Question about narration for classic TV bumpers for movie broadcasts - how did they choose which actors to mention? (1 Viewer)

[Desslar]

Not entirely sure "bumper" is the correct term here, but in classic U.S. TV when a movie or TV movie broadcast came back from a commercial break there would usually be a brief clip of an announcer saying "And now back to (title), starring (star #1) and (star #2)." I guess that practice ended eventually, but I think it was still going at least deep into the 80s.

Anyway, I was watching a 1979 broadcast of a Madigan TV movie ("The Lisbon Beat") on Youtube, and I noticed something that I'd seen with with other old broadcasts: each time the announcer does his "And now back to.." bit, he mentions different actors appearing in the film. Richard Widmark is the main star of Madigan, and is mentioned in a few of these bumpers, but not curiously not every one.

So I wondered how they determined which actors to mention each time. Most ambitious: Did they have someone take notes on each scene of the film and write down when each actor appears for the first time, last time, when they have standout scenes, etc. and then have the announcer mention the actors that are most prominent in each upcoming scene?

Or maybe it was much simpler. Since they only had time to mention two names at each break, perhaps they just started at the top of the cast list and worked their way down it as the broadcast progressed? Or maybe they were required to mention each actor a certain number of times based on the level of their billing?

A trivial detail to be sure, but was curious why the top star would not be mentioned at every commercial break. Especially in the case of Madigan, which to my 2024 eyes did not have any notable stars other than Widmark.

 

[bmasters9]

Not entirely sure "bumper" is the correct term here, but in classic U.S. TV when a movie or TV movie broadcast came back from a commercial break there would usually be a brief clip of an announcer saying "And now back to (title), starring (star #1) and (star #2)." I guess that practice ended eventually, but I think it was still going at least deep into the 80s.

It was indeed, and "bumper" is the correct term, BTW-- however, the way I grew up with it, the bumpers going into the break are those that had the name of the film and its star(s) announced; take, for instance, this montage of the Star Tunnel from a 1983 ABC Movie Special broadcast of Saturday Night Fever. Included are...

--the opening of the broadcast w/the Star Tunnel (preceded by an ABC Closed-Captioned bumper);
--a bumper that basically says (unspoken), our movie begins right after this;
--one more short general bumper;
--then the commercial bumpers, two of which have Ernie Anderson saying, "Saturday Night Fever, tonight's ABC Movie Special, will continue in a moment," and one more between those two, where he says, "Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta, will continue in a moment";
--and finally, a closing bumper that has a slightly modified version of the last half of the opening, at least in the visuals, with the music remaining much the same.

This is how I grew up with it, and I take it you remember it somewhat likewise.

Here is everything I've described here...