Weekend Update: Some Questions and Observations - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

W.B. · 07-09-2006, 12:04 AM

Forgive me, I may take awhile.
1) We all know Chevy Chase's "Weekend Update" greeting, "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not," was a lampoon of WABC-TV (New York) news anchor Roger Grimsby's opening "Here now the news" (Chevy admitted as such in quite a few books), but did anyone notice, after Mr. Chase left, that his "Update" anchor successor, Jane Curtin, used Grimsby's opening verbatim? I can imagine Roger would've been none too pleased about that . . .
2) The 1977-78 "Update" news set, especially the two-tone chroma-key blue background with rows of "WEEKEND UPDATE," seemed rather derivative of the WABC/Channel 7 Eyewitness News set as in use from 1975 to 1978?
3) The recurring gag of Chevy introducing "file reports" on such stories as the Patty Hearst trial, which invariably ended with the "correspondent" revealed to be Chevy himself, holding his nose and using a variety of aliases at different times (Rhonda Coullet, Harlan Collins, Duncan Ebersol etc.); plus the few times he attempted to reach Angola during the heavy conflict ("Hello, Angola? Very hard to hear you . . . Angelo?! . . . No, I don't want anchovies, I want Angola . . . oh, sorry, I must have the wrong number - 'bye . . . ") - I seem to notice, being a New Yorker, that all appeared to be a dig at WPIX/Channel 11, whose news division in the late 1960's had come under fire for alleged slipshod standards and questionable (to say the least) journalistic practices, including (but not limited to) running old stock footage and having the words "Via Satellite" emblazoned on a screen; and running some "live reports" by phone that were passed off as originating from a foreign location (i.e. Prague, Czechoslovakia) when, in fact, the reports were filed from a pay telephone booth in Manhattan - in short, falsifying a good deal of its news reports. While the way Chevy did it was funny, it was no laughing matter to WPIX who, for a decade beginning in 1969, fought a very protracted battle from a community group that filed a petition with the FCC challenging the license of the station's owner (the New York Daily News) over such practices, as well as other programming they ran over the years up to that point. If anyone from New York remembers those days, feel free to confirm or deny my points; I just noticed from reading old newspaper articles and remembering these "Updates."
4) The "Update" close "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow": Am I the only one to see similarities between that and the close used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) on ABC network newscasts he anchored between 1953 and 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow"?

07-09-2006, 12:04 AM	#1
W.B. Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Jun 23, 2005 Location: New York, New York, USA Posts: 389	Weekend Update: Some Questions and Observations Forgive me, I may take awhile. 1) We all know Chevy Chase's "Weekend Update" greeting, "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not," was a lampoon of WABC-TV (New York) news anchor Roger Grimsby's opening "Here now the news" (Chevy admitted as such in quite a few books), but did anyone notice, after Mr. Chase left, that his "Update" anchor successor, Jane Curtin, used Grimsby's opening verbatim? I can imagine Roger would've been none too pleased about that . . . 2) The 1977-78 "Update" news set, especially the two-tone chroma-key blue background with rows of "WEEKEND UPDATE," seemed rather derivative of the WABC/Channel 7 Eyewitness News set as in use from 1975 to 1978? 3) The recurring gag of Chevy introducing "file reports" on such stories as the Patty Hearst trial, which invariably ended with the "correspondent" revealed to be Chevy himself, holding his nose and using a variety of aliases at different times (Rhonda Coullet, Harlan Collins, Duncan Ebersol etc.); plus the few times he attempted to reach Angola during the heavy conflict ("Hello, Angola? Very hard to hear you . . . Angelo?! . . . No, I don't want anchovies, I want Angola . . . oh, sorry, I must have the wrong number - 'bye . . . ") - I seem to notice, being a New Yorker, that all appeared to be a dig at WPIX/Channel 11, whose news division in the late 1960's had come under fire for alleged slipshod standards and questionable (to say the least) journalistic practices, including (but not limited to) running old stock footage and having the words "Via Satellite" emblazoned on a screen; and running some "live reports" by phone that were passed off as originating from a foreign location (i.e. Prague, Czechoslovakia) when, in fact, the reports were filed from a pay telephone booth in Manhattan - in short, falsifying a good deal of its news reports. While the way Chevy did it was funny, it was no laughing matter to WPIX who, for a decade beginning in 1969, fought a very protracted battle from a community group that filed a petition with the FCC challenging the license of the station's owner (the New York Daily News) over such practices, as well as other programming they ran over the years up to that point. If anyone from New York remembers those days, feel free to confirm or deny my points; I just noticed from reading old newspaper articles and remembering these "Updates." 4) The "Update" close "Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow": Am I the only one to see similarities between that and the close used by John Charles Daly (of What's My Line? fame) on ABC network newscasts he anchored between 1953 and 1960, "Good night and a good tomorrow"?