17 Update Early in the Morning | QuickTime clips:

THE POPE | 1.0 MB Featuring Bill Tush and The Holy See.

PAIN | 2.1 MB Bill Tush and co-anchor Tina Seldin.

GROUNDHOG DAY | 2.2 MB Bill Tush and co-anchor Tina Seldin.

OLD NEWS | 4.2 MB Better late than never.

TOWER ICE | 4.9 The hazards of television news.

REPORT FROM DC | 5.5 M With Jerry Homan as the Unknown Newsman.

MOBILE NEWS | 7.2 MB Apologies for the poor quality of this video. And it's a little noisy too.

TED TURNER | 3.7 MB In this clip from 1979, Ted Turner testifies before Congress on the topic of retransmission consent. Later in the hearing, Rep. Ed Markey challenged Turner’s credibility, based on the fact that his main newscast aired in the middle of the night.

BROTHER GOLD | 5.6 MB Featuring Jesse Waller, (now deceased) as Brother Gold.

NEWS CHICKEN | 2.1 MB A jab at local Atlanta station WXIA's relentless promotion of "The News Hawk".

WEATHER DOG | 1.5 MB Words fail.

17 Update Early in the Morning | A bit of the backstory: Before Saturday Night Live or Not Necessarily the News, there was 17 Update Early in the Morning. In 1975, as part of its broadcast license renewal agreement, Atlanta independent television station WTCG (later WTBS) committed to produce a 20 minute newscast each weekday. For a station that only ran movies, sitcoms and wrestling, producing a newscast was something new. Bill Tush was named News Director and soon afterwards the AP teletype showed up at the station. “Can we have some fun with it?” Bill asked Ted Turner. “Sure you can” Ted replied. 17 Update Early in the Morning was taped by the production crew at the end of the workday. The newscast had no set air time, but just showed-up between movies at 3 or 4 in the morning, EST. There were no news resources and Bill made that known often. The crew, all ready to cut loose at the end of a long day, were frequently part of the show. What Bill didn’t expect was the large following the show would garner, as night owls from across the country happened to tune in to news presented in a way they had never seen. For its time, the show was funny, cool and unlike anything else on television. For these and other reasons, many of us remember it fondly. In mid 1979, the show had to be canceled, not because it was doing poorly, but because it presented credibility problems for the company about to launch a more serious news effort, to be called Cable News Network. See more Early Morning News clips on YouTube here.