Retro:Cleveland/Akron/Youngstown Saturday, February 26, 1955

[TimL]

From TV Guide: If there is a Movie series Title It will be in Parentheses

Cleveland

WNBK 3 NBC


7AM Test Pattern-COLOR
9AM Movie:The Gay Cavalier (Early Bird Theater)
10AM Happy Felton
10:30 Paul Winchell/Jerry Mahoney
11AM Funny Boners
11:30 Tom Corbett Space Cadet

Noon Why Lawyers? Panel Discussion
12:30 Podium-Music
1PM Movie:Tell It To A Star (1:00 Playhouse)
2PM Teen Twirl-Dance show probably
3PM NBA Basketball-Milwaukee Hawks/New York Knicks
From New York's 69th Regiment Armory rather than Madison Square Garden
Milwaukee won 79-72 from http://www.shrpsports.com/nba
5PM Go! Ed Wallace
5:30 Movie-Texas Terror

6:30 Annie Oakley-Syndicated
7PM The Whistler-Syndicated
7:30 Horace Heidt-Music
8PM Mickey Rooney Show
8:30 This Is Hollywood-Anthology
9PM Imogene Coca Show
9:30 Jimmy Durante Show
10PM George Gobel Show
10:30 Your Hit Parade
11PM News-Tom Field
11:05 Movie:Casbah (Theater)
12:15 News Bulletin

WEWS 5 CBS

8:55 News
9AM Western Reserve
9:30 Winky Dinks
10AM Safety Poster Awards
10:30 Film Shorts
10:45 Green Thumb-Gardening
11AM Captain Midnight-CBS
11:30 Abbott And Costello

Noon Big Top-CBS
1PM Lone Ranger
1:30 Uncle Johnny Coons-CBS-Based In Chicago, This kid show host showed silent films and commented on them similar to what Mystery Science Theater 3000 would years later.
2PM Bandstand-McLean-Assuming a TV Dance show, but 2 years before American Bandstand
4PM Movie-Strange Experiment
5PM Rocky Jones, Space Ranger-Syndicated
5:30 Contest Carnival

6PM To Be Announced
6:30 Inside Catholic Schools
6:45 Industry On Parade

This is the week Channel 5 and WXEL-8 switches Networks with 5 going to ABC/DuMont and 8 to CBS-These will be the final regular CBS shows on Channel 5(Saturday-Tuesday)-The switch took place Wednesday March 2, 1955 at 7AM

7PM Gene Autry
7:30 Beat The Clock-Collyer
8PM Jackie Gleason
9PM Two For The Money-Fred Allen substitutes for Herb Shriner
9:30 My Favorite Husband
10PM Professional Father-Sitcom
10:30 Willy-Sitcom
11PM Movie-To Be Announced
12:30 News Bulletins


WXEL 8 DuMont/ABC

10AM Smilin Ed-ABC
10:30 Space Patrol-Syndicated
11AM Merry-go-Round-Kids
11:30 Movie-Lightnin' Crandall

1PM Movie-Gun Lords Of Stirrup Basin
3PM College Basketball-Michigan At Iowa
4:45 Flamingo Handicap-Horse Race?
5PM Main Event-Wrestling

6PM Big Picture
6:30 Travel Time
6:45 Cheerful House-Betty Ott
7PM Lights, Camera, Questions-Local Quiz
7:30 Compass-ABC
8PM Dotty Mack-ABC (From Cincinnsti)
9PM Ozark Jubilee-ABC
10PM The Stranger-DuMont (Last Show Of The Series)
10:30 Let's Go Bowling
11PM Chronoscope-News
11:15 Movie-The Village Idiot

WAKR Akron 49 ABC

2PM This Is Our World
2:30 Faith For Today
3PM Movie-Double Feature 1. Tulsa Kid 2. Desert Patrol (Bar 49 Theater)
5PM Movie-To Be Announced

6PM This Is The Life
6:30 Mark Saber-Synd.
7PM The Wanderer Travel
7:30 Compass-ABC
8PM Dotty Mack-ABC
8:15 College Bsketball-Akron Univ. Vs. Heidelberg College
10PM Movie-Slippy McGee

Youngstown

WFMJ 21 NBC

10AM Happy Felton
10:30 Paul Winchell/Jerry Mahoney
11AM Funny Boners
11:30 Tom Corbett Space Cadet

Noon Komedy Kut-Ups-Probably Cartoons or Comedy Shorts
1PM Movie-Treasure Of Monte-Cristo (Movie Party)
2PM Movie-Small Black Room (Movie Party)
3PM Big Picture
3:30 Original Rumpus Room
4PM Movie Blazing Guns (Golden West Theater)
5PM Wishing Well
5:15 Wrestling

6:15 News
6:30 Roller Derby
7PM Amos N Andy
7:30 Horace Heidt-Music
8PM Mickey Rooney Show
8:30 This Is Hollywood-Anthology
9PM Imogene Coca Show
9:30 Jimmy Durante Show
10PM George Gobel Show
10:30 Your Hit Parade
11PM News
11:10 Best Theater
11:40 Movie-The Second Woman-(Skyline Theater)

WKBN 27 (CBS/ABC/DuMont)

10:30 Winky Dink And You
11AM Western Theater

1PM The Plainsman (This could have been the movie from 1936-very much edited-No record of a series by that name)
2PM Six Shooters-Western Shorts?
3PM Movie-Charlie Chan "Dead Men Tell"
4PM Movie-Oriental Evil (Saturday Playhouse)
5PM Hopalong Cassidy

