Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 26

6C. May 13, 1985 Minneapolis Star and Tribune EES3 r-J Dear Abby COLEMAN: TCN's time has finally come 'AM sf irs My husband rode with me once and said, "Never again it's sulcldalT Don't use my name. I need this job. Driven (Nuts) In Wisconsin Dear Abby: Two gold medals for those parents who made their kids walk to school because they caused a disturbance on the school bus. As a school bus driver, I wish there were more parents like them.

Parents don't realize how much dan-, ger is Involved when kids misbehave on a school bus. I have my back turned to at least 50 children, and it's not easy to keep track of who's doing what One junior high school student threw his metal lunch bucket at another boy, missed him and hit me In the head. I was dazed and went off the road, but fortunately I was able to recover in time to keep from going off a bridge! What a terrible tragedy that could have been! I wish more parents would back up the bus drivers and teachers. New Hampshire Bus Driver Dear Abby: You will probably get plenty of mail telling you how cruel you are, so I want you to know that I'm on your side. Those parents deserve congratulations for teaching their children to respect rules and regulations and people In authority.

we had more parents like them, we wouldn't have to build bigger prisons. San Franciscan Abby says: My mall has been running 100-to-l in favor of the parents. For a personal reply, enclose a self addressed, stamped envelope, ta Abby In care tf the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 425 Portland Av. Minneapolis, Minn. S5488.

cVh n.n 1 i fill r.r. Bruce Cabot and Paul Newman in superpatriotic station; soon WTCN to name a broadcasting outlet after the country. But that was before Gannett burst on the scene. Gannett isn't afraid to stand up for America, particularly if standing up for America can be made into an effective marketing tool. "We've had our sights set on those call letters for a long time," Kirby said.

"And we don't mind the connotations of the letters USA. We already have red, white and blue as our colors so we don't have any objections to being tied to that concept at all." But Kirby was quick to say that Channel 11 doesn't intend to become an unthinking flag-waver just because it calls itself USA. "We don't plan to change our on-air presentations," he said. "We don't plan to become a super-patriotic operation. We won't say the president is right no matter what he says.

But we do try to get involved in the community and the community can be the Twin Cities or Minnesota or it can expand to the nation. We're going to continue in the same vein we've been going. We just think the IToday's TV 5 stood for Twin Cities Newspapers and originally were used for Channel 4 when that station was owned by the Minneapolis and St Paul newspapers. When Channel 4 adopted WCCO as its call letters, WTCN was adopted as the name of the new independent station in the Twin Cities. Keeping the call letters alive was a good move 30 years ago but they have outlived their usefulness.

When Gannett bought WTCN for $75 million, one of its first thoughts was to change the station's name to WUSA. The move was delayed, however, for two reasons. First, the new owners were preoccupied with trying to create a credible news organization where none had existed. And secondly, the USA cable network was suing another Gannett station in Denver (where Franzgrote used to be station manager) which bad changed its name from KBTV to KUSA. The cable network recently lost its challenge, freeing Channel 11 to request the Federal Communications Commission to approve a name change to WUSA.

One might argue that Channel 11 should have looked for new call letters that have more to do with Minnesota. But most of the obvious combinations were already taken. KMSP, for instance, stands for Minneapolis-St Paul. KSTP, of course, stands for St. Paul.

(WCCO stands for the Washburn Crosby Company, a grain milling firm that helped bankroll early broadcasting efforts). And in radio, WMIN-AM stands for Minnesota and KTCZ-FM stand for The Cities. So, unless it wanted to try WMNN or WBRR or something equally confusing, Channel 1 1 had to make a bolder move. Tom Kirby, Channel H's vice president for news, said the station hopes that WUSA will become as memorable as WXYZ in Detroit, WABC in New York or KABC in Los Angeles. "Everybody wants memorable call letters," Kirby said.

"There really aren't that many memorable ones and USA, of course, is one. I really don't know why nobody has taken them before." One reason could be that no one's had the chutzpah before. In 1970, Paul Newman starred in a rather bad movie called "WUSA" about a super-patriotic radio station. At that time, the film's producers probably assumed no one would have the gall Continued from page 1C admitted that It makes a certain amount of sense. For one thing, Gannett is the outfit that publishes USA Today, the junkfood of the newspaper world, and the megamedia company seems to be bent on expropriating the country's initials for itself.

For another thing, the station has literally been wearing Old Glory on its sleeves since Gannett took over two years ago and outfitted its employees in red, white and blue jackets and made its news sets look like a Betsy Ross fantasy. It also makes sense on a more fundamental level. Although Channel 11 president Joe Franzgrote admitted that the call letters WTCN "have served Channel 11 and the community well," It's also true that they came to represent a rather weak, independent TV station with little commitment to covering the news in the Twin Cities and Minnesota. Even though Channel 11 became an NBC affiliate during the Great Affiliation Switch of 1979, its former owners, Metromedia, were less than successful at improving the station's news reputation. Since Gannett bought the station in April 1983, Channel 11 has changed radically and largely succeeded in fielding a competitive news team, one that has begun to make Inroads in the war for local news ratings.

Although the letters WTCN were traditional call letters, they no longer seemed to fit the station. In fact, the TCN in WTCN originally Make It a Seville Special Weekend $0795 Out ot Town? For fteawMttom, Cal Direct Tol Frt (Outside MUm.) V80OM9-7947 Seville MMsndHwylOO (612)830-1300 fn SSM ght.iiimiprioroerioom Dear Abby: Three cheers for the parents who made their sons walk to school and back (a total of 14 miles) for five days when the boys were suspended from the school bus for bad behavior. A man wrote in accusing those parents of "child abuse." Baloney! Thanks, Abby, for saying you thought the parents should be cloned, not criticized. Our 13-year-old son was kicked off the school bus for three days for roughhouslng. The streets and roads where we live are impossible to walk on and there are no sidewalks, so I drove him.

However, he had to pay me the going rate for taxi service. Be hated to part with his own money, but he had no choice. You had better believe that kid never roughhoused on the school bus again. Mom Abby says: Stay tuned for a few words from two bus drivers: Dear Abby: I applaud those parents. I drive high school, junior high and elementary school children.

I have 72 lives in my hands, and when I have to keep looking in my rearview to see which kids are ripping up the seats, fighting and throwing things, I can't drive and watch the road the way I should. In. our system, a child has to be "written up" three times for bad conduct before he is suspended. Mpst kids don't care if they're suspended because either their parents will drive them, or they'll just stay home from school. I'd love to see parents ride the school bus with their kids just once.

They'd never want my job. Is WtM America Acrylic Painting Lap Sesame StreetQ Quilting The Price Is Right The Young and the Restless Alt-Star BHtz Family Feud Ryan's Hope Loving Fantasy Island All in Family Every Second Wheel of Fortune Scrabble a Deal Search T'morrow Jimmy Swaggart JlmBakker CwtamUsMfoot19S5. i Hudson Barbara Rush the 1970 film "WUSA," about will change Its name to WUSA-. new call letters are very easy to remember." As far as I know, the call letter WMAP, standing for Mom and Apple Pie, are still available. "4 Kirby reported that Channel 11 has hired a new anchor woman; Kirsten Lindquist The 30-year-old Lindquist formerly with Ted Turner's Cable News Network bureau in Los Angeles, will co-anchor Channel U's 5 p.m.

news report with Paul Magers next month when the station splits its hour-long newscast at 5 into two hour segments at 5 and.0. Diana Pierce will co-anchor with Magers at 6 and at 10 p.m. The move, which has been expected, will allow Channel 11 to conform with the news schedules pi 'ltsV-'' competitors at Channels 4 and 3. The "NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw" will be moved from 6 p.m., where it has had dreadful ratings, to the 5:30 slot where It will be up against the ABC and CBS Network news shows instead of the local news programs on WCCO and KSTP. 1 lfff 1 feffi I Slums Street Electric j-a-t Contact Company.

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And ihc mure her family harassed her. the more difficult it was. Ilarhara enrolled in the Fortunate Life Center Program because, "their weight loss plan is the best." she says. "I couldn't have done it without the every day counseling from the Fortunate Life Weight ow Counselors. They never scolded mc hut used positive reinforcement.

Ilarhara lost over 31 pounds and says that Fortunate Life solved her problem and wc can solve yours too. Hall Continued from page 1C Everybody has a gang, I don't mean like a street gang, all tough guys, murdering people, just your own gang that you belong to. Here's this -guy on television, on 'Happy what's his name, Henry Winkler, playing a teen-age kid he's 39 years old. I did a kid from age IS to 38." Although best known as the Bowery Boys, the collection of actors started as the Dead End Kids in the 1937 movie "Dead End," starring Humphrey Bogart Later known as the Little Tough Guys and then the Eastslde Kids, the group, with much turnover, became the Bowery Boys the late 1940s and had done 90 movies when they finally packed up in 1958. "We did a scene in one or two takes.

We did those pictures in two ad lib 60 percent of the script," Hall said. "You know, I got hurt in every -single one of those movies. Every one." And yes, it hurt when Gorcey roughed Satch up, hitting him withe famous Gorcey hat with the brim pinned up in front, not that Satch stood for much abuse. "If Leo was hung over or he'd been having trouble with his wife, he'd punch too hard. One time I let him have it, boom.

He was OK after that, until the next time he had a problem." His search produced a cigarette. He got it lit, but not very well, and it went out Never mind, the cigarette was just a prop to use in gesturing. "I'll tell you a story about Leo. Not everybody knows It, but he was a very religious man. Leo went to church every Sunday," Hall said.

Gorcey was a sexton and especially devoted to passing the collection basket "If somebody put in a quarter, Lea'd take the basket and -say 'Hey, what's this? Come on, ya piker, put in a "He was always afraid somebody was gonna try to rob the church, steal the basket and he carried a gun right in a holster on his hip." Gorcey had arranged for a money vault to be built into the ground behind the church, and routinely took the collections out back and i deposited them there. On one occasion, Satch and the other worshippers heard three shots and rushed out assuming Gorcey's worst fears had been realized and the basket had been robbed, only to find Gorcey standing over a bullet-riddled snake, who, Gorcey. claimed, had been trying to get at the money. Hall talked about working with retarded kids, about Milton Berte doing free shows for (old) about the terrible state the country is in, with poverty, he thinks, run rampant "I dont blame Mr. Reagan for it He's just the president He's not a dictator.

It's the senators and the congressmen." (Hall did two movies with Ronald Reagan.) Hall talked about the sad state of everything, especially comedy. Today It's all "blow-ups and car crashes," he said. "Woody Allen and Richard Pryor are two of the greats. Ya know, to be a good comedian, you' have to be a great actor. It's easy to get a tear.

It's hard to get a laugh," -he said, and asked a red-faced, boozy man at the next table, who had been trying to edge over for the past five minutes, "Whatta you want? You wanna check Into a motel I had." ROSEVILLE 631-3293 RIDGEDALE (MTKA) 545-3373 BLOOMINGTON 884-3104 BROOKLYN 566-2277 FonuiMi? Life 1 Exnbcrcfer Royal Combo now Regularly $4.10 A lot of meal. little ptice. Generous 6 oz. of our lean chopped beef the finest chopped beef steak you'll ever enjoy. It's char -broiled, then covered with melted cheese and crispy bacon.

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