Throwback Thursday: Eyewitness News 1980
With Eyewitness News celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, we've been trolling YouTube for some cool retro finds. The clip we are highlighting today packs a lot of punch: It has bumpers for the ABC Friday Night Movie, with a Disco-infused beat, commercials for jeans and the Barbara Walters Special, and an Eyewitness News brief with a much younger Ernie Anastos and the much-missed Rose Ann Scamardella. The big story that night? The looming 1980 transit strike.
Rose Anne and Ernie were a classic news duo, just like Chuck and Sue, who are still going strong over at Channel 4. Anastos left Eyewitness News in the late 80s, and bounced around the dial before landing at Fox 5. Scamardella briefly resurfaced on Channel 5 for a special segment several years ago, but has been MIA since the early 1980s on the New York dial. Which is lamentable, because we really liked her style and delivery. She was also the purported inspiration for Gilda Radner's character, Roseanne Roseannadanna, on "Saturday Night Live."
-- Rolando Pujol
Comments (2)
Wow... thank you for these old clips... i watched them when i was a kid... personally I'm still on the look out for the full "eleven alive" campaign video...
-bb
Actually, it was Ms. Scamardella's name that was a natural for spoofing - as was the case with Ms. Radner's outrageous, earthy character. Who knew at the time of this clip that the real Rose Ann would be witness to one of the more infamous "EWN" moments (think Roger Grimsby's ending "We're Number One" comment).