I seem to recall he was also the host on one of the lottery draw programs, back in the day when they used to broadcast those things.

Glen Warren wrote:

Yes.  The Saturday evening Lottario draw on Global...   (a couple of funny stories too about that live TV draw....)


 

Yes?

Somewhere, Albert J. Steed and Sebastian are weeping. Sad ending to a great local personality. 

turkeytop wrote:

Glen Warren wrote:

Yes.  The Saturday evening Lottario draw on Global...   (a couple of funny stories too about that live TV draw....)


 

Yes?

With no disrespect to Mr. Lawrence....

I forget the exact order of which one of these screw ups occurred ... both were in the 80s,  but...

One involved the resetting of the draw machine prior to air.  The draws were LIVE....   and there was always a full rehearsal before each broadcast.

OLG procedures were that the rehearsal was to use a second set of test or rehearsal balls. This was for Wintario, The Provincial, Lottario. The actual "draw" balls that were used for the live broadcast were always kept in a separate case and were sealed with an audit tag that the draw supervisor would record and include in the audit/supervisors report. (These "draw" balls were always examined, inspected for wear/damage, weighed and checked for uniform diameter etc. so as not to alter the probability of a particular number/ball coming out of the lottery machine. The standards were in place to ensure that the draw of the numbers was completely random.)

Lottario used a single machine for the main number draw, and a second machine, and set of numbered balls for the "Early Bird" draw.  The draw machines were always operated/loaded by OLG personnel.  On one particular evening the rehearsal was complete and the rehearsal balls had to be purged from the machine.  This was done by removing a wooden dowel at the bottom of the acrylic cylinder that the balls would drop in as they were drawn, and then subsequently running the machine, pressing the draw button and removing the remaining balls from the machine.  All good so far...  so all of the rehearsal balls have been removed, and now the LIVE draw numbered balls are readied for that evenings draw. The broadcast starts, and the balls are loaded into the machine, the "counter rotating spheres" start mixing the balls and the ball release button is pressed. Unfortunately, the OLG operator forgot to replace the wooden dowel at the bottom of the acrylic chute. The main camera has a wide shot of the machine  and then has to zoom into a closeup of the acrylic chute when the first ball drops and then had to tilt up for each of the consecutive numbers drawn.  Without that wooden dowel/peg in place, the first ball, and then each ball there after, came out of the machine and fell thru the cylinder and started bouncing and rolling around on the studio floor.  PANIC ensued.  The director is yelling on the intercom for the camera to "follow the ball"  and the cameraman is saying "which one"   

The second incident was with the pre-recorded news open/intro prior to the live draw. (This was for an entirely different draw from the incident above).  The Saturday 11 News intro had to be pre-recorded as the live draw occurred in the same studio at Global. The cameras had to break from the news set and go to the small "garage" for the draw (this is also the same area that was used for music guests and cooking segments on "The News at Noon" and for CHIN Television on Sunday Mornings. A very small, tight area).

The pretaped intro was five minutes and had the open, anchor intro and the top story. Then it was be the anchor throwing to the Lottario draw.  It always appeared as a seem less live event. On this particular evening, the News pretape open is rolled to air...  everything is normal, and then the anchor can be heard making jokes about himself while he is on air "look at that tie he is wearing!... where did he get that jacket... Goodwill?"  that kind of thing.... Not that it matters, but iirc the anchor was V'ic Phillips.  

The audio operator had opened the fader for the anchors mic by mistake in addition to the fader for the VTR playback.  This is why Phillips voice could be heard over the playback.

Live television...  gotta love it.....
 

I still remember one of the scripts he’d have us read when he taught at Ryerson: “Scratching is catching…” a scratch-off lottery script.

As always, The Globe & Mail waited several weeks before publishing its obit about Bill Lawrence's passing. They managed to find some interesting anecdotes about the CHCH veteran, including the fact he dropped his real name for air - a moniker that was almost certain to cause him problems.

And then there was his inauspicious beginning at Ryerson's RTA course in the 50s.

"Mr. Lawrence’s class was highly amused when he was the first to be given a fault report from the university radio station. The report was a notification of anything that had gone awry during a student’s on-air shift. “Bill put a record on the turntable to play and for whatever reason left the booth. The door behind him locked. Bill had to get back in before the record ended so he just put his shoulder to the door, knocked it off its hinges and broke the glass. He was quite a robust fellow and very strong. He sat down and calmly carried on with his show with listeners being none the wiser.” 

Broadcaster Bill Lawrence was a pioneer of Canadian television

The picture of Mr. Lawrence (part of the photo collage at CHCH) shown in the Globe and Mail piece, also contains pictures of two other familiar and longtime CHCH-TV personalities... 

News and Sports presenter Norm Marshall (immediately to the right of the Bill Lawrence picture) and Dan McLean sporting the stache from the "Midday" era...

Last edited by Glen Warren (August 3, 2023 7:29 am)