[@elizabethsmith3374]

Fun fact the band My Chemical Romance includes a radio station sign-off they made in their Danger Days album they even include the National Anthem instrumental that a lot of American tv stations had in their sign-off

[@justina1909]

Billy Joel's Sleeping With the Television on also has a mock sign off at the start of the song

[@brianhebert6152]

I'm surprised they didn't re-record that bit for the UK release by having Gerard Way mention something about turning off and unplugging your CD player

[@adambell9188]

Jesus at 20:25 good luck reading those weather forecasts without having an immediate seizure "CMON JIMMY ROLL EM FASTER WE GOT A LOTTA WEATHER TO TALK ABOUT!"

[@michaelstevens8624]

I wouldn't have described the sensation of the station signing off and going dark as isolating when I was a kid getting my TV over the air, but in hindsight...yeah, that totally fits. Especially when you're watching the end of the episode of some B-tier syndicated show and know all that's left is the anthem with a nature scene.

[@cpnscarlet]

HELP! I had another nightmare where Zovello was beating me with a Turkish Taffy bar and it was a flavor that I hated!!!

[@brianhebert6152]

Was it Pickled Garlic flavor? The number-one flavor in Archiveland?

[@basshorseman998]

I grew up when all tv channels (4 of them) signed off/on. Creepy feeling on my end...Thanks Benny

[@stratoplayer1988]

I grew up watching KCET in the 90s. It’s some of my earliest TV memories since it had shows like Sesame Street, Mr. Roger’s, Lamb Chops, Play-a-long, Storytime, and more. It also produced California’s Gold with Huell Howser.

[@aWildJellieAppeared]

17:12 Wooo Central! Nice to see a reference to my old neck of the woods ☺️

[@mightyfilm]

I'm oddly more familiar with sign ons than sign offs. I used to wake up really early on the weekends for some reason and sometimes they'd have old 70's local shows before regular programming started. And of course, cases I had to be up early for school. I think the only time I really saw a sign off was one Christmas Eve when we got home late and WGBH had that signoff where everything pixelated and it had a still of The Muppet Show for some reason. But yeah, I remember a lot of decades old at the time test patterns with Yacht Rock or something from the 70's playing over it and this one where they just had an animated graphic of a reel to reel tape. Also, that British newscaster's delivery telling you to unplug your TV "because of....fires" reminds me of the time a radio news broadcast was announcing a recall of some children's Barbie sunglasses using a dangerous kind of plastic. The newscaster went on to say "So don't wear them. They can hurt....an..uhmmmmhhhmm...burn."

[@CrowTRobot-ni7zu]

Yesssss. One of my favourite subjects in media.

[@CommodoreFan64]

As an 80's, & 90's kid who was a night owl whenever I was allowed to be, & was also born on the 4th of July I always loved the TV sign offs with the national anthem, & a jet, &/or bald eagle flying through the sky, thanks for taking me back Ben 👍😊🇺🇲

[@xcellnt]

Не забуду! Great show, Ben. Quite fascinating theme

[@glowbush]

Seeing the WCCO late night broadcast with the Minneapolis-St. Paul theme song was wild. I had no idea that was a thing.

[@EddieMillerStudios]

I wonder if Sergei remembers that old Soviet signoff. Anyway, congrats on the find, Captain Ben-hab!

[@gelflingfart]

the video i've been hoping for!! yes!

[@ladylilith6495]

25:28 When youtube personality EmpLemon used a clip from Pulp Fiction for his video essay on Stanislav Petrov, the clip got claimed as part of a rap song that sampled the clip and NOT as part of the movie. The YT bots are totally gonna clamp down on this John Denver tune, Benny boy. Let's not forget the time the same user got claimed for 0 seconds of a song.

[@brianhebert6152]

10 bucks the claim is not for the actual tune, but for an obscure rap song that sampled it

[@JL-sm6cg]

At least one of the Detroit stations would run typical stuff, like a PSA to remind us to "treat our brothers and sisters like brothers and sisters" and other stuff. Then the obligatory national anthem playing, with one final message that it was courtesy of the Marine Corps before cutting the cord for the night and the loud snowiness.

[@MrScottbot101]

I’m guessing that the show ending right before yhe WXXI sign off was discussing the infamous Attica Prison Riot of September 1971, which would place the clip at late September or early October of that year.

[@ChrisKewl]

Great episode, I love the sign-off episodes!

[@thekidfromiowa]

I've been down the liminal space rabbit hole for the last couple years and I would consider sign-ons/sign-offs to be liminal. Something uncanny about them. Almost ethereal. Particularly the patriotic montages.

[@missbleach8767]

Des moine

[@thekidfromiowa]

​@@missbleach8767 French for The Moines

[@eletronictoenails]

I remember seeing ABC 3’s nighttime transmissions around 2013-2014 and that kinda creeped me out when I was 5

[@5roundsrapid263]

12:18 No, it’s not wrong, Ben. 2-inch Quad videotape is just gorgeous. I miss that look! 24:05 Tube transmitter? I saw a station do that once, but the tower was falling… 😳

[@jonnykeeling4414]

Thank you for the static at the end.

[@antony716]

I was 7 years old when WMAQ ran this (I grew up in the Chicago area) and my parents never shut off their TV in their room. Nights I'd wake up in the middle of the night and walk over to their room and see these 'missing people' and being totally freaked out. I can't explain how creepy this was as a little kid.

[@GabrielleCenter2000]

The Joanna Lopez one freaked me out when I came across it the first time on YT. Some say that this girl and the phone number didn't exist, others think she exist. It was disturbing.

[@idkany293]

Have you seen the Southern Television final signoff? It's... pretty eerie.

[@geometricentric]

for years i’ve been dreaming of this moment

[@mistuhgone]

9:40 Awwww Yeah! Rochester, NY shouted out again. 😅😅😅

[@mr1000Cent]

People had to unplug a TV before they went to bed, in 1981?!?! What were European TVs made out of? Did they run on petrol?

[@TimmyTickle]

Apparently they caught fire if left plugged in for too long - I think it had something to do with the cathode Ray tubes (CRTs)

[@fixman88]

@@TimmyTickle I live in the US and my father is a TV repair Technician going all the way back to the 1980s. He and I have seen plenty of CRT TV sets and I never saw (and he never told me) about one spontaneously catching fire. I can only assume it was due to lower build quality of 1970s UK and Soviet TVs.

[@Pikmin442]

So interestingly one of the Joanna Lopez missing slide cards actually stayed on all night from when the station went off the air, to the stations sign on. She appeared again after another sign off but this time it didn't stay on screen all night.

[@OddityArchive]

By the late 80’s, WMAQ was only signing off for half-an-hour or less, so hardly all-night.

[@leejtam0914]

reminds me of radio stations changing between states or getting faint stations