{"id":3269,"date":"2012-05-11T06:12:58","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T12:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/?p=3269"},"modified":"2012-05-11T06:12:58","modified_gmt":"2012-05-11T12:12:58","slug":"meet-explorer-earl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/2012\/05\/11\/meet-explorer-earl\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Explorer Earl"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DorkOkay, I only thought<\/em> this stuff was buried under a mile of soft peat somewhere.<\/p>\n

Sometime in 1994, at the first TV station where I worked, I got shanghaied into being on-air talent during kids’ programming. Our kids’ club talent had just left, and there was a perfect storm brewing:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Humane Society did pet-of-the-week spots in our kids’ programming, which helped the station to fulfill its “local public service” quota. Those spots now had no host.<\/li>\n
  2. The station had just gotten a pith helmet in a National Geographic promo kit.<\/li>\n
  3. I was already on the payroll.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With no contract, no additional pay, and no perks, I was suddenly… Explorer Earl. <\/p>\n

    Now, I should point out that I was already no stranger to making a fool of myself in front of a camera<\/a>, and so perhaps I wasn’t thinking clearly when I said “sure, I’ll do it,” but now I was making a fool of myself before a much larger<\/em> audience (even the last-rated station outstripped the cable access channel… well… most of the time; production values, on the other hand, were about equal between the two).<\/p>\n

    I was Explorer Earl for the better part of a year. I seem to remember that there was a promo shoot that everyone but<\/em> me was aware of, and my failing to show up meant that Explorer Earl simply never returned from the jungle one day. I’d pissed off the wrong folks. (When I returned to the Fort Smith market a few years later, of course, I emerged from the jungle and said “Mr. Livingston, I presume?” Okay, bad inside joke.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

    It was okay, I got kitties out of the deal.<\/p>\n

    I was combing through the directory of flash videos in my work section and found these; I’d completely forgotten that I had digitized them. (Timestamps on the files say I Sorenson Squeezed them in 2006 – probably something I did right after I got my Avid.)<\/p>\n

    So now, much to my immense embarrassment, I present you a chapter of Fort Smith TV history best forgotten: the short-lived adventures of Explorer Earl.<\/p>\n

    Spot #1 – the golden lab pup<\/a>
    \n    Spot #2 – the sad, sad dog<\/a>
    \n    Spot #3 – the cat who couldn’t be adopted<\/a>
    \n    Spot #4 – the cat who wouldn’t stay still<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

    Go easy on me. I was young. I needed the money… of which there really wasn’t any.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Okay, I only thought this stuff was buried under a mile of soft peat somewhere. Sometime in 1994, at the first TV station where I worked, I got shanghaied into being on-air talent during kids’ programming. Our kids’ club talent had just left, and there was a perfect storm brewing: The Humane Society did pet-of-the-week spots in our kids’ programming, which helped the station to fulfill its “local public service” quota. Those spots now had no host. The station had just gotten a pith helmet in a National Geographic promo kit. I was already on the payroll. With no contract, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,7],"tags":[55],"class_list":["post-3269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critters","category-funny-stuff","category-toiling-in-the-pixel-mines","tag-the-pharis-wheel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelogbook.com\/earl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}