Baseball and burgers

Film breaks were a frequent problem at AFTV-22. The projection equipment was old and not well maintained. Splicing and re-spooling the film could be a nightmare.

My AFTV-22 colleague Sgt. Chuck Minx, who reads this blog, e-mailed me this morning with a story he remembers. He recounts the tale well, so here are his words:

"Back in the days before videotape was commonplace, or communications satellites existed, or color TV was the norm (and, yes, there were such days), we in the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service stationed overseas used to air baseball games on 16mm one-mil mylar film, about as thick as thin audiotape and much thinner than regular movie film. A complete three-hour baseball game would fit comfortably on a single standard 16mm film reel.

"Being typical Air Force slackers, after we got the game on the air we would sprint to the bowling alley next door to enjoy beer and hamburgers while the film projector ground on, a lonely toiler in a deserted TV station. We monitored the game on the bowling alley TV just to make sure that everything was OK.

"One Sunday afternoon we followed this procedure as usual, and as the game wound down to the last inning we came back to the studio in time to get us into the following show. I switched us through the break and went down to telecine to take down the game ­­ but the game was already down.

"Now it must be understood that this aforementioned mylar film was a very special medium and could be spliced only with sticky tape. Regular film cement only made a tenuous and temporary splice. The last person to handle this game film was evidently unaware of this requirement and attached the academy leader with film cement, as was his usual practice. The splice managed to hold together through the gate and over the sound drum, so the sound and picture of the game went on the air OK. But the bad splice parted somewhere between the last sprocket wheel and the take-up reel.

"While we were refreshing ourselves for hours at the bowling alley, the projector was diligently unspooling the entire baseball game. A tangled haystack of film was forming waist-deep on the floor.

"AFTV-22 had a very nice German fellow to handle all the film duties: cleaning, splicing, shipping, timing, etc. We looked at the film haystack, convinced ourselves that it really wasn't our responsibility, grabbed it up as best we could and transported it to the film room floor. We left a note for the film guy, explaining the problem, and forgot all about it.

"A few weeks later I was berated by an irate station manager, who had just himself been berated by the base commander, who had been berated by his superior, because the baseball game, which had been shipped on to the AFTV station in Berlin, had been aired with an unusual problem. Our film guy had spliced the academy leader to the wrong end of the haystack, wound the film onto a reel, and sent it on to Berlin. When Berlin aired it, the game came on upside down and backwards."

Thanks, Chuck, for sharing the story. The only thing I'll add is that the base bowling alley at Spangdahlem served the tastiest burgers I ever had in the USAF.