Final ‘Sun Up’ Stirs Fond Memories

For co-host Kathi Diamant, this morning’s final installment of “Sun Up San Diego” will be “like saying goodby to my whole family at the airport.”

Diamant has spent the last seven years with “Sun Up,” the local morning talk show that was canceled last week after a 30-year run at KFMB-TV (Channel 8). The final show, which will air at 9 a.m., is sure to be full of emotion and nostalgia for Diamant, as well as the other members of the tiny staff.

“So many of my friendships in real life started through the show,” Diamant said.

Through the years, the production was an adventure for all involved. Until the station started to prerecord the show last April, it was live television. Anything could happen. Animals didn’t cooperate; humans canceled at the last minute.

Even with the advance recording, every show has been an adventure. For example, Diamant and co-host Jerry G. Bishop have performed stunts from mud-wrestling to karate exhibitions.

Today’s final program will include outtakes from the large catalogue of spontaneous events compiled by “Sun Up” through the years. However, as they approached the last taping, the staff found itself focusing on the personal side of the show, as well as the professional.

“The show has been our family,” Executive Producer Pat Elwood said.

Elwood met her husband, Dean, working on the hourlong program. He produced “Sun Up” for four years, before she took it over four years ago. Dean is now a producer for the news department at Channel 8.

Bishop, co-host for the last 12 years, said the sadness hadn’t hit him yet, though he is experiencing a sense of relief. Since the taping began and the show was switched from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. earlier this year, he knew it would have a tough time surviving against the competition, which includes established talk shows such as Sally Jessy Raphael.

Times have changed. The concept of a light and easy program doesn’t fit as well in today’s talk show market, he said.

“When we started they weren’t doing ‘Geraldo’ and ‘Oprah’ and ‘Sally Jessy,’ with albino dwarf sexist Nazis and those types of shows,” he said. “Our mandate was to do a nice, pleasant program.”

The final program, taped this morning, will spotlight many of the people and events that made the show work for 30 years. Returning hosts will include Bob Mills, who is credited with originally pitching the show to Channel 8 and who served as its first host when it came on the air in August, 1960. Sue White, Mel Knoepp and Danuta also are scheduled to appear.

However, the two best-known alumnae of the show, nationally syndicated talk-show host Sarah Purcell and movie star Raquel Welch, couldn’t come for the finale, Elwood said. Purcell hosted the show for several years with Knoepp, and Welch was one of the show’s first “weather girls” in the ‘60s.

“Before there were co-hosts there were ‘weather girls,’ ” Diamant said.

Many of the regularly featured guests on the show also are scheduled to attend, including Donna Roll, who has done cooking segments for 20 years, and Natasha Josefowitz, a management consultant who became the show’s “resident poet and philosopher,” Diamant said.

Michael Gall also will be on hand to discuss his now famous turkey-under-sheet recipe. Gall, a United States International University professor, first appeared on the show in 1984 to discuss his recipe, which generated unprecedented response. He subsequently became a regular Thanksgiving-season fixture on “Sun Up.” Gall also was Diamant’s husband at the time. When he and Diamant later divorced, he continued to make appearances on the show to discuss his turkey recipe.

Elwood, Diamant and Bishop, who put the show together with the help of a small support staff of interns and part-time employees, all say the end of the show has its positive aspects. Each is looking forward to moving on. Elwood has been tabbed to produce an afternoon talk show at Channel 8. Bishop will stay busy with his restaurant businesses while he looks for radio and television work. Diamant wants to work as an entertainment reporter.

But, as they prepared for the final show, all three were reminiscing about the memorable moments, the spontaneous incidents and accidents that made “Sun Up” a classic example of live television. Many of those moments will be shown during the show today. Digging through the tapes sparked the staff’s memories.

Diamant recalled the day she took off her shoes and stomped grapes and the time she took voice lessons during the show.

“It is one of my most painful on-air memories,” she said.

The San Diego Zoo provided its share of incidents, including the time a black leopard got loose from its handler and chased Diamant around the studio. The record for most appearances by animals goes to Arusha, a cheetah, and her pal, Anna, a dog, who live together at the zoo. They are scheduled to appear again on this morning’s show.

Bishop remembered all the animals that relieved themselves on or near him and Diamant, as well as the celebrities of show business and politics who appeared on “Sun Up” through the years. At an average of three interviews a show, Bishop estimates he’s done more than 10,000 interviews on “Sun Up.”

“There are very few name people that we haven’t interviewed,” Bishop said.

His favorite was an interview with convicted Watergate felon Gordon Liddy, “the scariest guy I ever met.”

Two of Elwood’s favorite moments won’t be shown. Bishop, she recalled with a laugh, “tried to act real cool whenever glamorous women appeared on the show.” One time, when Beverly Sassoon was a guest, Bishop was on his most debonair behavior, until he took a sip from a cup of tea and the string from the tea bag stuck to his cheek for several moments.

On another occasion, Bishop had worked his way through an interview with the glamorous Catherine Denueve, only to spill a cup of coffee on her white dress when he stood up.

“Strangely enough, those pieces of tape are gone,” Elwood said, leaving no doubt who she believes to be the culprit.

Not guilty, Bishop said.

“I would have stolen it if I had thought about it,” he said, noting that he does has have tape of himself mud-wrestling with two women and receiving a strip-o-gram on the air. The stripper was sent to him for his birthday 10 years ago.

“She went further than the producer at the time thought she would,” Bishop said. “He almost got fired for that one.”

Elwood has set aside time during today’s show for Diamant and Bishop to do whatever they want. Bishop is going to use the time to sing a special version of “Yesterday.”

“I don’t know if I’ll get through that one,” he said.

Elwood also has been encouraging members of the audience over the years to share their memories at this morning’s taping, which takes place from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. at KFMB studios in Kearny Mesa.

“It’s not just the hosts’ show, it’s San Diego’s show,” Diamant said.