Holy Crap Was I Skinny! Video Found As I Clean

PM Magazine/Buffalo hosts Jan Stager and Geoff Fox - circa 1980

Jan Stager and I hosted PM Magazine/Buffalo starting in September 1980. She was great. We don’t speak often enough, but remain friends.

Jan was from Kent, Ohio and had worked in Wasau and Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Me… well, you know.

This episode looks to be early on, possibly Fall 1980. I had been working in TV a matter of weeks or months by then!

I was so skinny the Buffalo Evening News’ TV critic said Chef Tell should fatten me up! Suggestion taken.

Also, please note the hair hat. That is not what my hair wants to do.

Here’s the way the show worked. Sometimes you had local stories, but most of the time the hosts introduced stories ‘on the reel’ from other stations.

We’d look at the list on totally unrelated stories scheduled on any given show, then find a location that might tie-in to some or all of them.

Right.

That was the goal.

The connections were often tenuous.

For each story, which of course we hadn’t seen, there’d be a suggested script. We’d look at the script, find out from the producer how much time was allotted, then ad lib our ‘ins-and-outs.’

TelePrompter? We don’t need no stinkin’ TelePrompter!

Unearthing My Past


The dumpster in our driveway is getting fuller! More and more stuff is moving up the back stairs, around the side of the house and into its final resting place.

Helaine called me downstairs for a discovery. While tossing and moving, she unearthed this ‘classic’ 1981 bus card, showing Jan Stager and me, hosts of PM Magazine/Buffalo.

Helaine ventured a guess about how much less I weighed when the ad was put together. Grrrrr.

I have to find a place for this bit of “Geoff-o-billia.” It certainly won’t get tossed.