#afrts

 AFRTS Saigon – Gary Owens – The Music Guy Show – August 1967 From the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, Saigon, South Vietnam. The Music Guy Show with Gary Owens was broadcast on Armed Forces Radio & Television to give servicemen & women a musical taste of home. Middle of the road music, comedy bits, and of course Gary Owens (of Laugh-In fame). Not very much Rock & Roll in the…

The Thomas Whetston Collection: Tom Campbell Stateside on AFRTS #2

Contributor Thom Whetston says this is one of hundreds of recordings of Armed Forces Radio – some from LP, some from tape, here’s one that took a bit of time to nail down. I think this is from 1972. This is based upon the music contained herein. Guessing here, because the programs were not dated, there likely was a bit of lag time between when a song was released and when AFRTS decided to play it…

Wolfman Jack Radio Show | 1976

    Let’s clap for the Wolfman!!!

  “Wolfman Jack” was one of radio’s most distinctive voices. Thanks to XERF and later XERB, the Wolfman reached most of the southwestern United States while selling everything from soft drinks to coffins. In 1969, the Wolfman returned to America and KDAY in Los Angeles. The following year, he began an association with Armed Forces Radio that would last until…

Bill Jackson Discusses His New Book “Kid Show: My World of Imagination” @GolfArlingtontx @Svengoolie #BillJackson

By Tom Ward

Pop Culture Contributor

On behalf 0f Golf Center of Arlington 

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking with Bill Jackson, whom baby boomers will fondly remember from his iconic television shows “Cartoon Town”, “BJ and the Dirty Dragon” and “Gigglesnort Hotel”. Jackson is a beloved American TV personality best known to generations of children throughout the 1960s and ‘70s first in…

Insight into what I thought television was until about age 10:

1.) The Department of Defense has an encoded television/ radio broadcasting network called AFRTS. For military personnel on base overseas, you get about 7 channels of this programming. One just shows Pentagon press conferences. Growing up on base, these were the only TV channels I thought existed. In the world.

2.) In the 90's, the stations would go off the air at night with the above sign-off. No one since has ever made a clip with a higher density of patriotic imagery. I thought all TV stations went off the air at night. In the 1990's.

3.) Because it was a government owned network, there were no commercial advertisements. Instead, there were extremely low-budget public service announcements addressing topics such as: base curfew laws (if you break curfew you get banned from AAFES oh noooo), what to do if you get captured by the enemy, holiday pep-talks from the base commander, and what expenses could be charged to a government credit card. I had NO concept of marketing for a very long time.

4.) In the 90's, the "entertainment" component of the programming was called Flashback and consisted of shows that were popular in the 1960's and 70's. I thought that Gilligan's Island, Happy Days, and M*A*S*H were generally reflective of contemporary American culture.