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33 unusual facts about PBS


Amboseli Elephant Research Project

The subjects of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, mostly notably the elephant matriarch Echo, have been described at length in documentaries on PBS and Animal Planet.

Anna's Hummingbird

A PBS documentary that first aired January 10, 2010, shows how Anna's Hummingbirds eat flying insects (at 16:45).

Biz Kid$

It has 65 episodes on 5 seasons, it debuted the episodes on most PBS stations and reruns on the weekends.

Buttons and Bows

During a PBS pledge telethon, Frasier Crane tries to perform it but forgets nearly all of the lyrics.

Chico the Rainmaker

It was shown in 1974 on PBS in the USA, and broadcast in many UK cinemas in the 1970s and 1980s as part of their "Saturday Matinees".

Clifton Chenier

Later in 1976, he reached a national audience when he appeared on the premiere season of the PBS music program Austin City Limits.

DCI Banks

On 9 January 2013, BBC Worldwide America announced a "landmark syndication deal" with public television stations in the U.S. for DCI Banks to be available on 166 PBS affiliate stations across the USA, "reaching an estimated 77% of U.S. TV households."

Dome Car Magic

The 30-minute program, narrated by television actor and railroad owner Michael Gross, debuted in 2006 on the PBS television network.

Edge West Productions

For more than a decade, Day has been an active producing partner with National Geographic Channel, Public Broadcast Service, Discovery, The History Channel, TLC, BBC Television, Channel Four (TV UK), and NHK Japan.

Elisha Hunt Rhodes

Rhodes' illustrative diary of his war service was quoted prominently in Ken Burns' PBS documentary The Civil War.

First I Look at the Purse

In the early 2000s, the Contours performed the song on the PBS special Motown: The Early Years.

George Sotter

In a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow on PBS, filmed in Philadelphia, a Sotter oil painting was appraised $120,000-$180,000, much to the delight of its visibly stunned owner.

Gridiron Club

Recently, however, it has begun opening its doors to such non-newspaper media figures as Tim Russert of NBC News, Bob Schieffer of CBS News, Mara Liasson of National Public Radio, and Judy Woodruff of PBS.

HDV

The PBS accepts HDV for widescreen programming acquisition and to a limited extent for use in HD programs.

IL-Informed

The half-hour long pilot was produced by PBS member station WTTW (Channel 11) and premiered locally on Sunday, May 4, 2008.

Jane Elizabeth Manning James

A 20-minute documentary based on James' life, Jane Manning James: Your Sister in the Gospel, premiered in 2005, and has been shown at This Is The Place Heritage Park in Salt Lake City, Utah, the 2005 annual conference of the Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research (FAIR), and on public television (PBS).

Jeffrey Ethell

He was featured in the PBS Nova documentary "Top Gun Over Russia" about the military aircraft of the former Soviet Union, and appeared as an expert commentator on numerous documentaries.

Mason Brothers

Other songs from The Sun, the Moon & the Sea have also been featured on a variety of television shows and documentaries, on networks including the CW (90210), CBS (Flashpoint), History Channel, Biography Channel, PBS documentaries; as well as various surfing broadcasts, films, and documentaries.

Mel Leven

In later years, he wrote songs, stories, and did voice-over work for the PBS children's series Big Blue Marble, and well as working on a number of projects for television commercials.

NASA Education and Public Outreach Group

SSU’s NASA GLAST E/PO was an important contributor to the PBS NOVA show “Monster of the Milky Way.”

National Credit Union Foundation

Biz Kid$ is a PBS television series devoted to financial education for children.

Operation Plumbbob

As shown and reported in the PBS documentary Dark Circle, the pigs survived, but with third-degree burns to 80% of their bodies.

Out of the Blue Enterprises

The company serves as the producers (with DHX Media's Decode Entertainment unit) of the CGI-animated children's television show Super Why! that airs on most PBS stations and on Kids' CBC in Canada and Blue's Room which formerly aired on Nick Jr..