6PM Juke Box
6:30 News
6:45 Sports
7PM Masquerade Party-ABC
7:30 Beat The Clock-Collyer
8PM Jackie Gleason
9PM Two For The Money-Fred Allen substitutes for Herb Shriner
9:30 TV Reader's Digest-ABC
10PM Professional Father-Sitcom
10:30 Willy-Sitcom
11PM Weather
11:05 Sports
11:20 Wrestling-Chicago-DuMont
Midnight News Bulletin





<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by TimL on 07/28/05 05:45 PM.</FONT></P>

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Tim Lones takes us back to February 26th, 1955 in northeastern Ohio:

> Cleveland
>
> WNBK 3 NBC
>
> 7AM Test Pattern-COLOR

This was probably some time before electronically-generated color bars became common for a "test pattern". I suspect it was probably a "circles and wedges" type of test pattern on a color slide with various colors in-between the wedges inside the large circle that touched the top and the bottom of the screen.

> 3PM NBA Basketball-Milwaukee Hawks/New York Knicks
> From New York's 69th Regiment Armory rather than Madison
> Square Garden
> Milwaukee won 79-72 from http://www.shrpsports.com/nba

I would think that the circus was at the old Madison Square Garden that week. The Knicks probably were forced to play some games at the 69th Regiment Armory instead of the old MSG, while the Rangers probably played on the road.

> 5PM Go! Ed Wallace

Was it a travelogue of some sort??

> 9PM Imogene Coca Show

She and Sid Caesar each got their own shows after "Your Show Of Shows" ended. I don't think Coca's show lasted too long; Caesar's (with the rest of "Show Of Shows" cast and some of it's writers) lasted three years. Later, they reunited on a short-lived ABC variety hour and from time-to-time after that series ended, they would reunite with "Show Of Shows" co-stars Carl Reiner and Howard Morris in a series of top-rated award-winning specials.

> 9:30 Jimmy Durante Show

I had read that this show was sponsored by Texaco, and they gave up sponsoring Milton Berle to become the sponsor of this show.

Tim also noted:

> This is the week Channel 5 and WXEL-8 switches Networks with
> 5 going to ABC/DuMont and 8 to CBS-These will be the final
> regular CBS shows on Channel 5(Saturday-Tuesday)-The switch
> took place Wednesday March 2, 1955 at 7AM

It was odd for a network-affiliation switch to take place on a Wednesday. The first two times a network-affiliation swap took place here in Boston (January 1st, 1961 and March 19th, 1972), they were on Sundays. The most recent was Monday, January 2nd, 1995, which was a Monday but also the "legal" New Year's Day Holiday (as January 1 was on a Sunday that year).

I believe Storer Communications had purchased WXEL by this time. Storer had a long and close relationship with CBS, I suspect that was the reason why WXEL (later to become WJW) switched to CBS.

> WFMJ 21 NBC
>
> 3PM Big Picture
> 3:30 Original Rumpus Room
> 4PM Movie Blazing Guns (Golden West Theater)

Interesting that WFMJ, a primary NBC affiliate, did not clear the network's NBA game that day. But pro basketball was still a minor sport in the mid-fifties, and I suspect a lot of NBC affiliates likewise snubbed the NBA.

 

[KMRichards]

> > 7AM Test Pattern-COLOR
>
> This was probably some time before electronically-generated
> color bars became common for a "test pattern". I suspect it
> was probably a "circles and wedges" type of test pattern on
> a color slide with various colors in-between the wedges
> inside the large circle that touched the top and the bottom
> of the screen.

You mean like this?

<P ID="signature">______________


</P>

 

[bpatrick]

>
>
>
> >
>
> Tim also noted:
>
> > This is the week Channel 5 and WXEL-8 switches Networks
> with
> > 5 going to ABC/DuMont and 8 to CBS-These will be the final
>
> > regular CBS shows on Channel 5(Saturday-Tuesday)-The
> switch
> > took place Wednesday March 2, 1955 at 7AM
>
> It was odd for a network-affiliation switch to take place on
> a Wednesday. The first two times a network-affiliation swap
> took place here in Boston (January 1st, 1961 and March 19th,
> 1972), they were on Sundays. The most recent was Monday,
> January 2nd, 1995, which was a Monday but also the "legal"
> New Year's Day Holiday (as January 1 was on a Sunday that
> year).

It happened in Raleigh, Wednesday, August 1, 1962, when WRAL/5
switched from NBC primary to ABC (there were only two commercial
stations in the market then). But when WRAL went to CBS and WTVD/11
to ABC, it happened on a Sunday, August 4, 1985.
>
> I believe Storer Communications had purchased WXEL by this
> time. Storer had a long and close relationship with CBS, I
> suspect that was the reason why WXEL (later to become WJW)
> switched to CBS.
>
> > WFMJ 21 NBC
> >
> > 3PM Big Picture
> > 3:30 Original Rumpus Room
> > 4PM Movie Blazing Guns (Golden West Theater)
>
> Interesting that WFMJ, a primary NBC affiliate, did not
> clear the network's NBA game that day. But pro basketball
> was still a minor sport in the mid-fifties, and I suspect a
> lot of NBC affiliates likewise snubbed the NBA.
>

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Yes, K.M., the "circles and wedges" test pattern looked something like the CBS color system test pattern you illustrated in your post, only that it would have "WNBK-TV Channel 3 Cleveland" printed on it and perhaps the red/blue/green NBC chimes logo the network used for a few years in the mid and late 1950's. The red RCA "meatball" logo may also have appeared on the test pattern, perhaps including below the RCA logo the words "Color Television System".

Maybe someone in Cleveland can track down the mid-1950's WNBK color test pattern. I'd like to see what it looked like.