Once upon a time, back in the 1980s, local TV stations would round up the news people, the weather forecasters, and sports guys for a Christmas promo shoot. The producers would set us up in a nice home, or museum-type setting, and ask us to wear our red and green, and bring the kids! We’ve always had a friendly atmosphere at Channel 3. The people who were there when I arrived in 1987, like Bill Markham, Cindy Sexton and Paul Barys were already good friends, and that set the tone. So it was easy to sit around and have fun with each other: that’s what we did at work every day. I found five Christmas videos on my YouTube channel. Some of them aired on Channel 3, and one of them is the blooper reel. I’ll start with with a 30-second group promo from 1989:
At these same promo sessions, they would split us up, and have our families do 4-second station ID’s that were shown at the top of the hour, before each show began. Here’s one from that 1989 shoot, with my co-anchor Tamara Lister and her son Michael, and me and my son Chris. They were born a few months apart in 1987.
A year later, we had a new addition with son Vince, who joined us for the promo. His older brother Chris had one line, “from the Carroll family.” Here are some outtakes from that session, along with my friends Frenche Brewer, Russ Riesinger and Jed Mescon:
And finally, here’s the very first Carroll family Christmas promo, when Chris was about 4 months old in 1987:
While you’re on my YouTube channel, check it out when you have some time to spare. There are more than 200 videos of classic Chattanooga TV, and I’m adding more each week. Merry Christmas!
