Your favorite Public Broadcasting moments...

[Erose999]

Watching some music videos on youtube and I just realized that a LOT of stuff I had been watching is from PBS:

Whiskeytown - Austin City Limits - 1/28/98

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BKHzmsAOJw&feature=related

Townes Van Zandt - ACL - 9/15/75

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaP8NGML_QE

So I though it'd be cool to make a thread in support of PBS where people can post things from their favorite PBS programs. When I was a young'un we didn't have cable, we had an antenna and we got maybe 4 or 5 channels. And I watched PBS a lot more than I watched the syndicated crap the other broadcast stations were sending over the people's airwaves.

Here's Justin Wilson, talking about "shikken" and telling stories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eK4umRMJlrs&feature=related

And then theres Norm Abram aka "Mr. Shop Safety":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPo9p0lzPw

[Brickbat]

1. The PBS bumper from the mid-1970s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k20IfJhbaRM

And then of course the 1970s version of Sesame Street. It fucking KICKS ASS over the SS of today.

And then Mr. Rogers, who was awesome.

Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, all the funny 15-minute educational programs that ran during the day that you could watch when you were sick (All About You, which was a show about the body, was one of my favorites) -- some were produced locally, some were national.

The Reading Rocket, Clyde Frog, Vegetable Soup -- all those kids shows. They were innovative and exciting.

My parents watched a lot of Masterpiece Theater.

TOTAL LOVE FOR PBS!

[catabryna]

2. My kid was never a SS fan...

but he does like Word Girl.

As a kid, I loved Electric Company (remember Morgan Freeman?) and Zoom!

[Erose999]

4. And Zoobilie Zoo with Ben Vereen.

[sharp_stick]

16. I never thought I'd see the day

when someone describes Sesame Street as "Fucking kicks ass". You are right though, I mean at least back then Oscar really was a grouch and Cookie Monster ate cookies while the Count.. counted.

:toast:

[Erose999]

3. Mr. Rogers testifies to the Senate in 1969:

WOW - there may never be another Fred Rogers, at least not without PBS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXEuEUQIP3Q

[Brickbat]

6. I wanted to marry him, when I was 4. I cried when I heard he had died, and I was 32!

[eleny]

9. As an adult I'd mist up when he looked out at us and said he liked us just the way we are

[Brickbat]

10. Me too! The kids would watch it, and I'd be sitting on the couch wiping my eyes, thinking about all

the kids he was really reaching, and how that quiet half-hour might be the only time anyone ever told them they were special.

[eleny]

14. To be honest - he made me feel special

Him and his sincere sweaters!

I loved the shows where we'd go to a factory to see things made. And one time he took us to one where they made zippered sweaters just like his own.

:hi:

[Brickbat]

27. Me too. Which is a pretty powerful thing.

[Erose999]

29. Yeah, I loved those segments. One thing that bothered me was he didn't feed the fish on every

episode. So I worried about the fish.

I brought it up in my kindergarten class one time and the teacher said something about how he has helpers who feed the fish or something like that.

[COLGATE4]

25. What blew me away about Fred Rogers was to find out that before

his TV career Fred had been a Navy Seal in Vietnam, a specialist in hand-to-hand combat. If memory serves I believe he was credited with killing at least 16 VC. After that experience his life obviously changed forever. (red always wore long sleeves to cover up his Seal tatoos.) A truly remarkable man!

[uppityperson]

26. He was someone very very special.

[Brickbat]

28. That's an urban legend; none of it is true.

[Dappleganger]

18. Mr. Rogers was the only adult who understood me...

we never met, but I wished we had. :(

[Ian David]

5. Handicapped child Jeff Erlanger and Mr. Rogers.

Jeff Erlanger and Mr. Rogers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxl4SPiKQDE

Also:

Sesame Street: Big Bird Remembers Mr. Hooper <1997>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twv8VsITk9o

And while I cannot find the clip ANYWHERE, the Electric Company, "I Want My MUMMY!" skit.

So, THIS will have to do:

The Electric Company - Introducing Spidey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaJIepuUXpg

[Brickbat]

7. Brilliant. Thanks for posting.

I have something in my eye.

[eleny]

15. _

[eleny]

8. cold comfort farm with alistaire sims from back in the 1960s

there are so many great pbs shows over many decades. but the one i miss seeing is the cold comfort farm that played on pbs in nyc in the 1960s. i think they played it every night for a week. and my family watched it every blessed time.

oh! another.... the upstairs downstairs marathon that went on day and night. and after the finale, alistaire cooke comes on the screen, wipes his brow with his hand and says, "whew!".

lastly, we had a second pbs station start up here in colorado many years back. it's kbdi. when they first started out they'd end programming maybe around 9 or 10 at night. they'd play the national anthem and then a young woman's voice would wish you good night. and she did it live!

[Sonoman]

11. I remember those pants of Townes'.

First time I saw them, he was lying face-down under a dining table in this big old house at the intersection of Smith Street and Hwy 59 in Houston.

The guy who had the house had this funky little drive-thru beer stand out on the street. He also sold about every kind of drug available back then. That's why Townes was there.

We were sitting around, really wasted and playing some songs.

The guy in the weird pants oozed out from under the table and commented on some song I was playing. As it turned out, I was playing his guitar. He told me his name was Townes and invited me to some natural food place (Of Our Own)on Shepherd Dr, where he had a gig that night.

I went, and my life was never the same again.

