oh all right let's introduce our next guest we have a good show for you tonight for the
past uh for the first time in a few years my next guest is going to be able to sleep
a little late in the morning uh soon to be the co-anchor of a brand new magazine show
on this network called american almanac please welcome our favorite newscaster connie chung
how you doing i'm great how are you pretty good you look terrific thank you you know i was we
were talking to the office the other day we had this idea now you tell me if this would work
yeah i know nbc news is kind of stodgy kind of conservative and see if they'd go for this
we'd like you to be a regular on the show come on a couple of times a week so you come on like
tuesdays and thursdays yeah and you come out and we chat with you about uh how you been what
are you doing in town been any restaurants are you you know how's your social life you've covered any
news stories of interest and you tell us all this we'd talk back and forth and then you'd do a song
what do you think uh i've never practiced with paul
we could work it out there's plenty of time to rehearse this we could do show
tunes do you like showtime sure what's your favorite broadway play yeah um let's see yeah
uh how about the fantastic too much no i've never seen that okay um my fair lady is good all right
so you do a couple of songs from that yeah sure no but think about it i have no problem with this
david oh good and then and who's the man we should talk to larry grossman all right and will he go
along with this well you'll have to ask a couple of times a week his extension is two four two
all right all right we'll we'll call him up there what do you think paul would be all right
no i think it'd be a great idea i think it would be great for both of us i think that because
because it would a whole new audience would see you because sunrise comes on at what time well six
in some cities 6 30 a.m in other cities yeah so chances are the people who stand to see this show
aren't awake to see your show i happen to i have a theory that they are staying up and watching you
because you know your viewership is just great now and then there's like dynasty here
unbelievable and they aren't getting any sleep and they're getting up and watching me
yeah because the tv set is on you know that channel they go to sleep next morning
they turn on the tv and there i am or the same could be said for they get up in the
morning and watch you and sit in front of the set 18 hours until we come on
either way it's pretty safe to assume they're on dangerous chemicals if they're doing that uh now
you have a new show coming on a brand new show now listen there's a part for you on that show great
i'd love it what can i do i'll do it well we we have this section in which we're gonna do cartoons
yeah i mentioned that i'd heard that the the man producing the show is gonna have a few
minutes of cartoons on it every week but that's only a rumor isn't it that's just all right it
was an american almanac nominee and how is it going to be different from other attempts at a
news program prime time correction one thing when you uh in the beginning
roger mudd is our anchor he's our big gun i'm just i'm a gunnette
uh but you don't need you don't need roger mud though no of course you do he's our anchor
no oh yeah no you do you have roger mudd where is he when you're up at six in the morning
is roger mud there with you he's probably watching no he gets up like noon oh come on
rolls out of bed makes a bologna sandwich
but uh so you and bill will be with bill you and bill you and roger will be co-hosting
no so roger is our anchor he is the anchor yeah and uh he'll be doing a cover story which maybe
will be maybe 10 minutes long it'll be a timely story something that applies to something so he's
really the cornerstone of the show absolutely oh well this isn't going to work oh no no no no
then i go out and do stories and so you're a reporter i also have a nice story that's about
10 minutes long also two weeks and he'll be gone i guarantee it don't you think really no i don't uh
he uh i see him with a sunday morning show that's where i see ryan oh
no no one of those uh doesn't think that way david
uh no he's a very distinguished newscaster and a fine uh journalist
indeed yeah but he's dead weight no no
we'll uh we'll do a we'll do a commercial and then we'll be back with connie chung
yeah come on i'm talking uh connie chung is here emo phillips will be joining us have you ever
seen the emo philippines very funny interesting young man uh now what kind of stories are we uh
talking about for the show and when does it go on the air august 6 10 o'clock tuesday night so
every tuesday night we'll get to see american almanac wrong um it'll be on once a month from
august to december in different time periods so that we start off very slowly and then in january
it'll have a specific time called once a week well that's probably a good idea yeah it gives the show
some time to find itself and you don't have to worry about building an audience exactly exactly
you see the merit in it yes i do now because nbc has tried uh news programs before 14 other
times they've tried yes no actually i think it was 13. so you're the 14th i think so yeah
uh and are you worried about this being a success what to worry no not to worry uh i have a feeling
it probably will will do better than the earlier attempts because the show that you uh started the
the morning show sunrise what was that called before sunrise early today or oh that's right
