RESULTS FOR WEEK 10:
May 6, 2007
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| RESULTS FOR WEEK 10: |
We began with the following lead-in:
Here is a story: In the summer of 1980, fourth and fifth grade students at Model Laboratory School (next years fifth and sixth graders) went on an overnight trip to Maywoods (see the question for Week #7 for more on Maywoods). One of the activities at Maywoods did not involve hiking or the study of nature ... the activity we are talking about involved film cameras, as these fourth and fifth graders were filmed for a very special project.
Then we asked:
THE QUESTION: What was the film project that involved the fourth and fifth graders enrolled in Summer School in the Summer of 1980?
Choose from the following possible answers:
And because this was an even-numbered question, for the DOUBLE BONUS:
There was a song involved with this project. What was the name of the song (or, at the very least, the refrain from the chorus)?
In an attempt to increase participation in this question, we also made the following concessions:
FOR THIS QUESTION, AND THIS QUESTION ONLY, ANYONE who gets the first part of the question correct will be a WINNER and will receive one entry into the Grand Prize Drawing! If an entrant gets both parts of the question correct, they will receive TWO entries into the Grand Prize Drawing. And just because we want you to enter this contest, if you enter and do not get EITHER question correct, you will win an entry into the SECOND PLACE DRAWING!
So, in other words, if you entered this contest, then you were a winner, and you had a 25% chance of getting a First Place Entry with your answer. We did this in an attempt to get contestants to enter and also to take away the advantage that people on the East Coast had over people on the West Coast, when we had the stipulation that the "first" correct answer was the winner.
When we first envisioned this Trivia Contest, we had about five questions in mind that we had to ask, and we just made up the rest as we went along. The question for Week One was always what we intended it to be and we knew that there were going to be a bunch of questions about the prom. And then, there's this question, which was originally going to be the very last question, and it was going to be a fill-in-the-blank question, not multiple choice. As we learned as this contest has progressed, however, is that our fellow classmates' memories are better suited for multiple choice questions than ones in which they have to fill in the answer. Additionally, we decided that the final question should not be focused on an event that involved such a small percentage of the graduating class , much less an event that took place almost 27 years ago.
But we just had to use this question, because we had the audio. On a 27 year old cassette tape. That was still intact.
Note the number 27 ... that was actually an unintentional clue.
As for the possible answers, some of them were logical and some of them might not make much sense at all. Student film? Possible, but rather unlikely. A Maywoods promotion? Probably the most unlikely ("Come host your next business retreat or drunken seminar at beautiful, sunny Maywoods, where the sulfur-infused water runs free!"). A documentary on Laboratory Schools? One of the more logical answers, as funding for Laboratory Schools was a hot topic in 1980, as the drama of "Will Model Close?" kept many students nervous for a number of years.
The correct answer: A commercial for Channel 27 (CBS)
As part of CBS' national "Lookin' Good Together" campaign that ran in the summer of 1980, Channel 27 (WKYT) came up with the idea to do a commercial featuring us Model Laboratory School students who were attending summer school. I'm not sure why they decided to film at Maywoods, other than the fact that it probably looked nice and outdoorsy and they didn't actually mention anywhere in the commercial which school we were from, so it was probably a good "neutral" location.
We spent the better part of the morning rehearsing the song -- four refrains of "Lookin' good together, lookin' good, lookin' good" followed by "Good things to share / Good friends are there / Lookin' good together / You and CBS you're lookin' good" -- for what seemed like several hours, with an instrumental track that was probably indeliably burned into our subconscious at the time. We were also coached in performing the "hand symbol" for the "Lookin' Good" campaign, the "A-OK" symbol formed by putting one's thumb and forefinger together. We were coached for an inordinate amount of time as to when they wanted us to flash this symbol, mainly at the end, on various beats, both individually and together. They did a bunch of takes of us singing the song, and then came the action.
They did a number of scenes of different groups of kids in different areas around the main lodge of Maywoods. Two groups walked around the path from either side of the building (if you recall, the "boys" and "girls" sides), and one group came in from the center door of the lodge (the back door of the kitchen). And one group, consisting entirely of girls, did a small kick line in the grass to the side of the complex. We had to sing the song as we went through the scene, and we did about three or four takes.
I was in the batch of kids that popped out of the kitchen and walked up the path towards the parking lot. I remember that I was the first one out the door, followed by Martin Leiter, and in the second take, I had forgotten by then what I was supposed to be doing, and I came out, flashed a big grin and gave the "lookin' good" sign, when I was supposed to be singing like everyone else. They used that take.
I also remember the girls in the kickline, especially the fact that the third girl from the left was the newest student to Model Lab School -- Peggy Lin. Yes, Peggy had the distinction of being the only member of the Class of 1987 who did not begin school in the fall or spring semester. (This was going to be a trivia question, but Peggy was already the answer to one question, and it is highly likely that absolutely no one would get this one).
Unfortunately, we have only my memories of this event to use as evidence in documenting this incident, so as far as any of you know, I could be making all of this stuff up ... but we do have the audio of the commercial itself:
The first four scenes correspond to the four refrains of "Lookin' good together, lookin' good, lookin' good": Scene 1 = Group coming out of the left of the building (I remember David Collier and Brian Miller in this group); Scene 2 = Group coming out of the kitchen; Scene 3 = The Kickline; Scene 4 = I do not recall, although it may have been the group coming out of the right side of the building. The scene that goes with "Good things to share / Good friends are there" may have gone with a big giant group scene of everybody singing and flashing the symbol. The last scene, with the rest of the song, was a group that had Ms. Lane and Tom Martin and maybe Jackie Blanchard and one other girl. You can hear in the audio that the sound changes a little bit when switching to this scene -- that's because they used the actual audio from this scene instead of the group song that they dubbed over all of the other scenes. If you listen real carefully, you can pick out Ms. Lane singing over everyone else, as her voice slightly warbles in that nice, professional way on the very last rendition of "lookin' good".
They broadcast this commercial throughout the summer of 1980 on Channel 27, but they always broadcast it at 9 in the morning during the "Woody Woodpecker Show" at the first commercial break -- that's how I managed to snag this recording, as I waited, patiently, with my tape recorder microphone plastered against the television speaker. This was before VCRs were prevalent and affordable, so I doubt that anyone actually has this commercial taped. If anyone knows anyone at Channel 27 who may have access to their archive of in-house ads, let them know that I wish to talk to them!
We received a whopping two entries for this question, and one happened to have the correct answer (which was, admittedly, a complete guess).
THIS WEEK'S WINNER: |
Congratulations, Jill, your name will be entered into the random drawing that will be held at the end of this competition for the Grand Prize.
Congratulations also to frequent entrant Tracy (Pesavento) Thompson who did not submit a correct answer but by the rules of this week's contest is still a winner; your name goes into the Second Prize Drawing!
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