Greatest State Ever

Here is one of the classic early 1990s WNBC “We’re 4 New York” promo composed by Edd Kalehoff. New Jersey gets a brief mention with Jersey Shore at about 55 seconds in, but only after they mention Greenwich in Connecticut. It is still a bit better than what happened with the original 1992 version, which didn’t even mention the Garden State. But the original is truly a classic and you get to see Chuck, Sue, Len, Al Roker, Carol Jenkins, and the late great Ralph Penza, which sort of makes up for the short shrift of New Jersey. This is what happens when almost all of the state’s TV coverage comes from next door! Although we should mention that WNBC does have the best New Jersey coverage of any of the New York stations including the “Yeah we’re a New Jersey station” WWOR.

The scandal with the former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer has nothing on the Jim McGreevey scandal which still has legs even a couple years after it is over. The latest is that Jim McGreevey got a young driver into a ménage à trois with his then wife - something which she deinies. It was enough to make several front pages, some more prominently than others. Political scandals, nobody does them better than New Jersey!

We all know one of the things that makes New Jersey great is the Garden State’s great political scandals from Sharpe James to Jim McGreevey. No other state, with the exception of Louisiana. The New York Times has revealed that the call girl of choice “Kristen” of the Emperors Club “Client #9″ (aka soon to be former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer) was a Jersey girl.

Photograph from Ashley Alexandre Dupre’s MySpace page

How did WCBS salute New Jersey in 1981?
With about ten seconds of film - a plane landing at Newark Airport, what we think may be the State House in Trenton, and a highway bridge!
Yeah, that really sums up New Jersey!

This happens almost every time it snows. Fox 5 seems to include school closings for places in New Jersey that are outside its viewing area. A year or two ago we saw closings for schools in Cape May County which is over 100 miles away from New York. The one pictured above isn’t so bad, since it was one of about three or four listings for Camden County. Given that Lindenwold is about 95 miles away from midtown Manhattan and in another television market it seems like they were either padding their school closing listings or have no idea where things are in New Jersey.

We should also mention that Fox, through some backroom dealings to get around little things like the law, owns the only VHF television station licensed to New Jersey - WWOR which is licensed to Secaucus in Hudson County and has upped their New Jersey coverage in a half arsed attempt at appeasement and stuck a picture of the George Washington Bridge on its website and subway ads.

Of the New York TV stations, WNBC, seems to have the best New Jersey coverage with two reporters on the New Jersey beat - Brian Thompson, and the great Pat Battle. They have actually broken some big New Jersey stories, they cover things other than fires or crime, plus their colleague Jonathan Dienst was the one who broke the Fort Dix plot story, despite it being in the back yard of the Philadelphia stations.

Still, getting shafted when it comes to important news coverage from most of the big TV stations is par for the course for viewers in the Garden State. We are guessing the Philadelphia stations are even worse, since they have some horrid unwatchable excuses for newscasts down there.

In this video we found on YouTube part of something that aired on the obscure CTN cable channel sometime in the early to mid 1990s, we get to hear the great New Jersey television icon Uncle Floyd sing the classic “Deep in the Heart of Jersey” then go on to try to figure out why Nutley in Essex County has someplace called “Four Corners” on the Nutley-Bloomfield border. We really wish that The Uncle Floyd Show would resurface on TV in either reruns, new shows or both!

We remember it from NJN. It would probably be a good pledge special, since it would actually be something about New Jersey and not one of these self help idiots or third rate singers.