Stand By for Auction
The strange way WVIZ-TV went into the black.
By Rodney E. Griffith
I was bleeding from my inner ear. I was barely through Kindergarten and had no idea why this was happening; it didn’t seem normal then or now. I remained motionless with my head against a cushion as my mother put the prescribed eardrops in. She instructed me to lie still on the couch until I heard the kitchen timer, so I watched Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood conclude while waiting for a buzzer to sound. Since it was a fixture of a suburban kitchen, not the set of a game show, the timer’s bell dinged beneath my notice as I continued to watch television at an uncomfortable angle.
Instead of the handful of promos that always preceded The Electric Company, an overexcited woman appeared in a live studio in the centre of a crude cutout, exclaiming “Five minutes ’til auction!” (I think she was irised in, not unlike Porky Pig, cutting to a music bed between updates.) So far as I was aware, PBS affiliates never preempted their shows, unlike the way the three Cleveland network affiliates would drop network programming on a whim (whims that, with great likelihood, involved a series of backhanders to station managers). I was increasingly alert as each minute elapsed with an updated countdown marker.
Thus I was introduced to WVIZ’s annual televised auction, part of its cycle of local fundraisers as a Public Broadcasting Service affiliate. Revenues distributed by the The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (created during the Johnson administration) only covered a percentage of a local PBS affiliate’s budget, so the station was charged with raising funds for the rest. For several nights over the course of the following 10 days, programming (like Wall Street Week or The Goodies) was interrupted for an all-night block dedicated to this single event. (The weekday coverage was from 5 p.m. until past midnight with an earlier start on the weekends.)
As a child I habitually watched game shows, which at the time seemed the only area in which intelligence was rewarded (this goes some way to illustrating what a borderline psychologically abusive educational environment the local schools were; agreement or disagreement with the man who voiced Underdog or predicting how Elaine Joyce would fill in statements about Old Man Glass should not have constituted intellectual fulfilment or a good childhood; on the other hand, the idea that being smarter or more clever had potential for a multi-thousand dollar payout was a better draw than being punched and threatened repeatedly for 12 years, so your mileage, as they used to say on the internet, may vary). The continual description and display of different items available for a competitive offer, plus the goofy clattering of off-camera horns when a winning bid was announced, made it seem unpredictable and gamelike. It was a strange way to go into the black—the license fee for the BBC seems dignified and fuss-free in comparison—but the auction had become, in a few short years, a local tradition (at least to public TV viewers).
Viewers and local companies donated items (as far as I recall, this constituted a tax-deductible donation) which were sorted into rough categories and listed on customised, gridded chalkboards framed in primary colours. I began watching the auction with a trainspotter’s eye and quickly cottoned onto the repeating patterns: presentation of “A” board, presentation of “B” board, presentation of “C” board, recap of current bids on A, presentation of the “Kwickie” board—so named because all of its items were gift certificates or intangible services, thus nothing to display. (As Nelson Muntz noted, it’s a quicker way of spelling “quick”.) Then presentation of the “X” board (why “X” and not the more locally appropriate “Z” remains a mystery, unless Cleveland was beholden to an established PBS naming convention; WVIZ was not alone in staging an annual televised auction). A review of the “B” board, then announcing the winners of the “A” board’s items, and so on in a repeating cycle. Later in the evening there were more prestigious boards named Tonight or the Big Board featuring big ticket items like getaways and cars.
Such outliers aside, the actual items up for bids were consistently stodgy, which made the childhood appeal even more baffling in retrospect considering how donated items invariably seemed like unattractive old furniture, drab paintings and abandoned sculpture, like future decor for a 1980s chain restaurant. On the odd occasion that something relatable from the modern era formed a viewer’s donation, such items were treated dismissively and without detail (e.g. “here’s a bundle of vintage comic books, from…some year, probably 1939-1958. Donor value $20”). It was considerably before Goldmine price guides became a common U.S. reference and decades before the existence of Discogs, so any popular music met with the same uncaring estimation (e.g. “a stack of 78s,” not “a rare acetate with commercially unreleased tracks” or “a complete set of Capitol 4-track cartridges”). At best you might see some early Elvis or Sinatra memorabilia and the same casual disregard held true with films—this was also before home video had significant traction, but any associated film memorabilia invariably had the tacky sensation of someone’s yard sale or a hoarder’s estate. With hindsight it’s easier to see this as an example of the kind of intellectual haughtiness that was associated with PBS. It was a dichotomy the 1970s couldn’t resolve, especially in a detached media market like Cleveland’s. As an auction experience, it was no Sotheby’s.
As television, it was unpolished yet compelling to watch in part because it all took place live in the studio—the auctions anticipated home shopping and eBay in one sweep, but it was live television with minimal set dressing, a rarity in the 1970s and almost unheard of now, even on public television1. For some, watching the repeating patterns of the WVIZ auction was probably like an early version of the Oddly Satisfying phenomenon.
Even the auction’s regular presenters appeared in predictable stages (both day-to-day and year-by-year), beginning with the introductory address delivered by Betty Cope, WVIZ’s founder/first President/General Manager, simultaneously filling both the Guy Caballero and Edith Prickley roles, albeit with a sense of absolute altruism. Art and furniture items were presented by local experts Ralph and Terry Kovel, other antiques fell to numismatologist Myron Xenos, and WVIZ’s host for local high school sports events, Mike Massa, exclusively presented the Kwickie board. To emphasise the public good aspect of the campaign, local TV and radio personalities were drafted to be presenters. Even to a young eye they usually seemed uncomfortable outside of their element.
Borrowed for the auction’s nightly opening theme (back in the days where local radio and TV stations could brazenly sync popular records for local advertising and promotion purposes regardless of the appropriateness, colouring way outside the lines provided by the mechanical license) was “Cobwebs and Strange”, Keith Moon’s composition from The Who’s 2nd LP (known in the US as Happy Jack but more widely recognized under its given title A Quick One). As an adult I wondered if this sudden bump in royalties every May from daily airplay in one local market struck him (or his manager) as odd. As a selection it was safely chosen in that it was overwhelmingly unlikely that anyone on staff at the major local rock stations would have recognised it. Other selections bookended the proceedings: the closing day interspersed Andrew Gold’s “Thank You for Being a Friend” over a montage of (probably exhausted and over-caffeinated) volunteers, many years before it was cashed in for endless sitcom repeats, while the Monday-after retrospectives2 closed with the end of “The End” (the one from Abbey Road, not The Doors). The board review/teasers also leaned heavily on early 1970s pop songs (e.g. Sugarloaf’s “Green-Eyed Lady”) embellished with embarrassing, goofy AM radio announcer-style voiceovers urging viewers to phone in a bid now! These teasers were replayed endlessly over the auction’s first 10 years, even after references to Glen Campbell’s variety show and other artefacts of the early 1970s had long passed. None of this would fly today, but to a kid, this was a Rosetta Stone in miniature, archeological evidence of a once-rich popular culture that was now barren enough that a Public Television auction was markedly more compelling viewing than anything US local and network TV had on offer.
Being underage with no checking account, I was ineligible to place a bid. I once pestered my mother to contribute to a pledge drive, but she refused, aware that the premium’s value was far overshadowed by the pledge amount. (Like public television, Mom had a careful eye on the budget.) I wasn’t entirely clear about the auction’s purchase rules (I think, apart from the Kwickie board gift vouchers, winners had to either post a check or remit in person and collect their items from the station’s Brookpark Road studios). By the time I was an adult, I didn’t take the opportunity to volunteer (by then, there were more than enough ringing phones in my everyday life) and seldom remembered when the auction was set to air. My wife, on seeing a few minutes of the WVIZ auction in its later days, said “I can’t believe anyone would willingly watch this.” My defence was that it was the 1970s, there was nothing else on, and I wasn’t allowed to leave the house.
Like much live television, the WVIZ auctions are, barring some unlikely trove, lost media. It could very well be that all that exists from the WVIZ auctions is some B-roll footage and Ideastream’s clip reel, because there would have been no incentive for any station, particularly an ostensibly noncommercial entity, to archive any routine segments over the years given the strict accounting, cost of media storage, and the fact that the footage could never be reaired.
1 WVIZ’s auction ended shortly after it had completed its fiftieth appearance.
2 Airing at 7:30 p.m. on the day after the final Sunday broadcast, this was essentially a clip show presented by Cope and Massa on the auction’s empty, confettied set.
©2023 Rodney E. Griffith. All rights reserved.
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