An Episode of "The Southern Sportsman"

Get ready to shake loose some memories.

I blogged Friday about my quest to find (scarce) tapes of "The Southern Sportsman," a long-running show produced at WRAL-TV and aired here for years.  The show's host and creator, Franc White, retired in 1996 and took the master tapes with him.  Those tapes have decayed, so all that apparently remains are VHS copies from viewers' personal collections.

I was fortunate to find a nice fellow on a message board who had several tapes of "Southern Sportsman" episodes, recorded off WRAL-TV and SportSouth in the early 1990s.  Here is one of those episodes.  It was shot in 1992, but apparently aired in January 1993.  I have encoded the entire show, except for commercials. 

This was recorded off Channel 5 all the way from Liberty, NC, which is about 60 miles west of Raleigh.  So, the quality is not great, but it gives you a sense of the show.

As I blogged Monday, I spoke with Franc, who gave us permission to put this clip on the Web.  I should point out -- and I don't think he would mind me telling you -- that he has no copies of "Southern Sportsman" episodes.  He'd like to have some for his kids.  I'm making him copies of the episodes I have.  If you have any (especially older ones) that you wouldn't mind loaning me and letting me copy, send me an e-mail. 

Click to watch the video, then leave your comments below!