Channel 9

Because of the internet and the thousand television channels we’re now subjected to, I doubt the local TV newsfolk carry the same celebrity cache they once did. Indeed, there was a time when they were about the biggest, baddest deals in town, back in the ages when not every soul was on television, video, or a web cam.

I’m reminded of an incident from the summer of 1975, when I visited the Ozarks for an outing at the lake home of a fellow named Stan. We arrived at the same time as a party that included two boys who were about my age. Standing in the driveway, one boy said to his friend, “So who lives here?” The friend replied, “Stan.” With a spasm of hope, the first boy said, “Stan Carmack?” The friend said, “Yeah, I wish.”

So, yes, even Stan Carmack was a star. He was then a street reporter who wore extremely large glasses and plaid sport coats and who anchored the news on Thanksgiving and Christmas nights for the highest-rated news station in town, KMBC TV 9.

Channel 9 was lousy with stars. I don’t think our family trusted any family that did not regularly watch channel 9 news in the 1970s.

Larry Moore was the franchise there. Moore was a tall, sideburned anchorman with a basso voice. It was common knowledge that he would become the next Walter Cronkite. Kansas Citians said the same thing about Moore that had been said about JFK: mothers wanted to mother him and their daughters wanted to make love to him. In fact, that was one of the station’s promotional messages.

Actually, I do recall one print ad for channel 9. A head shot of Moore was featured front and center, while below him were smaller photos of sportscaster Don Fortune and the new weather gal, Cheryll Jones. The headline: Moore. And more.

The “more” in that ad was tilted in favor of Cheryll Jones, who’d replaced the legendary Fred Broski. The TV teasers that preceded her debut had shown the woman from the waist down, in a short skirt and provocative boots, accompanied by Nancy Sinatra music and this voice-over: “You’re going to like the rest of her, too.”

At that time, I was in the throes of puberty and therefore singularly interested in seeing the rest of her. When that evening finally arrived, our living room was all abustle, much as it had been for Maude’s abortion. But when Cheryll Jones’ face was at last revealed, we felt cheated. The disappointment among my brothers and I was so thick you could have sliced it with Don Fortune’s razor-sharp shoulders.

In fairness, Cheryll Jones was attractive, but in an over-processed sort of way. Her chest, however, instantly became two-thirds of the channel 9 franchise, sharing top billing with Larry Moore. To clarify, when Cheryll Jones stood alongside Nevada, one could not see the day’s highs from Boulder to Topeka. Her promotional department seized on the term “accu-weather,” which around our house soon became “accu-tits.”

This woman was a star, but she was not very good at her job. She had a fixation for the word “breezy.” Every accu-tits forecast included predictions of breezy days ahead. No doubt the market for windbreakers went crazy, but it all began to drive us mad.

The channel 9 sportscaster for many years was the shrimpy, bespectacled Don Fortune, a fellow who looked like the stereotype of an insurance salesman who might drop in on a sit-com family to tell them their policy has been canceled. More so, he reminded me of a TV wrestler’s sinister manager, the type of puny gent who enters the ring to smack an opponent over the head with his briefcase while hundreds of outraged fans stomp and point and try to engage the referee’s attention.

Fortune lacked the visceral star-power of his colleagues, but he was still quite the star in his own right. If nothing else, his black glasses and his oft-furrowed brow indicated a serious and cerebral quality that we just had to admire.

Fortune manned the regular shift, but on weekends and holidays we were treated to the likes of Hall of Fame quarterback Len Dawson, aka “Lenny the Cool” and “Lunchmeat Lenny” because he did TV ads for a bologna concern. Now that I think about it, Lenny was actually as reviled as he was revered in town. He had quarterbacked the Chiefs to two Super Bowl appearances and countless big wins, yet many folks still claimed he was inferior to his backup, Mike Livingston, and that he was the starter only because he was Coach Stram’s son in law. For the record, these folks may also have been the same who claimed the rolled-up publication that Coach Stram always gripped during the games was a Playboy magazine.

In our discussion of these luminaries, it would be criminal to overlook Fred Broski, the longtime weather maven at channel 9 and probably the most famous Polish figure in Kansas City. Broski was a little irreverent, especially compared to his somber competition on channels 4 and 5—chaps who would not crack a grin even if their grandpas gave them a titty-twister. The daring Broski made bold, undisciplined use of a black magic marker, and every night he repositioned the big happy-faced suns around the weather map with almost felonious disregard. Sometimes he’d even throw the suckers onto the map, hoping they’d stick!

But when the chips were down and the black clouds approaching, he was like Hawkeye and Trapper John: the highjinks ceased and you knew you could count on him.

Thanks to Broski’s bloodlines, I once had the pleasure of witnessing a channel 9 newscast in person. He was the cousin of a classmate and I was a budding journalist, the anchor of a weekly newscast held in our school library. My teacher and Broski’s cousin helped expedite this momentous meeting.

On a spring evening in 1975, our teacher, Mrs. S., chaperoned a few sixth-grade boys to the channel 9 studio, located in the basement of the Lyric Theatre downtown. The news set, situated in the southeast corner, looked cheap and breakable, like something we kids might have put together for a school project. The desk itself was backed by a blue-gray wall with dozens of yellow 9s upon it. Fifty feet to its north was the set for Etcetera, a daytime show that invited local celebrities, politicos, and Hollywood old timers who were performing at the dinner theatres or Starlight. To the far west stood the set for Bowling for Dollars, a nightly thrill hosted by Broski.

And milling about the big room, in bright-yellow sport jackets and blue jeans, were the celebrities themselves: Moore, Dawson, Broski, and Fortune, as well as a few B-teamers—backups, I presumed, in case one of the varsity suddenly came down with Ptomaine poisoning.

The taping of the 6 pm newscast that night was uneventful, if not boring, and my memory of those thirty minutes is vague. We kids stood about ten feet behind the bank of cameras that stood about ten feet from the news desk. There was the predictable lineup of stories: a murder perhaps, a fatal accident or two, a child being left on a school bus, a grim study on air pollution, et al. And, as always, the broadcast ended with an uplifting story so the viewers could brave the rest of their evening—in this case, news of a giraffe that had found its way into a San Diego mall.

Afterwards, the stars descended from the hot lights and into the darkness to chat with us. The estimable Larry Moore and Fred Broski were especially pleasant and accommodating, but Lenny the Cool came off as impatient and arrogant. I guess I can forgive him. We were inquisitive—perhaps nosy—twerps and he was still a young man and had better fish to fry.

The scholarly Fortune escorted us to the set and demonstrated the wonders of the “blue screen.” I think it was called the blue screen. Anyway, if you wore any blue clothing, it would not appear on camera. Or else, it would appear. I’m pretty sure it was one or the other. Frankly, I cannot remember the purpose of the blue screen, if indeed that was what it was called. But the sportscaster was very devoted to educating us upon it.

Soon there was loud chatter among the technicians and the on-air talent about somebody heading to Bryant’s or the Colony or Dinkledorf’s to pick up some dinner, and so Mrs. S. consulted her wristwatch and we kids found our windbreakers and started toward the exits.

Moore and Fortune followed us. Near the doors, the tall anchor placed a hand upon my shoulder and said, “So, from what I gather, you will be replacing us before too long.”

And for one dizzy moment I wondered if some backroom deal had been struck. Had I, the anchor of the fifth-grade news report, been hand-picked to become the next channel 9 star? Could it really be? Granted, I had been impressive so far that evening. My questions to Moore had been precocious (“What happens if you ever need to poop during the news?”); and my questions to Broski were not of the “soft ball” variety (“Isn’t Bowling for Dollars rigged so that almost nobody ever wins?”). And I had kept my trenchant comments and my throat-clearings to a minimum during the taping.

But Fortune disabused me of that dreamy notion rather speedily. As he held open the double doors to the lobby, he said something like this: “Boys, take every speech class you can in school, and read US News & World Report every week, cover to cover, and maybe with a lot of hard work and a little good luck you’ll someday find a job in . . . Waterloo, Iowa, or, or . . . Salina, Kansas, or someplace like that.”

Now that was a disheartening sign-off.