UNC-TV, several years ago, ran the half-hour Red Skeltons (I think
mostly the NBC shows, since Skelton vowed never to release any of
his CBS shows after the Eye Network canceled him in 1970), as well
as Jack Benny and Tennessee Ernie Ford.
I remember WOSU airing "Best Of Groucho" on Saturday mornings; unlike
other stations, it was listed as a comedy show rather than a game show.
I also seem to recall Burns and Allen on WOSU's Saturday-morning schedule.
The first commercial station in the U.S. to carry "Monty Python's Flying Circus"
was KPRC Houston, Sundays at 10:30 PM. After the success of that show, the
station reserved that time for British shows for years, although I don't think they
had Benny Hill (he was on either Ch. 26 or Ch. 39, IIRC). I also first heard of
"Doctor Who" through a commercial station; WJXT Jacksonville ran it at 4:30 PM
in the summer of 1973. And my first exposure to "Dave Allen At Large" was on
WXIA, just before the switch from ABC to NBC; they delayed "Nightline" to carry
him at 11:30 PM, and for a time after the switch delayed Tom Snyder's expanded
"Tomorrow Coast-To-Coast" to 1 AM in order to carry Dave Allen.
I think those episodes of "The Goldbergs" that WPBT carried are the same ones
JLTV is carrying now; Gertrude Berg filmed a season's worth for syndication around
1955; Molly and Jake had moved to the suburbs, and it didn't seem to be true to the
characters. Now if somebody could find the syndicated episodes of "Mama," filmed
around 1957...
I was a little surprised to find a PBS station carrying "Hee Haw," but I sometimes
wonder if some other PBS station manager will ever get the idea of carrying "Hee Haw"
and Lawrence Welk back to back (probably not, since "Hee Haw" is on RFD-TV).
Sounds stupid? Maybe, but Welk's success on PBS broke all the rules as to what
constitutes "PBS fare."
Finally, someone mentioned that Walter Cronkite was a fan of Benny Hill, comparing
him to Red Skelton. That comparison was no accident; Benny used the "God bless"
closing that Red did, and a lot of his stuff was slapstick; the main difference may have
been the presence of all those women on Benny's show. Dan Rather reported Benny's
death in 1992; since I was watching him that evening I don't know if Tom Brokaw or
Peter Jennings mentioned it.