Former TV news reporters from the equivalent of the Palaeozaic era of local journalism are returning to a small screen near you.
Expect to see lots of jowls, dyed hair, and mortuary makeup –and maybe even a fresh and interesting approach to news coverage.
Anyone who grew up in North Texas will recognize some of these blasts from the past — Tracy Rowlett, Troy Dungan, Midge Hill, Phyllis Watson, Jeff Brady, Gary Cogill, John Criswell, Debbie Denmon, Jolene DeVito, Suzie Humphreys, Iola Johnson, Scott Murray, and Robert Riggs. Collectively they logged over 197 billion hours of airtime, or pretty close.
They’ll all be getting face time on KTXD-TV’s new morning show The Texas Daily.
“We won’t be covering the everyday murder or house fire,” Texas Daily managing editor Stuart Boslow said. “We are going to be covering smart news that affects our audience. And who better to deliver that news than the people you know and trust? The people who have been giving you that news over the last three decades.”
The show is aimed at Baby Boomers over age 40 and will cover local news and add commentary from the veteran journos, who will say what they “really think about what’s happening in our region,” a press release says.
That sounds interesting, as long as the reporters shuck the typical superficial TV blather and really go rogue.
We’ll see.
“It’s going to be something that nobody’s done before,” Dungan said. “And that’s hard to say in this world — never been done before.”
The show debuts Oct. 1 and will air five days a week from 8 to 9 a.m. Viewers can tune into KTXD-TV on channel 47 on Dish Network, DIRECTV and AT&T; channels 24 and 428 on Time Warner; channel 18 on Verizon; channel 249 on Comcast Xfinity; and channel 22 on Charter Communications.
This can only work if a few other people are added.
1) Bring in Ickamore Twerpwhistle (aka Icky Twerp) to do a morning business report, speculating on the activity on the Japanese and Chinese markets and their influence on future oil prices, for example. Captain Swabbie can mutter “lower the mizzen mast, scuttle the portholes” while Icky reports.
2) Have a cardboard cutout of Chip Moody next to Tracy Rowlett at all times. Have Tracy make comments to the Chip cutout quite frequently.
3) Have Tammy Dombeck doing traffic. While at KXAS she would stand in front of the green screen where DFW Airport was, turn to her right, and she’d be blocking out Parker and Palo Pinto counties. 40-mile boobs draw eyeballs, everyone knows that.
4) Local poet William Bryan Massey III could do celebrity news, focusing on the importance of red carpet fashion choices and the intelligence of Brittany Spears.
5) Resurrect the five apes — Ajax, Arkadelphia, Delphinium, Linoleum, and Clyde — from Slam Bang Theater and have them throw feces at Gary Cogill whenever he reviews a movie. Cut to Troy Dungan and have his bow tie spin around as he watches the apes abuse Cogill.
6) Tom Finn should produce and direct.
I’d watch if they made these changes. Otherwise, I’d only tune in to see how many times Scott Murray screws up per show.
What about Miss Mary Lynn?
Having known you as a family member for all these years, I can see how your first thought on this subject of old TV would turn to Romper Room. We all found it interesting that you were still talking about Miss Mary Lynn well into your teenage years, having the same devious-stare visage and moaning that Homer Simpson has when he thinks about donuts.
Miss Mary Lynn is now Dr. Mary Lynn Crow, a clinical psychologist and UTA prof. She would be welcome on the show if I was running things. Maybe she could do a weekly segment where she psycho-analyzes journalists, like perhaps when a journalist shows how much he hates church people when writing about Arlington Heights church and parking and comparisons to Wal-Mart issues. Or police officers in general.
You should change “amish” to “mental.”