This Week in Television History: February 2017 PART III

As always, the further we go back in Hollywood history,
the more that fact and legend become intertwined.
It's hard to say where the truth really lies.

The first national broadcast of Misterogers' Neighborhood appeared on most NET stations on February 19, 1968. In 1970, when PBS replaced NET, it also inherited this program. Around the same time the show had a slight title change, to the more-familiar Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.


February 19, 1978

Project U.F.O. first aired

An anthology television series which ran on NBC from 1978 to 1979. Running for two seasons of 13 episodes each, the show was based loosely on the real-life Project Blue Book. The show was created by Jack Webb, who pored through Air Force files looking for episode ideas.

The show was a production of Mark VII Limited in association with Worldvision Enterprises, now CBS Television Distribution and was Webb's last weekly series produced before his death. It was also one of the rare times that Webb did not produce a series with Universal Television or Warner Bros. Television; Webb partnered with Universal for every series he made following his departure from Warner Bros., who had named him the president of its television division in the 1960s.

February 22, 1963

Pebbles was born at the Bedrock Rockapedic Hospital.

The Flintstones Season 3 Episode 23 The Blessed Event

In 1963, when Hanna Barbera decided to add a baby to the show, their first choice was a boy. When Ideal Toy Company heard this, company executives approached Hanna Barbera with a proposal to change the baby character to a girl for which the toymaker could create a doll, and Hanna Barbera agreed.

February 25, 1928

The Federal Radio Commission issues the first television license.

The license went to the Charles Francis Jenkins Laboratories for a television broadcast station on Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. The station later moved to Maryland and operated until 1932.

To quote the Bicentennial Minute, "And that's the way it was".

Stay Tuned

Tony Figueroa