SybilSez...

Sybil Bruncheon has been performing on stage, radio, TV, film, and in various Vaudeville, burlesque, church basement, county fair, and sideshow....uh..."venues" for most of her 29 years. She is available for bookings for just about anything and can be reached at bruncheon@hotmail.com and on her website sybilbruncheon.com. She is a proud member of the Actors Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild. Her erdo number is 16.

SATURDAY MORNING TV!!!! ...........Yes, boys and girls! Long before there were thousands of channels on cable, the internet, satellites and roof-top dishes or antennas, and pay-per-view, the very first TVs were very, VERY primitive. Before there were even TV boxes in the corner which were basically radios with small picture tubes that hissed and frizzled..... there was the "HUMAN TV"!!!..... Very wealthy families could afford to hire an actual person from the TV Store to come in for a prescheduled amount of time to "BE" the TV....doing a variety of shows for the entertainment of the viewers! Entire dinner parties and even charity galas would be planned around just such an event, and the very best and most talented HUMAN TVs would be able to perform a wide variety of programs....all spontaneously and at the drop of a hat! Soap operas, news broadcasts, situation comedies, medical dramas, gangster stories!!......And I will have to confess here and now, that when my career took a terrible blow from the Communist witch hunts and the HUAC trials, I TOO disguised myself and became a HUMAN TV. Yes, that's actually ME in my official HUMAN TV costume...I was able to perform in every genre, although my own particular specialties included talent contests with gongs and "applause-meters", missing person searches (usually unsuccessful!), rugby tournaments where I kicked my own shins and punched myself in the face, men's doubles Jai Alai matches in which I both partnered and also defeated myself, natural disasters with updated bulletins (fires and collapsing buildings were my specialty), stories about flying saucers with or without giant beetles, programs involving religious messages and even miracle cures, and nature programs with wild animals, safaris and stampedes (including appropriate sounds and smells!).... I was paid handsomely and often tipped extravagantly if I stayed after the parties and performed private....um.... "stag" programs for the gentlemen-viewers in their gaming rooms, although their cigar smoke would make me cough, and they would rush to change my "channels" with their rough manly hands. .....ah, good times... good times.

(Taken from Sybil Bruncheon's MOSTLY MERRY MEMOIRS, Chapter 17, "I Was A Human TV")

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