Did Tang REALLY make it to space?

On Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:34:33 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:



That's the Tang.
There was a really funny moment during one of the Gemini flights that I
caught live on television- one of the capcoms at ground control asked
one of the crew "How does the Tang taste?" and got the reply "It sure
doesn't taste like real orange juice to me...."*
This being covered on the network (I forget which one) that's space
coverage was sponsored by Tang, and whose announcer had a big "Tang"
sticker on the front of his desk. He looked very sheepish.

* Okay whizz kids, somebody dig out all the Gemini flight transcripts
and start looking; this is a first-hand story, not an urban myth.

Pat

I never heard about the Gemini mission, but IIRC, there was a magic
moment on Apollo 16 when John Young "accidentally" left his mike open
and the whole world listened to the crew, um, BLESS the Tang. Until
then, it had been advertised as what the astronauts drank. That
campaign did not last much longer.

I think I remember that day: I was watching the live feed from the
Moon when my dad barged in and wanted to turn it off. "Dad, what are
you talking about?" I pleaded. "It's the Moon!" But he didn't want
me to here all the curse words (I was seven or eight at the time).

For all the BLEEP good it did.





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Kevin Willoughby wrote:

My most valued VHS tape is six hours of ABC's coverage of Apollo 11.
This network clearly displays a Tang bottle cap on the anchor desk of
much of its coverage. (I can't say anything about CBS or NBC. There
weren't any other tv channels back then...)

Bzzzzzzzt. You don't even get a copy of the home game.

There were other *channels* (PBS, the odd independent), but there
weren't any other *networks*, a significant distinction.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

In article ,
says...
On Tue, 13 Apr 2004 15:34:33 -0500, Pat Flannery
wrote:



That's the Tang.
There was a really funny moment during one of the Gemini flights that I
caught live on television- one of the capcoms at ground control asked
one of the crew "How does the Tang taste?" and got the reply "It sure
doesn't taste like real orange juice to me...."*
This being covered on the network (I forget which one) that's space
coverage was sponsored by Tang, and whose announcer had a big "Tang"
sticker on the front of his desk. He looked very sheepish.

* Okay whizz kids, somebody dig out all the Gemini flight transcripts
and start looking; this is a first-hand story, not an urban myth.

Pat

I never heard about the Gemini mission, but IIRC, there was a magic
moment on Apollo 16 when John Young "accidentally" left his mike open
and the whole world listened to the crew, um, BLESS the Tang. Until
then, it had been advertised as what the astronauts drank. That
campaign did not last much longer.

I think I remember that day: I was watching the live feed from the
Moon when my dad barged in and wanted to turn it off. "Dad, what are
you talking about?" I pleaded. "It's the Moon!" But he didn't want
me to here all the curse words (I was seven or eight at the time).

For all the BLEEP good it did.

I'm pretty certain that the "orange drink" episode wasn't carried live
on TV -- it happened about an hour and a half after the end of EVA-1.
Tang was never mentioned, though oranges were. And it really was an
accidental hot mike -- you've never heard anyone sound as sheepish as
Young did after he was informed about the hot mike.

From memory, the "juicy" part of the transmission was:

"I got the farts again, Charlie... I haven't drank this much citrus in
20 years, and in another 12 ****ing days, I ain't NEVER drinking any
more. I mean, I like an occasional orange -- really do. But I'll be
damned if I'm going to be buried in oranges!"

Doug

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 16:06:27 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

Bzzzzzzzt. You don't even get a copy of the home game.

There were other *channels* (PBS, the odd independent), but there
weren't any other *networks*, a significant distinction.

Acftually, there was no PBS at the time- it was called NET

Dale

In article , derekl1963
@nospamyahoo.com says...
Kevin Willoughby wrote:

(I can't say anything about CBS or NBC. There
weren't any other tv channels back then...)
There were other *channels* (PBS, the odd independent), but there
weren't any other *networks*, a significant distinction.

Maybe where you lived, but where I lived, in the late 1960s, there was
the CBS channel, the NBC channel and the ABC channel.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 16:06:27 GMT, (Derek
Lyons) wrote:

Kevin Willoughby wrote:

My most valued VHS tape is six hours of ABC's coverage of Apollo 11.
This network clearly displays a Tang bottle cap on the anchor desk of
much of its coverage. (I can't say anything about CBS or NBC. There
weren't any other tv channels back then...)

