Saturday, July 5, 2008

RIP Dan Cook

If you've worked in Texas television - or maybe even if you haven't - you may know the legend that was Dan Cook. Dan was sports director at KENS-TV in San Antonio from 1956 to 2000. He was also a sports columnist for the San Antonio Express News. He passed away on Thursday at the age of 81.

I worked with Dan from 1998 to 2000. He was a kind man with a great sense of humor. I only worked with him a few times one on one - but he was always great and as I remember fondly -- he did not want makeup on our fancy shoots! When I arrived at KENS - the anchor team of Chris Marrou, Albert Flores and Dan Cook had been working together for 20-25 years.

One day - on a shoot downtown, we took the team into a restaurant to get out of the San Antonio heat. You should have seen the face of the owner - who couldn't believe the 10 o'clock news had just walked into his place! These people were legends. Dan was always great with fans and his sense of humor always came through.

When we were shooting the promo for his retirement - we set up a moving van in the background for Dan to talk in front of as crazy objects were carted into the van. Per the script, the new sports director Joe Reinagel was to walk up and Dan would say "And you'll be left in good hands with my friend Joe Reinagel." Dan delivered his line into the camera, shook Joe's hand and added one final word, in perfect Dan Cook comic timing:

"Asshole."

With that - I say goodbye to Mr. Cook. I was saddened to hear of his passing and I encourage each of you to check out the story from KENS-TV on his passing.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/multimedia/KENSVideo/index.html?bclid=1127701735&bctid=1646146999

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

It is no wonder...

... viewers now laugh at our promos. Ratings down? It can't have ANYTHING to do with this type of thing, can it??

Monday, June 30, 2008

YOU MUST WATCH THIS NOW!

Chime In

Here is part of NBC's new branding campaign. Thoughts?

New HD Spots

UPDATE: The aspect ratio has been fixed!

KENS-TV in San Antonio always seems to come up with some pretty original promotion. Here are their spots for going HD.








And here's a spot I really like... especially since I once worked in San Antonio at KENS.



And here is the teaser ID: