Gone but not forgotten: Knoxville area restaurants and retailers we miss.

#2,001
#2,001
ArdentVol said:
how did I fergit the Roller Derby
and what was the name of his "newspaper"
I can remember using quotes from Cas or his paper in a poly sci project in 1970 on Al Gore's failed failed re-election campaign
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I went to the roller derby at the civic coliseum back around 73, we went as a night activity while I was at all sports camp at UT. Was so disappointed, thought we were going to get to participate.
 
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#2,003
#2,003
mad4vols said:
Anybody remember some local tv show that had a clown and kids could sit it the audience. Late 60s I think, maybe Bozo? I attended once for a birthday and was on the program, it was televised live
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It was Bozo, my wife got to attend a live show….might be the reason I married her
 
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#2,006
#2,006
Danl said:
Anybody remember The Bob Brandy Show. Also a kids show, but I think it was broadcast from Chattanooga.
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I was on that show with 3 friends in 1970. He had a few different formats, one with a whole class of kids and another with a small group that would sit at a picnic table. It was on channel 9 in Chattanooga ever afternoon back then. He gave us a big soft drink (dont remember what kind) and a moon pie. My drink was warm and I couldn't handle it. We took turns sitting on Rebel the horse trying to throw a ball into a barrel for prizes. Nobody could hit it. The show had cartoons that ran between the kids segments. I just remember watching ourselves and the cartoons on a little monitor off to the side of the set and trying like hell to drink that hot "coke" because I was on TV.
 
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#2,007
#2,007
Ernest T. Vol said:
I was on that show with 3 friends in 1970. He had a few different formats, one with a whole class of kids and another with a small group that would sit at a picnic table. It was on channel 9 in Chattanooga ever afternoon back then. He gave us a big soft drink (dont remember what kind) and a moon pie. My drink was warm and I couldn't handle it. We took turns sitting on Rebel the horse and trying to throw a ball into a barrel for prizes. Nobody could hit it. The show had cartoons that ran between the kids segments. I just remember watching ourselves and the cartoons a little monitor off to the side of the set and trying like hell to drink that hot "coke" because I was on TV.
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LOL! I remember that game and Rebel. There were other games, too. I remember my brothers and me laughing at the time because the "prize" for winning a game was usually a loaf of bread or some such thing from the show's sponsor.
 
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#2,008
#2,008
Danl said:
LOL! I remember that game and Rebel. There were other games, too. I remember my brothers and me laughing at the time because the "prize" for winning a game was usually a loaf of bread or some such thing from the show's sponsor.
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LOL...that's right. I remember a loaf of bread we either had on the picnic table or that we would have won throwing the ball on Rebel.
 
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#2,009
#2,009
Ernest T. Vol said:
I was on that show with 3 friends in 1970. He had a few different formats, one with a whole class of kids and another with a small group that would sit at a picnic table. It was on channel 9 in Chattanooga ever afternoon back then. He gave us a big soft drink (dont remember what kind) and a moon pie. My drink was warm and I couldn't handle it. We took turns sitting on Rebel the horse trying to throw a ball into a barrel for prizes. Nobody could hit it. The show had cartoons that ran between the kids segments. I just remember watching ourselves and the cartoons on a little monitor off to the side of the set and trying like hell to drink that hot "coke" because I was on TV.
Click to expand...

You have a great memory
 
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#2,013
#2,013
mad4vols said:
Anybody remember some local tv show that had a clown and kids could sit it the audience. Late 60s I think, maybe Bozo? I attended once for a birthday and was on the program, it was televised live
Click to expand...

same story, except in nashville in mid-50s
think the showsv was either channel 4 or channel 5
 
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#2,015
#2,015
tntar heel said:
Never realized that Bozo was franchised to Local stations. I remember seeing it in the early 80's out of Chicago on WGN.
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I grew up in the 70s watching it out of Chicago. I didn't know there were multiple bozos.

1497362918_jake-gyllenhaal-mind-blown.gif
 
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#2,020
#2,020
The great thing about the above video is they find photo albums towards the end of the video
and there are pictures of all the past events in East town from the 80's and 90's and you
would think that they would not leave those behind because they capture a lot of history
of East Town Mall.
 
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#2,021
#2,021
Vjcvette said:
The great thing about the above video is they find photo albums towards the end of the video
and there are pictures of all the past events in East town from the 80's and 90's and you
would think that they would not leave those behind because they capture a lot of history
of East Town Mall.
Click to expand...
I enjoyed watching.
 
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#2,022
#2,022
Vjcvette said:
The great thing about the above video is they find photo albums towards the end of the video
and there are pictures of all the past events in East town from the 80's and 90's and you
would think that they would not leave those behind because they capture a lot of history
of East Town Mall.
Click to expand...
Wow! Brings back a ton of memories!
 
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#2,023
#2,023
I went to Knoxville Center Mall the last night it was open to the public, Jan. 31, 2020. The last store, Regal Tuxedo, was still emptying out the store inventory and there were a few people here and there walking around the commons areas. The mall still had the overhead music playing to the very end- classic rock and pop. At 9 PM, they played the usual prerecorded mall closing for the evening announcement - nothing special for the occasion. The few people who were left slowly made their way out. The end of an era.

And now in 2022, the mall is gone. Razed to the ground and removed to the Chestnut Ridge Landfill, and Amazon Distribution is taking its place, opening for operations soon. Very representative of the America of the 2020s vs. that of the 1980s.

I didn't shop much at Knoxville Center Mall, just at Sears for appliances in the late 2010's, auto registration renewals at the Knox County Clerk's office while it was there, and optometrics at the Dr. Bizer's Visionworks when it was there, Penney's for clothes and sheets, and that's about it. But gosh, I really miss that place. I loved the tiled map of the 1997 UT campus on the west end floor of the mall near Penney's. There was no effort made to preserve what many UT and Tennessee people considered a work of art.

There is still a Facebook site, Remember East Towne Mall, which any of you who remember the mall and cared about it should go see. It is a very poignant Facebook chronicling of that place, over the span of ten years or so, and east Knoxville people's efforts to try to save it.

This thread on Volnation is about businesses and restaurants in Knoxville that are gone, and East Towne Mall / Knoxville Center Mall represents a whole lot of them by itself. People in Knoxville still talk a lot about why Simon supports West Town Mall to this day and let East Towne go to hell like they did.
 
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#2,024
#2,024
These are images of the UTK campus floor tile art that were destroyed in the Knoxville Center mall demolition.

Who were the people who created this beautiful work of art? Maybe some of you know how to find out. They need to be commemorated.

IMG_20200114_111133.jpgIMG_20200114_111150.jpg
 
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