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Station Cartoon Character Icons

T

The King Bee

Here in Louisville, WHAS-TV used a character icon called "FISBIE" (Foremost In Service, Best In Entertainment) from the spring of 1953 until about 1970. He was a large-headed guy with two numeral ones for eyes, intended to reinforce viewer awareness of the station's move from Channel 9 to Channel 11 in '53 due to the FCC re-shuffling of the TV bands.

(The same shuffle that cheated Louisville out of Channel 7 and delayed the market from getting a full-time ABC affiliate until WLKY-TV, Channel 32, signed on in a much more welcoming climate for UHF in September, 1961. WKLO-TV, Channel 21, tried and died with an ABC/DuMont affiliation during 1953.)

The Fisbie character was used in on-air and print graphics in numerous ways, even down to mike flags for the news department. Viewers in the market above age 40 or so remember that when you saw the sign-off slide with Fisbie in pajamas, holding up a candle and yawning as he went up the stairs, you were really up late, dude! By the way, WHAS-TV/AM/FM were owned in those days by the first-class Courier-Journal/Louisville Times newspaper interest controlled by the Barry Bingham, Sr. family.

Sadly, I can't find an online image anywhere. If WHAS' promotional staff is viewing this, believe me-you'd sell the heck out of Fisbie T-shirts and caps even today-the branding was that strong! What other stations around the country used similar characters for branding/promotions?
 
The King Bee said:
The Fisbie character was used in on-air and print graphics in numerous ways, even down to mike flags for the news department. Viewers in the market above age 40 or so remember that when you saw the sign-off slide with Fisbie in pajamas, holding up a candle and yawning as he went up the stairs, you were really up late, dude!
Click to expand...

That's an obvious play on an old ad campaign from Fisk Tires, which showed a little boy holding a candle and yawning, with his arm going through a Fisk Tire. It goes back to at least the Depression era. You can see it parodied in old cartoons. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Fisk Tires are still around.
 
I can think of several here in the Deep South:

WRBL-3 / Columbus, Ga. -- Originally on Channel 4. Had a cartoon figure early on which resembled "Henry" from the old comic strip; wore a Confederate-like garb, I believe, playing on the letters RBL = Rebel.

(Competitor WTVM-9 sort of borrowed the "boy" mascot used by then-parent Martin Theaters in the '50s)

WTWV-9 / Tupelo, Miss. (WTVA) -- Had a Yosemite Sam-like mascot in the late '50s (signed on in 1957)

WMAZ-13 / Macon, Ga. -- For many years had a black cat (playing on the 'bad luck' connotations of the number 13), named TeeVee.

--Russell
 
KTHI, channel 11, in Fargo, ND had a long-legged girl named "Katy High" as their station character to promote their new tall tower (over 2000 feet) starting in 1963.

Since the station still has those very same call letters 45 years later, I wonder how many folks at the station still know what the call letters once meant?
 
TexasTom said:
KTHI, channel 11, in Fargo, ND had a long-legged girl named "Katy High" as their station character to promote their new tall tower (over 2000 feet) starting in 1963.

Since the station still has those very same call letters 45 years later...
Click to expand...

Not anymore -- they became KVLY-TV in 1995.
 
Russell W. said:
WMAZ-13 / Macon, Ga. -- For many years had a black cat (playing on the 'bad luck' connotations of the number 13), named TeeVee.

--Russell
Click to expand...

KTRK-13/Houston also had a black cat mascot through the 50s and 60s. Their local kiddie show host was a black "cat" named KiTiRiK, pronounced kit-er-ick.
 
I remember a breifly ran daytime program geared to pre-teens on WIMA-TV (now WLIO) in Lima,Ohio in 1966.

Titled "IN-SIDE" hosted initially by Ron Blazer and Bob(who's last name I cannot remember) and later replaced by Chuck Osborn as "Charlie Chunk" wearing a loud striped Ferdy Fussbudget type suit. Blazer would run around the Channel 35 studio causing some sort of havoc while a Top40 tune would play. Deputy Dawg and other vintage Terrytoons were aired including old Republic movie serials which were lampooned by Blazer and Osborn at the beginning credits years before 'Mystery Sciece Theater 3000." Hand puppets along with Blazer and Osborn would lip-sync to Top 40 hits on this gofy,yet funnys how.

Around this same time Adrian Cronauer(later portrayed by Robin Williams in "Good Morning Vietnam") was a staff announcer and occasionaly showed his mug on the air doing equally goofy things.
 
One night in the early 1990s, WMAR-2 Baltimore (then NBC [and imaged as "NewsChannel 2"], now "ABC2 Works for You") introduced on its newscast its costumed mascot, the NewsChannel 2Can (think Froot Loops). It was the only time I saw him/her/it; maybe Kellogg's barristers were heard from at WMAR. ;D

ixnay
 
ixnay said:
One night in the early 1990s, WMAR-2 Baltimore (then NBC [and imaged as "NewsChannel 2"], now "ABC2 Works for You") introduced on its newscast its costumed mascot, the NewsChannel 2Can (think Froot Loops). It was the only time I saw him/her/it; maybe Kellogg's barristers were heard from at WMAR. ;D

ixnay
Click to expand...

Baltimore's WMAR back in the early to mid 80s ( when they were with NBC ) also had their own cartoon character. Ah..kind of hard to describe..he kinda reminded me of Ziggy.

Harrisonburg, VA's WSVA-TV 3 ( WHSV ), I have seen ads from the early 60s of "Little Bonnie...Little Miss 3". She looked just like that Little Debbie that one finds at supermarkets.
 
Here is a quote from a WJW-TV 8 Cleveland Historical Site, formerly part of FOX 8's website from Veteran announcer Howard Hoffman, About the station's December 1949 sign-on:

Howard Hoffmann: "We flew in two planeloads of dignitaries and personalities the day the station signed on. It was cold — let me tell you — the wind was blowing and the snow was flying at Burke Lakefront. Morey Amsterdam, who had a show on DuMont, was one of the people who attended. Mel Harder, a pitcher with the Indians, was there. I signed the station on: "The World on View: This is Channel 9, WXEL Cleveland." We were all packed into this one little studio that had two cameras and people took turns welcoming the station on the air."

"That first day, we were supposed to show the station's mascot...a big paper maché elephant called "Little Ajax." But that idea never took off."

So WXEL Channel 9, Forerunner to Channel 8, Was to have had an elephant mascot..

The WJW History Site:

http://164.109.57.227/dynamic/images/stories/history/history1.html
 
The King Bee said:
Sadly, I can't find an online image anywhere. If WHAS' promotional staff is viewing this, believe me-you'd sell the heck out of Fisbie T-shirts and caps even today-the branding was that strong! What other stations around the country used similar characters for branding/promotions?
Click to expand...

I've looked for ANY Fisbie image on-line for years...nothing. I had a "Fisbie Funbook" (coloring book) saved for
decades, but it was lost in a move in 1997. Wasn't aware that the Evansville ch 7 was originally set for Louisville.
And I remember saving up $15 as a kid to buy a UHF converter to be able to watch WLKY: I remember their
self-supporting tower in Shively...weren't they in the building with the United Electronics Institute?
 
Some years ago (I think it was their 40th anniversary), I saw a picture of a mascot for WTVG (formerly WSPD) Channel 13 in Toledo on a sign that said something like "WSPD...Toledo's Pioneer TV Station". It was a drawing of a boy dressed in a Davy Crockett-style mountain man outfit, IIRC.
 
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