Tom Camp

I was in several commercials while at BT and really enjoyed seeing how everything in that end of the business worked. One day Ty Boyd was doing a Hanes Underwear commercial and I got picked to be in it because I knew how to play handball. A simulated handball court had been built in the studio. The commercial was to start off as a voice-over, with the cameras on me and Ty playing handball. The mikes in the studio were on so they would pick up the thump and whack of the ball and the noise of me and Ty running around. The voice-over started, “The sport of handball was invented by the Phonecians over 5,000 years ago……”

Ty and I were really playing to win. At one point he missed a shot and said “SHIT”……of course the mikes picked it up, so cut and start over.

Also in the studio was a shower stall. The voice-over would say, “After the game, a nice soothing shower…..” A wet arm was to reach out of the shower and take a towel from a towel bar. The mikes were not on for that shot, and one of the floor crew was in the shower with a bucket of water to wet his arm. So since the mikes were not on for that shot, Ty and I kept playing handball. Just as the arm reached out to take the towel, I totally missed a low bouncing handball off a side wall, and it bounced across the shot of the shower…….cut!!!

Took us all day to shoot the damn thing. The last scene was of Ty opening a drawer and taking out a pair of boxer shorts and a tee shirt. Voice over said, “And finally a clean, fresh set of Hanes underwear.” I left and didn’t get to see any surprises in that segment.

Here is one for you, but first you have to recall how strait-laced, prim and proper Tom Cookerly was. On a sales seminar to the beach one time (read boondoggle to the beach) we planted a real live hooker in Tom's room while he was out. When he came back, opened the door and walked in, she was there in skimpy and inviting pose, and we were all in the next room listening through the wall. Tom apologized for entering the wrong room, walked out, came back in and told her that was really his room. She said things "Well, can't we share it Big Boy?" and "But this room makes me so horny."  Tom tap danced her out of there, finally, embarrassed that such an event had happened in his life.

Later, when I was over in radio and we did a beach boondoggle, we tried the same thing on Paul "Bosco" Marion. It backfired, big time. When Bosco found the "lady" in his room, his first comment was "When I find out who sent you, Babe, they are going to get a raise." 

Joe Dawson, who used to work for John Dillon and later went to Florence to work for Foster, used to come in to work, discover the gospel groups were recording that day, immediately claim he had a terrible migraine and go home for the day. He said the perfume smell in the building was beyond his powers to cope. I can still hear him saying, "Yeee Gods!! Som'un Reeks!!!"  Then he would go home. (I think he was replaced by a young guy named Pic Ellerbe.)

As I recall, the saying of the day when the gospel groups were there for taping was "Geeeeezzz, someun' reeks!!!"  I could have killed Keller [Bush] the week he accidently, mistakenly, or stupidly erased the master and they had to come back and tape the whole show again. Double whammy.

I'd like to say a word about Mr. C......The Boss..... Crutch.  I hope everyone remembers him as fondly as I do. He always called me "Boy" and I always called him "Boss."  One day he asked me to help him carry some stuff to his car, in his reserved parking space at the back of the building. It was just before four o'clock in the afternoon. We went out the back door and started toward his car. He said, "Boy, if you'll look around at the building, in the windows of the second floor you will see (so and so, and so and so, I forget the names but one was the building maintenance guy then!!) looking out the windows to be sure I am leaving. As soon as I leave they will, an hour early. They think I don't know." I looked around and he was right. Heads in windows.

After I had left the company for Duke Power Public Relations and had been gone about six months I was back visiting the station, having lunch at Miss Billie's with Larry Harding. Crutch walked up to the table and I said, "Hi Boss, good to see you."  With a peevish grin he said, "Where you been, Boy? I haven't seen you at work lately."  Then he sat down and wanted to hear all about my new job, new baby and family. I loved that guy.

Here is another Crutch story. After I went to Duke Power I helped Larry Harding and Floyd Grass get good lots on Lake Norman. One day Crutch called me and said, "Boy, I want a lot on Lake Norman too." I said, "Well you are a personal friend of Bill McGuire (President of Duke) why don't you call him?"  He said, "Because you must have more power than he does. Only someone with great power could get reprobates like Harding and Grass lots."  I knew how much respect he had for Larry and Floyd and we had a big laugh at his joke. Then I went down and got him a lot.

One of the great ones. A pretty lady named Helen Bassett often sat at the reception desk in the little lobby beside the parking lot entrance. She would call whomever a visitor was coming to see and announce the visitor’s presence. One day a distinguished-looking man walked in and asked to see Mr. Crutchfield. So the lovely lady asked, "What is your name, please? "Terry Sanford," the man said. "And what company are you with?" Helen asked. Flummoxed, the guy said, "Well, I work for the state of North Carolina.

It was, of course, the Governor. And the lady failed to recognize him or his name.

