Barbie: The CH13 Merrill's LA 10:00 news segment

A bonus thing for subscribers that I will probably take down

In 1986, I had a job I loved doing “lifestyle” segments on a local 10:00 newscast in Los Angeles, for Channel 13 (KCOP). To say that my segments were stranger than the average newscast segment is to understate by a lot. My previous experience had been writing and producing all the remote segments (meaning those that took place out of studio) for Late Night with David Letterman. But because they were offering me a chance to take the reigns of the whole thing, I embraced it heartily and really loved doing it. This was partially due to my friendship with the 10:00 news anchor at the time, Tim Malloy, whose then-wife Darcy Hettrich had worked with me on the Letterman show.

The first time I went out to shoot a piece was a bath-of-fire moment for me. I was sent out, alone, in a station wagon driven by a cameraman in cowboy boots. He was a humorless no-bullshit kind of guy who was very proud of the Emmy he had won shooting close-ups of a wildfire and he was NOT amused by the idea of the piece I had planned: an earnest search through five different versions of a restaurant called “Two Guys from Italy” for the identity of the ‘Two Guys’. Not only did he not find that funny, he had a police radio turned on in his car. “If we hear that there is breaking news involving a SWAT team, we are heading over there and I am running in and you are going to have to cover it.” he told me. That shook me to my core.

But as the job proceeded, the news room management re-enforced my approach. I saw the job as a mission to find unlikely local stories to cover. So I interviewed bail bondsmen, and deli waitresses and people who advertised their services as private detectives. I analyzed Christmas display windows and I snooped around wig stores. For Valentine’s day, I went to Frederick’s of Hollywood. I interviewed the inventor of the electric tie rack. A regular stream of these kinds of ideas came to me by following up on P.R. pitches that the real news department would have otherwise thrown away. That was exactly how a big Barbie expo at an LA shopping mall came to my attention. Though I never liked Barbie, I was interested in her because I was raised female in the United States of America. When I was growing up, she was an omnipresent influence.

Everyone at KCOP was, for inexplicable reasons, very supportive of my endeavors. Even after LA magazine called me “The weirdest most disturbing lifestyle reporter to hit the tube in some time.” I hooted out loud when I read that and took it as a compliment.

Recently I watched the trailer for the big Barbie movie that is about to land on our planet this very weekend. I thought it looked pretty great. I have high hopes for it and hope it doesn’t let me down, like so many of the recent movies have. (Yes, yes. I know I am a tough crowd.) But the Barbie trailer also reminded me of the long day I spent at that Barbie expo at that shopping mall in 1986. So yesterday I went looking for that video and found it.

I now offer it, as background research, for anyone planning to go see the big Barbie movie this weekend. I might end up questioning my own sanity about posting it and pull this one down. If it disappears, that will be the reason.

By the way, if you want to see more of this Merrill’s LA stuff, try this link.https://laist.com/news/entertainment/videos-merills-la. Or my You Tube page, where they are scattered among various other videos by me. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNZkQpJdcRZaFswhLWuYlnQ

And now….onward.