Midnight Special Infomercials

[jon]

A friend who works odd hours just mentioned watching an infomercial this morning around 2 a.m. advertising a DVD series of The Midnight Special, where Wolfman Jack was the announcer, and great Rock acts were seen each week, performing live.

I did a little research and it looks like an Andy Kaufman episode was the only one that ever previously made it to DVD, but is now out of print.

The web site is http://www.midnightspecial.com. I am very wary of the whole thing, as you get what you get, without any way to return individual items. And I couldn't find any list of contents for each DVD.

Plus, they are expensive and you are ordering from the U.S., which further complicates things legally and in terms of Returns and Shipping. I couldn't find any process for returning the whole set if you don't like it, let alone individual DVDs.

[Cliff Bashly Kinkade]

That sound you heard yesterday was a sigh from Gord Robson once he discovered that jonedmonton had a new obsession.

[jon]

As Jerry Lucky once said to me, "You can take the boy out of radio, but you can't take radio out of the boy."

I haven't been on the air since December 1974, but I still retain the love of Radio News writing that I developed when I was playing music I couldn't get excited about.

As I've said elsewhere, I really like the "Continuous Coverage" approach that KOL promised in the '60s, but never delivered. My idea of a one-man-show all night show is News as it develops at the end of the next song, but never repeating the same story unless you have something to add.

Gord, by the way, was doing splitters on Cool 8-80 on the weekend. The first one I heard was for Ed Mason's "Forgotten 45" which Ed does, live, around 7:10 a.m. every Friday morning. A busy schedule given that he has a full length newscast on CHED at 7:00 a.m. and a couple of minute newscast again at 7:15 a.m. on CHED.

[Cliff Bashly Kinkade]

That sound you just heard was Gord Robson gasping...

[glaherty]

Actually I have ordered and received 2 of the DVD's, they are very well
remastered, a lot of big name people, and nice to have in a collection. So
I guess we disagree there. The second DVD cost me all of S 9.95 U.S.

[jon]

Weird. The web site says, after the first $9.95 one, they are $19.95 each, plus an additional $3.95 Shipping and Handling.

Nice to have your review, as I couldn't find any on-line.

[jon]

I regularly listen to Wolfman Jack on Cool 8-80 and heard, for the first time just now, a commercial for the Midnight Special DVDs. Cleverly done, too, as it sounds much like the old "Tell 'em, Wolfie" girl and Wolfman commercials he used to do for his Golden Oldies LPs in the '60s on XERB.

But, of course, Wolfman has been dead for nearly 12 years, so they had to write it around what Wolfman audio clips they had. And, No, it was not done by a voice impressionist.