Beyond Our Control: the city's sketch-comedy broadcast

WNDU-TV · the form from the 1967–68 season · nineteen seasons, to spring 1986

The show: The production record — the Junior Achievement company WJA-TV, chartered in 1960 and first on the air in 1961, and its conversion into Beyond Our Control in the 1967–68 season — is carried in the producers record of this history. What belongs to comedy is the show itself: a sketch-comedy parody of television, "a TV show about TV," written, performed, filmed, and sold by South Bend high-school students on WNDU-TV, the Notre Dame station. Its creator and guiding adviser was Dave Williams, born in South Bend in June 1940 and the station's promotions director, who died on August 27, 1977; Denny Laughlin succeeded him as the show's adult center. From the 1974–75 season the show was entirely youth-run.

The standing: On February 20, 1974, the National Association of Television Program Executives named Beyond Our Control the best locally produced variety show in its market class in the nation — against professionally produced competition, and the award is the documented measure of what the students were making: sketch comedy at a professional standard, produced by teenagers, in this city, for nineteen seasons. The counts print unreconciled, because the record does not reconcile them: the series' reference entry gives 247 episodes at thirteen a year and more than 350 students across the run; the Notre Dame Archives guide to the show's own papers gives 225 episodes and more than 300 students. Both stand as their sources give them. The membership rolls carry two names this record meets again: Dean Norris, a cast member in his Clay High School years — his fame is dramatic and is carried in the people record; the membership here is his comedy record — and Larry Karaszewski, who wrote and directed the show as a student before the career carried in his own entry above. The show ended in the spring of 1986.

Sources

1. The producers record in this history — the WJA-TV charter of 1960, the first broadcasts of 1961, the 1967–68 conversion, Dave Williams and Denny Laughlin, the youth-run turn of 1974–75, the nineteen seasons.
2. University of Notre Dame Archives, guide to the Beyond Our Control records — 225 episodes, more than 300 students.
3. The series' reference entry — the February 20, 1974 NATPE award for best locally produced variety show in its market class; 247 episodes; more than 350 students.