John Dillon hired me to come to WBT-WBTV. First thing he sent me to the mail room to get some supplies. Lewis Van Leuven, the mail room manager, ignored me for about 10 minutes. Then he said (having never seen me before) “What do you want, Stupid?” I told him I needed some writing supplies. He said, “You look too damn stupid to write.” I wondered what kind of hell I had joined.

I want to tell everyone a true story about Ty Boyd. One year Jim Cremins and I promoted Ty to be a replacement for Arthur Godfrey for a week, while Godfrey took a vacation from his show on the CBS Radio Network. We sent in tapes of Ty and he got the job. Ty asked the great Loonis McGlowan to be a guest every day of the week on the show. Jim Cremins, Loonis, Ty and I stayed at the company’s New York apartment for the week.

On Monday morning of Ty’s first day, I thought he was nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs. One minute before air time he had his head on the console desk as if he were praying. My thought was Ty is going to blow it, by not being himself. But right on cue he raised his said and spoke into the microphone: "GOOD MORNING, VIRGINIA, GEORGIA, CAROLINE AND ALL YOU OTHER BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!!! THIS IS TY BOYD SITTING IN FOR THE VACATIONING ARTHUR GODFREY. AND DO WE HAVE A SHOW FOR YOU!!!!

For a week Ty had the listeners eating from his hand. Loonis was a great hit and someday I’ll tell you of all the great musicians who came by the apartment to talk with Loonis. It was only then I realized how respected in the field of music he was.

After Ty’s Friday show we had lunch with Axle Peterson, who was the Program Director for CBS Radio, a guy I had come to know over the years and with whom I worked to get Ty as a replacement for Arthur Godfrey. At the luncheon, and right in the presence of Cremins, Loonis and me, Axle made a pitch to Ty. He told him Arthur Godfrey would soon be retiring and he wanted to offer Ty the job as the permanent replacement for Godfrey. He said, “We can pay you XXX dollars annually.” (Now this was a nationally broadcast show!!) Ty replied, “Gosh it is an honor to get this offer. But first, I really don’t want to move my family to New York. And second, I don’t want to take that much cut in pay.”

Without a doubt Ty was one of the greatest radio and television personalities to grace the airways. You had to be there when he was, and in on a lot things, to realize just how great.

And Loonis. I don’t believe there was a serious musician in the country who didn’t know and respect him. In New York everybody from Rock and Roll stars to Country and Western Stars to Easy Listening stars came by to say hello and pay their respects to him.

I went to New York that week in awe of the talent at WBT-WBTV. I returned in shock and awe. Now I knew the giants I walked among.

Here is one of my favorite WBT stories. It took place the week Ty Boyd replaced Arthur Godfrey on CBS while Godfrey went on vacation. Loonis was a guest on the show every day. We were staying at the company apartment in New York and it seemed every musician in the town dropped by to see Loonis. Cremins and I were to give a presentation to the Blair Agency people, in their conference room. Cremins came up with the idea of presenting a genuine Winchester commemorative rifle to the salesman who sold the most time on WBT for the next month. We together came up with the presentation, which included a pellet pistol Cremins wore in a hoster. We put up posters and hung big balloons over them so nobody could read a poster until Cremins pooped the balloon with a pellet from his pistol. We practiced the thing several times and Cremins busted every balloon he shot at. First thing to go wrong was I was taking the rifle to the presentation and no taxi would pick me up. Guy carying a rifle??? No way I'm picking him up. So I started walking from the apartment and the cops picked me up. I finally convinced them what was going on and they gave me a ride. Next thing that went wrong was when Cremins shot the first balloon of the presentation the pellet bounced off the balloon and richocheted around the confernce room. The client sales people were diving under the table. Jim looked over at me, said "Shit!" and shot again. Every balloon broke from then on, but it sure didn't get the presentation off to a great start.

I sure remember the client party when Loonis, Jim Cremins and I wrote new lyrics for songs from "South Pacific". I had visions of being one of the lead singers. At the first rehersal I sang the first two lines of a song. Loonis stopped playing the piano. He and Cremins looked at each other. Then Loonis said, "Camp, you are terrible. In all my years I've never heard anyone sing that badly. You are off-key, out of tune, out of time with the music, just horrible!!!"  Cremins came up and shoved me off the "stage."  I finally got a walk-on as a cop, with no singing part and not even a speaking part. I still contend it was a great loss to the world to not hear my voice in song.

Does anybody remember a DJ at WBT named Tom Loony? Tom was in my basic training Army unit at Fort Jackson. He had been a dj at a radio station in Florida, and there could not have been a more inept soldier. He screwed up everything. Had it not been for friends he would still be at Fort Jackson trying to complete basic. When we finished the 10 weeks of basic he and I were both shipped to Fort McPherson, where he did some kind of audio tapes. Had a great voice that was made for an easy listening station.

