"
. With Space City flashback
Posted Under: Pleasing
As I’ve said before, I tend to think that the most interesting stuff that surfaces in YouTube and other online video venues is often footage that’s 25 or 30 years old. So I was pretty excited to read in Houstonist that ABC-13 had put the entire debut episode of its “Live at Five” broadcast, from 1977, on its site.
I grew up in the Houston broadcast area, so Dave Ward and Marvin Zindler and Ed Brandon are familiar faces and voices. I was really excited to see some early Marvin footage — but that part of the broadcast turned out to be disappointingly tame and boring. Although, interestingly, Zindler was updating a report he’d done 30 years before the 1977 broadcast.
Clearly he hadn’t hit his stride yet in 1977. Here’s the current picture of Zindler on ABC 13 site:
The guy is a classic. This four-second YouTube clip is all you need to know. Although this one-minute clip that exults in his famous phrase “Slime in the ice machine!” is also pretty great. Though whoever uploaded it really should have let it go a little longer, since the news anchors’ bemused expressions after one of Marvin’s reports is usually pretty priceless.
Anyway, the highlights of 1977 broadcast turned out to be the old ads for Brawny, Patio frozen dinners (which I used to eat all the time), Alberto V05 hot oil treatment, and so on. Also the news broadcast’s endless opening theme song. And Dave Ward’s surprisingly robust hair, and co-anchor Jan Carson’s even more robust bow.
.
.
Kim Fellner's book 
.
A
Reader Comments
Dave Ward confessed a DUI arrest on Live at 5 in the early 1990s. It was a Channel 13 classic moment. And then there’s footage (don’t know where or from when) of Marvin Zindler, trying to record a segment about an Italian restaurant in which he is being told to say “Voila!” at some point in the piece. In true Marvin Zindler style, he never can manage to say voila. Instead, he keeps saying “Vy-oh-la!” Priceless. This post is a great reminder of those nuts on “Live at 5.” Good to know Mr. Zindler is still kickin’ after all these years. Must be the white suits and the blue-blockers. Oh, and the plastic surgery. Thanks, R. Looks like I’ll be spending some time on YouTube.
I remember hearing about the Dave Ward thing, but I never saw it. Probably that’s on YouTube somewhere, since everything else is. I love the Zindler’ by-oh-la story. Enjoy revisiting his other highlights. Apart from ZZ Top, he may be the best thing to ever come out of Houston.