Did any of you grow up in or near a city with a fair amound of local TV shows that were not the news. in Cleveland we ahd a couple of movie hosts, Big Chuck and L'il John, SuperHost and the Ghoul. We also had a woman, named Liz, who hosted morning and afternoon blocks of kids programming called Kidsland.

Now-a-days it seems like all the creative energy and money has been sucked up by cable and the internet. Most over the air stations produce the news and crazy early morning public affairs shows.

Where I was (Toledo), we had a few sparingly number of programs in the 80's like a kiddie show that aired on early Saturday mornings on a CBS affiliate (WTOL ch. 11) called "Patches & Pockets". This show starred two boy and girl ragdolls (though both played by women) who go through learning or teaching lessons in a series of segments while cartoons were added in between breaks (mostly pretty lame ones like the 1960's Popeye cartoons or the minor Terrytoon characters). On a former NBC affiliate (WTVG ch. 13) after the Saturday Morning toonage, came "High School Quiz", headed by local guy Frank Venner who emceed the program where two different teams from area high schools compete for whatever scholarship was offered (or probably not, it's been a long time) through trivia questions. The same NBC station once had on a show about a guy who ran a general store called "Uncle Ben" (not to be confused with the instant rice guy).

Back over on the CBS station on Saturdays as well was a Christian children's program called 'Three Cheers For Life", often bringing up the usual messages associated with religion, and a rather interesting helping of "Jot" cartoons on the side, which I so remember too vividly over Davey & Goliath! On Sundays, the NBC station would present "Sunday Mass for Shut-Ins" where a priest from an area church would present the mass right in the studio with guest parishioners on set.

I hardly remember much in the way of movie presenters, though when a new station started up in '85 (WUPW ch. 36), they used to had a guy presenting the evening movie screenings on the station as well as some girl doing short news updates in the years before they were a Fox affiliate in '87 (nowadays it's pretty much like any other Fox station with it's own 10PM newscast and an hour long one at 4PM).

I also once catched a rather amusing science program that used to air for a long time ad nausem on Detroit's NBC station (WDIV) called "Kidbits", where a guy would show off experiments while cartoons from Warner Bros.' pre-48 era were often seen inbetween the program, though in later years, it was re-edited into a half-hour thing that had all the experiments as they are, but with pretty campy PSA's that were kept in as the show was reran into the 90's.

I sorta feel bad I was born slightly later in the 70's not to go through those glory days when that was how many stations often operated outside of network or syndicated programming, back when local programming meant something more than just news. Nowadays it's a joke if they still have studio space at all that isn't used up for news. Best I've seen now on my ABC O&O (WTVG again) if they do something outside news is probably the local portion of the Jerry Lewis Telethons or the Xmas choir segments where they do bother using their non-news studio for those purposes but that's it.

Of course in bigger markets like NY, Chicago and the like, there tends to be far more memories of what television had been like before my time and during it. Too often those shows began to dry up in the 80's and 90's when it got to the point they couldn't bother affording to do it anymore, or just didn't care to use up adequate time-slots suitable for another infomercial/talkshow/whatever. WGN in Chicago for example had Bozo the Clown for a long, long time until that was ended in 2001. People who grew up in NY may recall the classics that independent stations like WPIX, WNEW or WOR used to air in their childhood that is no longer a reality now that Fox, CW or MNTV rule the roost.

Where I grew up we had Ohio University in our town so that gave us an awesome public access channel. I along with my best friend Jenn had our own show on there. You could find anything on that channel too. A lot of different people had there own shows. It was very interesting and amusing to watch. Unfortunately like everything else after the 80's and 90's it started to decline. Now it all church shows and community stuff. Nothing good and original at all. RIP Athens Public Access 23.

There's still many public access channels out there (though mostly through cable systems if they bother maintaining them), but the era of 'anybody can have a show if they tried' sorta ended in recent years, probably thanks to the internet as usual.

Dunno any. I'm brainwashed!!

Well, on Channel 9 -WWOR in New York- we had a noontime show called "9 Broadcast Plaza"(the address of the studio in Secacus, NJ) which quickly became "The Richard Bey Show" which quickly became "Jerry Springer" before "Jerry Springer".

Also on 9, we had The Howard Stern Summer Show, which is where I first realized the awesome hotness of lesbians.

And on the same channel on Sunday mornings, we had a kid's show called Steampipe Alley, hosted by Mario Cantone. It was a pretty good show, showed cartoons, had some games and comedy skits, and celebrity guests. This must have been around 1989 or so.

And I don't know if this was just local or not (it may have started local and expanded) but we also had the DJ Kat Show on Fox 5.

Nowadays it seems like everything over the air is network TV or news.

The show (which began as a summer replacement deal) went on to become simply "The Howard Stern Show", and lasted for a couple years on WWOR and was syndicated in other markets too.


WNEW (later WNYW) once had the popular "Wonderama" that lasted from 1955 to 77 on the station, and on other Metromedia stations across the country. I've only heard of DJ Kat being on the station in the late 80's or so (a similar program was aired in Europe on the Sky satellite channel).

Nowadays it seems like everything over the air is network TV or news. [/quote]

OMG! I can not believe I forgot about Mr. Cartoon! He was on a local affiliate for our NBC channel 8 years and years ago. He had a live studio audience like Bozo The Clown and you played games for prizes and he played all these MGM and Loony Toons. I was on that show once when he came to our elementary school to tape a show. I never got picked to go up front and play a game but I did get some air time being in the audience. he had this game involving nasty things in a bucket. He always called them the yucket buckets. I use that phrase a lot.

We had a show called "Good Company" which, I don't remember if it came on in the afternoon or the morning... Steve and Sharon. Good times.

I did too! Later in the mid-90's was a woman named Patti from Channel 55, which is now CW here. I liked how she would throw things behind her shouldres. After she left, came Ali and that's when Kids shows became downhill at the time.

I'm also a member of Big Chuck and Lil' John's website.

I loved watching Academic Challenge (also titled It's Academic) on WEWS Channel 5 in Cleveland. I still watch it all the time, but I would really like to find some of the older episodes of the show sometime. I grew up on the days when Lou Maglio (now on WJW Fox 8) and Don Webster (now retired) hosted the show.

I'm also a fan of Cash Explosion Double Play, the Ohio Lottery game show on Saturday nights. Although I still watch it regularly today, I think the days of Paul Tapia and Sharon Bicknell hosting and John E. Douglas announcing were much better than today's version.

In St. Louis in the early 80s the CBS station had a Saturday morning quiz show for kids called DB's Delight. Students from local schools would compete, and the show was hosted by a local radio host and a puppet called DB Doorbell. Sometimes the puppet put on a turban and do an imitation of Johnny Carson's Carnac bit. The show used the J Geils Band song Freeze Frame as its theme.
It was a full show, but Ch 11 used to have a thing called Soapbox, which let people come on for a couple of minutes in between shows and speak their piece on any issue.
Let's not forget that the psychedelic puppet show The Letter People, which aired on PBS in the 70s, was produced at the local PBS station KETC.