KHOU reels - Elaine Patton, 8/2/2012

Today I worked on KHOU reels from...

• Box 6902, reels 1, 5, & 18
• Box 6903, reels 15, 17, & 18

 Pretty smooth batch with only a couple clips that weren't titled (but they were clearly distinguishable and even had sound to help describe what was happening).

Some highlights:

• Creepy animal mascots at Astroworld, 1969. (6903-15)

• Also from 6903-15, a choppy clip from some official description of post-moon-landing procedure, showing the bedrooms the astronauts would stay in until they could be certified clean as well as some description about the moon rock analysis.
• Another from 6903-15 (good reel, I suppose!): a female reporter (first I've seen in my batches, not that the reporters themselves are often shown) is interviewing a man about accidents on a freeway. When he ends up facing the freeway (and therefore not the camera), she actually reaches out and physically turns him around. Absolutely innocuous, yet I was suddenly struck by how often that exact thing seems to never occur in any modern broadcasts.
•  
What you (don't) see here is Marlene Dietrich putting her hand against the camera to keep it from filming her as she walks through the airport concourse.
• In 6903-18, a party celebrating Apollo 11's splashdown is shown. The only bit of sound comes from an interview with a man who talks about the future of the space program, including a Mars mission in the 1980s. Oh, the optimism.
• And from 6902-01, a man in a bow tie describes the excessive packaging on consumer goods (in 1969) contributing to waste. How familiar!