In about 1989 I encountered my worst fishing TV program. I don't recall
the actual name of the program, but it might have been called “Fishing
with Uncle Billy.” It aired on The Nashville Network early on Saturday
mornings. (Nashville Network, no longer in business, was then owned by
the Gaylord family here in Oklahoma City.) The program featured a
character in bib overalls out of somewhere in Mississippi.

Uncle Billy was holding forth on the subject of small mouth bass. In the
manner of a satirical imitation of Bill Dance he expounded on the
habitat and feeding habits of the species. It went something like this:


“Well you know them Smallmouth, they likes clear water and rocky
bottoms. That's where they find them crawdads. They sure do like them
crawdads. Course them darkies likes them crawdads too.”


I nearly fell out of my chair. Al Campanis, the former baseball player
with the Dodgers and Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder of CBS had only recently
been canned for on camera racial comments.

I waited several weeks but the show went on as if nothing has happened.
Maybe I really was the only viewer out there in TV land.Finally, I wrote
the network, “Attention: Standards & Practices.” I pointed out what had
been said and suggested that Uncle Billy join Messrs Campanis and
Snyder in well deserved retirement. I never heard back from anybody at
Nashville Network. But two weeks later the show disappeared.

It appears that the sponsors were promised the program would air in
designated markets. This would explain why the un-aired unoffensive
episodes ran at unscheduled times on public access channels later. That
way nobody was watching, but they could tell the ad agencies that it
ran. With that Uncle Billy was gone.



--
James E. Morrow
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