early today but you've done a terrific job with that and it's doing it's it's doing well very
very very well now what kind of things are you going to do uh with roger on the show well i go
out and cover various stories and um one of them that i'm working on that we basically have done
is um did you know that you can pre-select the sex of your child your baby um without even
making love love you can actually select the sex uh or help influence it in other words right now
there's a 50 50 chance of having a boy or a girl is it 50 50 because i thought it was
you a far greater chance of having a boy just a little bit about a hundred and
a girl 100 boy about 104 boys are born to every hundred girls so not much of a difference yeah
about 50 50. you can increase your chances to 79 to 80 by using a laboratory method it's all done
in a laboratory because it's the male you know it is you who determine the sex of the child
that's right because the the extra chromosome or something right that's right now why are people
laughing at that so oh and i was just no no just no i was a bad back um so you go to the laboratory
this is uh or before conception obviously yes okay what do you do the male provides the sperm
and uh there are in the laboratory yes the uh this is a laboratory indeed it is
licensed by the state probably licensed all right okay you go there you go there and
uh the male producing sperm are included with the female producing sperm and what
a scientist has discovered is he's found a way to separate the male producing sperm from the
female producing sperm now there's a sperm that produce boys from the sperm that produce girls
okay they put the sperm over a layer of sticky substance in a test tube called albumin the faster
swimming male producing sperm make a beeline for the bottom of the test tube they swim very fast
through this albumin they get down to the bottom the girl producing sperm are up there getting a
suntan really exactly and so a woman is artificially inseminated with that lower portion
the sticky stuff is here and the boys are down here the woman is artificially inseminated
with that portion down there if she wants a boy that's right i see there's a different
process for girls and it's a it's a different substance called cephadexin but it's similar
is it a foolproof process no it's not it is neither guaranteed that the woman will
become pregnant certainly sometimes it takes three months to try it
um and also the success rate is about 79 to 80 in other words there have been about 200 babies born
203 precisely of people who wanted a boy 160 were boys that is 79 yeah but won't this uh
throw some natural balance out of kilter and uh that's a great worry um among people who
think that this is not a good idea that you're a tampering with nature you're tampering with the uh
the natural balance that more people might want boys or more people might want girls
and also the psychological effects on the child because say like foreign since the family has four
boys and they really want a girl well this girl is chosen yeah yeah and then the boys might feel
less i'm not so much concerned about that but you go to throwing out the natural uh uh way of
things you tamper with the universe and with the way we exist in it and you're you're screwed um
well not really eventually it's done in the laboratory in the laboratory uh well all right
so you and uh and uh roger begin the show and roger's the anchorman yeah he's he's sort of the
dean of anchorman in this country isn't he roger mud yeah you have a lot of respect for him i do
indeed yeah and you feel like it's going to be a learning experience working with him don't you
well actually i've known roger for years and years one of the greats isn't he i've known him for so
many years no i have but we used to work together at cbs i can't wait all right now uh it's american
almanac and it begins august 6 6. but before you send me off i have something for you all right
yeah oh walnuts this is a long story but connie chung brought us walnuts we got in trouble once
because we said you were going to be on the show as a joke as a promotion we said and
connie chung will be here to crush walnuts in her bare hands and the nbc attorneys and so on
and so forth said well is she going to be there to crush walnuts and we said well no this well
you can't do that then because conceivably people might stay up tune in to see connie
break walnuts with their bare hands all right can you do it i don't know we'll give it a try
do them both do them yeah i know oh yeah i'm sorry i didn't you're going to ruin your nails i know
she's going to break a finger here i almost have it
i'd like to see roger mud do this
come on connie i can do it at home you can do it at home now
once more here i i mean here do this just put it down and wham it no no that's not the way
to do it or what do we have to do we have to go away all right and and uh okay we'll work on it
welcome back folks connie is still here and she's uh working on uh breaking crushing walnuts with
her bare hands while she's doing that let me tell you about tomorrow night's program
uh where is that kevin is that tomorrow night comedian jonathan katz truck stop
owner magpie richardson stupid patrick's viewer mail nine-year-old impressionist zachariah overton
there's no way in hell you can fully enjoy this program without a 1200 stereo television set
uh that'll be tomorrow
very nice very nice thank you so much good luck with your show chung ladies and gentlemen
all right connie chung and her fists of steel well