Later, when I was at WBT-WBTV , there was an opening for an early afternoon dj. I recommended Tom Looney. He sent in some demo tapes and got the job. He was single. For many, many months he came to my house for dinner because he could not cook a lick. Eventually he went to Richmond for a better time slot and I lost track of him.

I thought I had found him a few years ago when I read an article in a magazine written by a radio dj named Tom Looney in Los Angeles. Turned out he was not the same guy but had the same name. I’ve never heard a better radio voice. Very deep bass, clear and distinct. When he talked it was if one word naturally flowed into the next. But gads, left alone to try anything else he was helpless. He couldn’t boil water and would have messed up a two-car funeral.

remember a security guard at the station named Vandiver? He was a professional gossip and did everything he could to find out some dirt on everybody. I recall two episodes with him. One year I did a promotional piece for WBT-WBTV, to be used with a couple hundred ad agencies in big cities across the nation (the ones who purchased air time for clients). The promo piece was a round piece of art work of an egg in a frying pan. The enclosed message was something along the lines "Charlotte is an egg. The city is the yoke (yellow) but the whole egg includes all the white. Then came a message arguing that Charlotte was one of the largest metropolitan statistical areas in the nation, and included more people than the statistical areas of Atlanta, Miami, Richmond etc. In a nutshell, we reach a lot of people.

Teflon had just been invented so I ordered a couple hundred Teflon fry pans. I stored them in a downstairs room on the parking lot side, toward the crew lounge. Then I had to get each opened, the promotion piece (round) placed in the bottom of the pan, then the box re-sealed, an address label applied and be ready for shipping to specific people at ad agencies in New York, Chicago, etc. I hired some ladies from the business office to help me prepare them at night. Every 15 minutes or so Vandiver would poke his head in the door, without knocking, obviously ready to catch some hanky-panky. Eventually I locked the door and he nearly pounded it down demanding to be admitted.

On another occasion we were sponsoring a beauty contest in which various young ladies who worked for companies who advertised with WBT-WBTV would be the contestants. We asked those advertisers to nominate some lady in their company. Eventually we asked all the young ladies to come to the station’s conference room (which adjoined Crutch’s office) one night, bring a bathing suit to dress in, and have their pictures made in the conference room. Fiddling Hank took the pictures. Again Vandiver crashed in about every 15 minutes. Once when he came in I had a half dozen of the pretty young ladies gathered around Crutch’s desk, looking adoringly at his chair. Vandiver asked if I had permission to be in Crutch’s office and I said no. He told me in no uncertain terms he was reporting me to Crutch the next day. The reason I had the girls in there is Hank and I had cooked up a photo in which the girls were gathered around Crutch’s desk, and Hank had placed Crutch in his chair, then did good work making it look as if Crutch were actually sitting there with all the pretty ladies in bathing suits around him. The next day Hank and I gave Crutch the photo and he thought it was funny as hell. He said, “Wait til Pee Wee sees this. She thinks I’m worn out.”

I don't go back to the Wilder Building, but I was there for Betty Feezor and Fred Kirby and Uncle Jim (Patterson) at one Julian Price Place. Betty (bless her heart) used to bring me a food portion to my office, which the floor crew probably will not like to hear. What a lovely lady! Some of my great recollections are the week Jim Patterson was working with Betty in preparation for the great week when he replaced her for vacation and they were making some contraption that required a screw driver. As Betty was driving in the screw with the screw driver she said said to Jim, "Here, you do it Jim. You screw better than I do."

Then there was the day the lipsyncing Fred Kirby had his recording of "Big Rock Candy Mountain" replaced with "I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a Helluva Engineer." Showman that he was, Fred actually tried to pick up the words while his guitar still played "Big Rock Candy Mountain."

Life would have been less without Betty, Fred, Jim, Alan Newcomb, Arthur Smith and the boys, Charlie "Crutch" Crutchfield, Jim Cremins, Loonis, Jim "The Silver Fox" Babb, Ty Boyd, Reno Bailey, The Belmont Tunnel, Big Bill Ward and wrestling taping, the taping of Gospel Music for a while (gawd, those guys could smell up a bathroom with their perfume), Paul "Bosco" Marion, Wally Jorgenson, Larry "The Pipe" Harding, Lewis ("@#$%^&()*&%) Van Leuven, John Dillon, Erv Melton, Bob Rierson, Tom Matthews, Dick Taylor, Harold Hinson, Jay and Virgil Torrence, Bill Cook and Bryan Yandle, Ed Wade and the McDaniels, Alma (what a set!!!), Janet and Barbara, Julian Massi and Mark Conrad and Cullie Tarleton, and on and on.

My life was enriched then and is enriched now with such memories! Oh man, Cremins, Loonis, Harold Hinson, Daisy, Pearl, Lacy, Uncle Jim, Alan Newcomb, Crutch, Larry Harding, Bill Cook, Bryan Yandle, so many now gone.