Sonoman

[northoftheborder]

12. I watch more PBS than any other channel....

Favorites: Bill Moyers Now, Masterpiece Theater, Mystery Theater, British Comedies (many great ones), Jim Lehrer's Newshour, Antique Roadshow, Julia Child, Victory Garden and local gardening shows, the great Mr. Rogers, and other fine children's programs.

[burrowowl]

35. Nova, Point of View, etc.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

44. All those plus Nature. If you get a chance to catch the recent

one on The Himalayas, you should. Fascinating wildlife in that region.

[eleny]

13. Julia Child!!!

She's making elegant eggs here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMAn79IjekQ&feature=related

[CrownPrinceBandar]

17. Our PBS station would show a full-story arc of Doctor Who....

on saturday nights.

[Erose999]

30. My mom loves all the Britcoms, especially "Are You Being Served". I always wondered how they got

away with broadcasting Mr. Humphries in a place as conservative as GA, but I guess none of the Fred Phelps types were watching PBS on those Saturday nights.

[EFerrari]

19. Jim Henson, hands down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7BFr1lY9A0&feature=related

[Recursion]

20. The burning squirrel story from "This American Life"

Also, "The Great Big Pile of Money" (same show, though that team morphed into Planet Money).

[robdogbucky]

21. Billions and billions......Carl Sagan's series in the '70s

Jacob Bronowski and The Ascent of Man

Monty Python on American TV for the first time

Connections with James Burke



During the 70s at UW in Madison they re-ran those Carl Sagan shows the morning after in giant lecture halls filled to the brim.



Hands off my Social Security!
Hands off Latin America!


rdb

[Blue_In_AK]

22. Every single Bill Moyers' Journal. n/t

[asjr]

23. I still wish PBS would bring back All Creatures. My

grandchildren would love it.

[Twinguard]

24. I grew up watching PBS.

I watched many of the shows that have already been mentioned... Sesame Street, 321Contact, Reading Rainbow. We watched many episodes of NOVA and Masterpiece Theater. Yep, I pretty much grew up on PBS programming.

Now my kids are to the age that they really get a kick out of Sesame Street (although it pales in comparison to the SS I used to watch, but that's a different story), Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train (or whatever it's called), and a few others.

I have also very recently found myself interested in wood working and have found a few shows on PBS all about wood working. The shows I've seen are mostly about hand tools and how to use them. Little of it is new to me, but there is lots of good review... and there have even been a few techniques that I hadn't ever tried or even thought of, so it's not ALL review. It's just good quality television.

[Erose999]

39. Funny story about reading rainbow, I was at a house party one time and for some reason I sang the

reading rainbow song. My friend, who had grown up in some kind of quasi-amish homeschooling isolation cult and wasn't exposed to childrens TV just could not comprehend the concept of reading rainbow. "A TV show about books? Why not just make the kids READ the books. Why do you need a TV show about it?"

Reading Rainbow was just good television. Few people relate to kids as well as the PBS hosts like Fred Rogers, Levar Burton, etc. Another awesome thing about the PBS shows when I was a kid was that they weren't overtly commercial. PBS wasn't a "brand". You didn't have all the product placement and merchandising like the cartoons on the networks.

It seems like in "free market" television, its more about selling toys than creating, teaching, or even entertaining for that matter.

Although PBS has since moved in that direction with its more popular shows like Sesame Street, Barney, etc.

[martymar64]

31. In 1979 on a PBS station in Spokane, I watched this movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOMm86R_67w

[enuegii]

32. I always liked Bob Ross in the "Joy of Painting" series...

Always calm and soothing and ready to put another "happy little tree" somewhere.

[Erose999]

34. Happy little trees! Yeah, Bob Ross was awesome. According to wikipedia

< wiki >
Having held military positions that required him to be, in his own words, "mean" and "tough," "the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work," Ross decided that if he ever moved on from the military, "it wasn't going to be that way any more," "vowing never to scream again". < / wiki >

Thats just awesome. Not to mention "The Joy of Painting" ran 31 seasons, which has to be a record of somekind.

[csziggy]

36. Bob Ross was always good for the blood pressure

I watched a lot of him during a stressful period of my life and that was the calmest thirty minutes of each week.

[Brickbat]

33. I find it really sad that this thread has only five recs.

[sufrommich]

37. My favorite PBs moment:

My whole family would wait all week for the next adventure in this series and gather around the television together to watch it.It was absolutely awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7n71pm0K04

[MrMickeysMom]

42. God...... That was SO DAMNED RIGHTFULLY GOOD

Absolutely awesome, indeed.

Thank you for that memory!

[1gobluedem]

38. Don't forget NPR 'driveway' moments

Lots of those too.

[Erose999]

40. Has everyone signed the petitions from credo and Move-on? If only me and the 10 others who rec'd

this thread have shown support... PBS might be doomed. I don't have a lot of faith in those petitions, but at least its something pro-active.

Oscar sings "I love Trash":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1SiSUrvUnk

[Tracer]

41. Where to start?

Upstairs/Downstairs (and the rest of Masterpiece), NOVA, This Old House, Bill Moyers, The Civil War, Baseball, Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers when my kids were little .... and on and on ...

I love the new Science Now with Neal DeGrasse Tyson and the latest NOVA (I think) with a snarky guy showing startling new technologies like the show about making things extremely small. I actually want to watch that one again.

[eShirl]

43. Bill Moyers' 6-part interview "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth"