When We Were Kids

When I first decided to compile a Chronicle of Pittsburgh's Children personalities of the fifties and sixties, I looked forward to a fun time of assembling and putting in order all materials supplied from those who are included in the publication my search soon turned into frustration and disappointment. I discovered that TV stations decided that space was more important than TV History--

I learned that thousands of photographs were trashed and tossed into dumpsters because stations needed space.

I have often been asked why the stations didn't replay some of the old shows on the air"". Adventure time with Paul Shannon, ""Funsville"or Popeye "and Knish, or "Happy's Party".How about episodes of Ricki& Copper"" or Junior High Quiz."

Fat Chance !Because, the stations dumped the tapes and films of those programs,They got discarded -destroyed- thrown away, trashed! Stations dumped TV history because they said they said they needed the space. Some shows were on two inch Ampex tape, that took a lot of shelf space . and the machines to play those tapes were also discarded because they became obsolete. Today, You can get hours of information on a CD that you could stuff in your back pocket ..Those pinheads running TV didn't have the sense to save and store history,. How simple it would be to edit and broadcast again.

Those shows made Thousands of dollars in sales for the stations, And could do it again . Simple editing of old shows would be a delight and so simple;"TV Land " re-runs such shows as "Redd Fox, All in the family," and other popular shows.""Rifleman", ""Bonanza"" "Little house on the prairie."Wonder how those shows are stored..?.

Many of the included photos of Children's TV personalities of were supplied by the people themselves from their own personal files and scrapbooks. Personal gratitude goes to Jean Connelly, Don Riggs, Ricki Wertz, and David Newell of Family Communications at WQED-TV, also Delores Ellenberg of the Carnegie Museum of Pittsburgh. their searches required digging up personal collections of photos and material in dusty attics and basements, I was introduced also to sadness, because many Children's TV personalities have died.. They are gone-. as is every record of their TV accomplishment....Even today, I wonder if Stations are archiving current shows or even saving some tapes or film. How neat it would be to watch newscasts from ten years or twenty five years ago; Burns, Ide or Murray?

. P.S. In my basement, I have a cardboard box filled with old film of TV Accomplishments-From 1948 to 1952.. small pieces of 8,000 hours of live TV-If a TV station in Pittsburgh wants it-

Naw,on second thought, it's safer here.. besides, they wouldn"t know what to do it. It's on 16MMfilm.

Title of this work is, "When we were kids, These were the shows hows we watched-'"

Enjoy!