Bzzzzzzzt. You don't even get a copy of the home game.

There were other *channels* (PBS, the odd independent), but there
weren't any other *networks*, a significant distinction.

....I have to come to Kev's defense here a bit, Derek. Back in 1969,
from about 1/5 of the US population, there may have actually been only
"one network" because there may have been only one or two stations in
their local area. One station was either Pee-BS or an independent,
while the other carried one or more of the networks' programming,
sometimes tape delaying one network's shows for airing later in the
evening or even in the week. In those days, especially in areas where
cable TV had not arrived and/or was not going to be an option thanks
to some of the rural Bell System companies refusing to allow the use
of their phone poles for cable stringing, the one local station could
work out some really sweet deals with the networks as to what
programming they would or would not carry.

CIP: Until 1964, KTBC-TV was the only TV station in Central Texas that
had any serious wattage to it. KCEN (Temple/Belton/Killeen) and KWTX
(Temple-Waco) had some coverage, but only about half the wattage that
KTBC had. Of course, part of this had to do with the fact that LBJ
owned the station, and it's well known around these parts that he
pulled a lot of strings while in DC to keep other stations from
opening in the Austin market for years. The biggest arguement was
that, because his station was smack-dab in the middle of the VHF dial,
there would be constant bleedover problems if any other high-powered
stations were allowed in the other two clear channels available at the
time - 3 and 4. 4 soon became closed when WOAI (San Antonio) went the
TV route, and while 3 belonged to KRIS (Corpus Christi) even though
the distance was enough to make any Austin station's intereference
negligible, LBJ used the potential as an arguement to keep other
stations out of the market for almost 15 years.

....Still, Austin was the state capitol, and a booming market. As a
result, all three networks negotiated some really sweet deals for
programming with LBJ that, when you pull up old _TV Guides_ for this
area from 1954 to 1964, it looks like a Nick-At-Night addict's wet
dream. Even when KHFI(*) launched in 1964 on UHF 42 and took over the
NBC programming, the VHF 7 lineup of CBS & ABC was still far more
powerful. That year, only "Bonanza"(**) and "The Man From Uncle" (***)
had top-20 ratings in the local market, and ABC had the hold on the
college football contracts anyway. In the end, KTBC was the ratings
leader all the way up to fall of 1971, when the ABC affiliation went
to KVUE UHF 24.

(*) Chosen because their transmitter, although low-powered, was
engineered for hi-fi sound transmission. Not that they ever used it,
because any form of stereo broadcast that sounded worth a **** was
almost 20 years away...

(**) LBJ reportedly was a major fan of this show, and was seriously
****ed at NBC for moving their affiliation to KHFI.

(***) On the other hand, according to some of the old KTBC heads, he
*hated* this show, and would have probably not aired it had NBC been
affiliated the season it premiered. He did, ironically, like "Get
Smart". Go figure.

....It wasn't until three shots and at least one from a Grassy Knoll
put him in the White House that one local investor was able to get the
FCC to approve his request for a license. The trick this time,
however, was that the request was made for a UHF channel. Where LBJ's
engineers were successful in keeping a tight hold on the VHF channels,
UHF was a different story. Shorter range and different frequencies
meant the interference arguement held even less water than a sieve.
The FCC then opened up UHF channels 24, 36, 54 and 66 for the local
market, although it took years for 36 and 54 to see use, and those
took the arrival of two new networks to force that one into action.

....One addition bit that's come to light of late: one of the reasons
LBJ got away with a lot of the control he had on local tv station
allocations is that he compensated the public with one of the
cheapest, most reliable cable TV setups in history. For $5/month USD
circa 1965, you got 12 channels (&): all of Austin's, all of San
Antonio's, the two **** stations up around Waco, a rudimentarty
weather channel, and eventually one independent out of Dallas that
never did come in clearer than the A17 feed most of the time. That
rate held until the mid 70's, when they expanded to a 40+ channel
system. Even then, the rate only went to $13/month, and you got better
reception for the out-of-town channels until FinSyn screwed everything
up.

(&) Channel 6 wasn't exactly usable due to bleedover from 7 itself,
and from KCEN in Temple, who'd gotten a power boost by 5kw in 1966 and
could actually be picked up in the north parts of town if you had a
good mast antenna. So naturally, LBJ stuck both KCEN and KWTX there on
a shared basis!

