@1978
WDBJ TV Roanoke
Local Show: "Dialogue"
Host: "Ted Powers"
Show Premise: A community affairs call-in show featuring a topic for the week. Ted would sit beside a telephone on a sterile stage. People would call in to discuss the week's topic with Ted. You knew that there was a caller on the line when one of the lights on the line bar at the bottom of the telephone lit up. Ted would punch one of the line buttons, and the caller would begin a conversation.

On this particular evening, my dorm buddies and I were tuning in early as we were waiting for our weekly offering of MASH at 8:00. Ted had an open topic that evening. People could call and talk to Ted about any community issue.

Usually, this was quite entertaining in a charming Lake Woebegone-sort-of-way

"The garbage truck keeps spilling my trash, and I have to pick it up. What should I do?"

"My neighbor's dog barks all night long"

"Do you know where I can get a brooder chick incubator. I've looked everywhere, but no one seems to sell them around here."

Ted, puffing contemplatively on his pipe, was usually very patient and listened carefully to each comment. Sometimes he'd have a suggestion or sometimes he'd throw the question out to his expansive local television audience. Ted was the master of the community affairs domain. Wheeling a dealing answers like a ring master directing the circus.


Then one guy called

Ted spoke between puffs, [click] "Caller on line one, you're on the air." He punched the button on the phone, and all of Roanoke (that bothered to watch wise Ted) heard a man in a thick, slow drawl say, "T-eee-dddd, I ________ed your mother last night."

Ted immediately dropped his jaw and quickly hung up on the guy. He apologized to the viewers and continued on with the show like a true professional. Again he called for callers and the phone immediately lit up. Ted punched line one and said, "Caller on line one, you're on 'Dialogue." "T-ee-ddd, I ________ed your mother last."

[click]. Ted hung up. Red-faced, he explained that this was live television and sometimes pranksters, who have dubious moral fiber, think it's funny to make such calls. He thoroughly chastised the caller and apologized again to his attentive audience.

As God is my witness, Ted went back to the phone lines one more time, and sure enough the guy got through again, "T-eeee-dddd, I .[click]"

The normally unflappable Ted was red-faced and thoroughly embarrassed.

It happened; it really did.
[Post edited by Newt at 02/18/2018 1:01PM]