WHBF Channel 4 Rock Island Illinois News intro from 1981 with Paul Meinke and Wendy Ellis

01/21/2008 ... Just dropping a note to thank you for bringing back some great memories of the ol' "4 action news" team!!!!

I worked at WHBF back in '76-"78 running camera for Paul, Wendy and Don. They were constantly cutting up off camera.

One of my favorite memories was back in early '77......There were usually 2 camera ops on duty. At approx 8:30 pm each night we would tape the teaser for the 10pm cast. As usual, I went in to set up the cameras, Paul came in and did his thing. What was unusal for this night, was Paul needed a couple of takes to get it right. During one of the takes...Paul dropped a little S-bomb. No biggie.....We would just ran the good take.

About 9pm the promo runs....Paul smiling, telling about this and that and finally."........and President Jimmy Carter says aww. sh*t."

Of course the phones start lighting up.....the guys in TV conrol are going nuts laughing and at 10 pm Paul starts his newscast with a sheepish apology. Live TV!!!! Gotta love it!!!!

Sincerely

Tim Leslie

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