....As for Pee-BS, odds were is that if there were two stations, one
was Pee-BS, and as far as the Apollo 11 landing was concerned they
didn't count. What coverage they provided, from what I've been able to
dig up, wasn't even taped for posterity, and over half of the Pee-BS
affiliates didn't even carry it save for the actual first walk so
local copies are virtually nonexistent. The local Pee-BS affiliate
here damn sure didn't have a copy, and the chief engineer who was a
tape op when that event happened vouched for the fact that the station
manager prohibited making a permanent 2" tape of the event because the
station couldn't afford to "waste the tape". Just goes to show when
you're dealing with preserving history, bean counters should be shot
on sight.

But I'm digressing way out of topic here. Suffice to say, cable TV
needs an LBJ running it now, dammit...


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 15:42:24 -0700, Dale wrote:

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 16:06:27 GMT, (Derek Lyons)
wrote:

Bzzzzzzzt. You don't even get a copy of the home game.

There were other *channels* (PBS, the odd independent), but there
weren't any other *networks*, a significant distinction.

Acftually, there was no PBS at the time- it was called NET

....Nope. Pee-BS was in existence by 1968, and by 1969 it had pretty
much absorbed NET. In fact, by 1973 all existing NET programming had
either been wiped(*) or had the end credits replaced with ones that
stated it was a PBS program. Which was a shame, because the three
drumming animated kids marching and spelling out NET was always a bit
cooler than what replaced it.

(*) Which meant that good, fun educational shows like Tony Salazan's
"Sing, Children Sing!" no longer exist, but by contrast really awful
shows like Senora Maria Elena Whatever's spanish language show that
every single kid in the mid to late 60's HATED with a passion because
she was so ****ING BORING also ceased to exist. Remember the geology
lessons in the first part of the E2M episode, before Dr. Silver was
recruited? Well, that's exactly how she taught spanish. No culture,
just linguistics, all being forced down the minds of kids who didn't
want to learn spanish to begin with.

....Incedentally, there was some justice in the end. In 1969, Senora
Whassername wound up retooling the show into a spanish knockoff of
"Sesame Street" called "Carrascolendas" that was actually quite
entertaining. The kicker was that she showed up on the first couple of
episodes, and when she attended the premier at some San Antonio
elementary and all the kids in the audience groaned, moaned and
otherwise showed their displeasure *only* when she showed up on the
screen, she took the hint and never appeared on the show again. She
wound up producing it for the entire run of the series, but thankfully
we kids never had to put up with her boredom instead.

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org
wrote:
...I have to come to Kev's defense here a bit, Derek. Back in 1969,
from about 1/5 of the US population, there may have actually been only
"one network" because there may have been only one or two stations in
their local area. One station was either Pee-BS or an independent,
while the other carried one or more of the networks' programming,

It never occurred to me that Jax FL, which was then just breaking out
of it's hick town mold, would in fact not be representative of the
bulk of the US. I plainly recall all three networks, plus PBS, plus
two indepedents.

D.
--
Touch-twice life. Eat. Drink. Laugh.

Invoking Tang forces me to post this link, as the song instantly
embeds itself on top of all other Noises in My Head:

http://www.tvdads.com/mp3/tangsong.mp3

(audio only - I don't own a film print chain)

Some day, I will take all the 16mm copies of the Tang commercials I
own and put them up on a site.

The resulting indictment of crimes against humanity I would face,
though, is daunting.

In article ,
om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy... _facility.org says...
(*) Chosen because their transmitter, although low-powered, was
engineered for hi-fi sound transmission. Not that they ever used it,
because any form of stereo broadcast that sounded worth a **** was
almost 20 years away...

For the folks who aren't TV fanatics: since the end of WW-II, TV has had
FM sound, of very high quality. (Armstrong's revenge against RCA!) Only
one channel back then, not stereo. Even with the 5 speakers in my living
room, I'd rather have good mono than crappy stereo.

Of course, if you feed crummy sound into a high quality channel, you
still have crummy sound. Back then, very little TV had good enough sound
to challenge those 2-inch speakers. Even today, there isn't much that
fully exploits the capabilities of TV sound.
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins