60's Lexington TV Personalities

[Fan Fair]

Anyone know what happened to these 1960s Lexington TV personalities?
Bill Sorrell - news and weather (WKYT)
Terry Sams - weather (WLEX)
Wayne Bell – sports (WLEX)
Frank Taylor - news and weather (WKYT)
Peter Stoner - News (WLEX)
Stan Carr – news and weather (WKYT)

[tv classics]

Wayne Bell use to host the Adolph Rupp Show on channel 18. His grandaughter - Laura Bell Bundy is an actress who has appeared in movies including "The Adventures of Huck Finn. She was also a regular on the soap, "The Guiding Light."

Laura Bell Bundy

[LexTvVet]

Stan Carr, or Stan Carmack, moved to Kansas City, where he recently retired from KCTV.
Ran into him about ten years ago in Lexington, doing a story on Jesse James--with Kentucky connections

[TVHistory]

Lex_TV_Vet , great info on Stan Carmack. It's great to learn that Stan is still around. I'm also pleased to learn he stayed in broadcasting. Are you a Lexington TV Veteran we might recognize?

[LexTvVet]

Doubtful.

I worked for KYT and TVQ in the mid 90s as a Reporter, Fill-in Anchor.

I'm a Lexington native, hence, more of a TV Veteran from Lexington than a LexingtonTV veteran.

Currently Anchoring/Reporting in Knoxville.

[SixtiesTVcom]

LexTV_Vet, how did you find us? SixtiesTV is fairly new and we were curious how you stumbled upon the site?

[TvNewsVet]

Google search for Nick Clooney.
I change my computer background photo fairly frequently and was hoping I'd stumble across an ad slick for his days with WKRC, or KNBC.

No luck.
My newsroom is full of TV historians (not surprising, given the somewhat checkered history of my current shop), so it's always interesting to see what we can discover.

My first trip to a TV station was, in fact, to the Terror in the Night set when KYT studios were still on New Circle Road. Paul Warnecke's son and I were in Indian Guides.
Scary--what one trip can do the mind of a 7-year-old...

[Brad]

Wow, you were on the set of Terror in the Night in the 60s? How cool is that? Wonder if Paul Warnecke is still around?

[Stan Carmack]

Geeze Guys! I can't believe anyone there would still be interested in me! I did move to Kansas City in 1974 after working in Cincinnati, Chatanooga, and Atlanta. And, after 25 years on the air here in the midwest, I retired in 1999. I am one of the few who actually got to reach retirement age in this time of older people being released when they reach their '50s. Retirement is good, with lots of travel and surprisingly little free time. I still work occasionally. My current picture is at:
www.voicesand.com/talent/carmack/carmackresume.html

Thanks for remembering!

[Sixties TV]

Great to hear from you Stan at SixtiesTV.com. Based on your current picture you apparently have stumbled onto the fountain of youth. Care to share it with the rest of us?

Do you have any photos from your days in Lexington TV?

Brad Harris
SixtiesTV.com

[LexTvVet]

Paul's still in Lexington, still living in the same house as when he he was with WKYT and WTVQ.

Retired from state government awhile back, and travels a lot.

I'll pass word of the website to him.
Unless he tossed them out recently, I believe he has lots of stills and props from TITN, including the old "lab."

KYT's archives are a bit spotty. They pulled up some old promos from the Eyewitness News days (Riggins-Faulconer-Sorrell) for the 27th Anniversary special, but that was 22 years ago.

[Jeff Easley]

Props and stills from"Terror in the Night"?!!I would KILL to see those,and I'm not the only one!(O.K. I wouldn't kill...but I would annoy...).I wrote to WKYT,probably 7-8 years ago,and they had no one there who even remembered"Terror in the Night".If stuff like that exists I just hope it's preserved somehow....

[Dave Powell]

Peter Stoner retired from WLEX in the early 70's, moved to Florida and died a few years later,

Wayne Bell is enjoying his retirement in Lexington. His last sportscasts were in the 70s, but he actually retired from KET as an engineering manager. Then he was a deputy sheriff several years, serving as a bailiff.

Dave Powell, Chief Engineer, at WLEX-TV since 1971

[Gene Doyle]

I have connections to both "Terror In The Night" and "Thriller 18".
I was the Art Director that replaced Jerry Hellard at WKYT when he left the station in 1968. The station had just been purchased by Garvice Kinkaid's Kentucky Central Life Insurance Company, which poured money into upgrading the stations cameras, transmitter, and other equipment for full color broadcasting.
Paul Warnecke, the Production Manager at that time, became the new host of "Terror In The Night" when Nick Clooney left the organization. Paul's "Terror In The Night" on-air name was "The Mad Doctor" and asked me to play the part of "Igor" his assistant. We dressed the stage with scientific-looking apparatus including beakers filled with dry ice which made them appear to "boil" and overflow with sinister chemical smoke. We created a new opening for the show using model terrain that looked like a grave yard with a victorian-style casket that mysteriously opened, from which the show title "Terror In The Night" flowed out like a ghostly apparition. This opening would dissolve into The Mad Doctor and Igor in the "laboratory".
The Mad Doctor and Igor would appear in comedy skits before each commercial break. Each show had a theme, usually revolving around what was happening in Lexington during the week, a football or basketball game, horse racing, Halloween, etc. The funniest bit was how the show ended each week—Igor always found a way to get The Mad Doctor to say "IGOR!...LET ME HAVE IT!" and when he did, Igor would hit him in the face with a cream pie. After which, The now pie-faced Mad Doctor would hold up two fingers (the 60's Peace Sign) and say to the audience "Rest in peace". He would then fall backwards out of the frame.
An interesting point is, Paul and I always wrote our comedy skits over lunch, just before we taped the show. These lunchtime collaborations were the highlight of our week and often resulted in some really hilarious skits. Working on writing, producing, and acting on "Terror In The Night" was more fun than I can relate and is one of my fondest memories during the time that I was involved with the show from 1968 to 1971 when the program ended.
Regarding "Thriller 18", I the Animator who produced the show's opening while I was the Art Director of WLEX from 1967 to 1968. At the time, no one locally had ever tried drawing and filming an animated opening for any local TV show (as far as I know.) I initiated doing the animation in my spare time, in between my regular Art Director duties at the station, by building my own animation apparatus, then drawing and painting the cells. Since no one locally had ever done anything like it before, it was a trial and error method on my part, but surprisingly, it worked like a charm. The animation was only ten seconds long and looked like a knife cutting a slash across the screen from which "blood" poured down to create the letters "Thriller 18". In the years that followed, I developed my animation skill further, creating animated film openings for various shows on WKYT and eventually doing fully animated TV commercials for General Electric, Long John Silvers, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Webber Farms, Heublien International, the American Dairy Association, and more. Most of these were done while I was the Creative Director of Gig Henderson Advertising from late 1971 to 1979.
These stories are just the beginning. I have many more stories I could relate about local television in the sixties, if you would like to hear them.

[LexTvVet]

Gene, I'll Bite:

I'm curious as to how tight the news ratings battle was in those days.

Or was it competitive at all?

'KYT's 50th Anniversary production implies that WLEX held a wide lead (maybe by default) prior to 1975 -- the beginning of the Gabbard-Kurtz era.

My folks always watched Stan Carmack, and later Parham-Faulconer-Sorrell, and Buzz Riggins.

Insight?