Paramount Home Media Distribution

PHMD also had agreements with DreamWorks Animation, PBS, and Hasbro for DVD/Blu-ray distribution of various programs that the former aired, and several films and TV series based on franchises owned by the latter.

Plush TV Jazz-Rock Party

Plush TV Jazz-Rock Party is a video recording; the home version of a PBS "In The Spotlight" special on Steely Dan.

Riverbend Music Center

On July 4, 2000, The Pops performed the first live concert televised from Cincinnati, which aired on PBS, featuring Rosemary Clooney and Doc Severinsen.

Sol Garfunkel

Sol is best known for hosting the 1987, PBS series titled "For All Practical Purposes: An Introduction to Contemporary Mathematics", followed by the 1991 series, "Algebra: In Simplest Terms", both often used in classrooms.

Suicide of Ryan Halligan

Halligan's story was featured on a Frontline television program entitled "Growing Up Online," produced in January, 2008, by WGBH-TV in Boston and distributed nationwide over PBS.

The Parking Lot Movie

It was purchased by PBS and aired nationwide on Independent Lens October 19, 2010, opening the series' 2010 season.

We've Been Asking Questions

The song was performed by Scott McKenzie, who was a friend of Phillips, on a PBS special, My Generation "The 60's Experience" (part of PBS's "My Music" series) in 2005.

Wilhelm Brasse

Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State (BBC and PBS, 2005), "Surprising Beginnings" and "Orders & Initiatives" (Episodes 1 & 2) "Auschwitz: 1940–1945".

WQED Multimedia

The program reaches over 8 million households on over 300 PBS stations.

Fred Rogers of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood hosted his namesake show, that was taped in at WQED in Pittsburgh, for over 3 decades on PBS, teaching lifelong lessons to children using storytelling and enforcing them to use their imagination.


Accidental Empires

A documentary based on the book, called Triumph of the Nerds: The Rise of Accidental Empires was produced by PBS in 1996, with Cringely as the presenter.

Alive from Off Center

Notable episodes included "As Seen on TV," starring comic actor Bill Irwin as an auditioning dancer who becomes trapped in a television, wandering among daytime dramas, MTV, and PBS's own Sesame Street and the atmospheric puppet melodrama "Street of Crocodiles," adapted by the Brothers Quay from the Bruno Shultz story.

Band of Heathens

Following the Austin City Limits PBS show, the band also played on the German television live concert series Rockpalast on October 9, 2009, performing 14 songs, many from the albums "Band Of Heathens" and "One Foot In The Ether.".

Ben Wicks

He also created and illustrated the Katie and Orbie series of children's books written by his daughter Susan which in 1994 were turned into an animated television program for Family in Canada and for PBS in the United States.

Biomonitoring

The issue of exposure to environmental chemicals has received attention as a result of televised reports by Bill Moyers for PBS and Anderson Cooper for CNN's "Planet in Peril" series.

Carmen Espinoza-Rodriquez

It was at this turning point when she was recommended by CMA Award winning singer-songwriter Susan Gibson (writer "Wide Open Spaces") to appear on a PBS video documentary.

Charles Darrow

In 2004 the PBS program History Detectives investigated a game board owned by Ron Jarrell of Arden, Delaware, which had elements of both The Landlord's Game and Monopoly.

Corinne Orr

She was the voice of Snuggle the Bear in Snuggle's fabric softener commercials and read Aliki Brandenberg's Mummies Made in Egypt for the PBS series Reading Rainbow.

David Ansen

Ansen has also written several documentaries for television, on Greta Garbo (for TNT), Groucho Marx (HBO), Elizabeth Taylor (PBS) and the Ace Award winning All About Bette (Bette Davis) for TNT.

David Mitton

The show became an instant success on British television and in 1989 it was released as Shining Time Station in the United States on the PBS channel and proved equally as popular.

DragonflyTV

DragonflyTV is a science education television series for children aged 6–12, produced by Twin Cities Public Television, broadcast on most PBS stations.

Ezra Koenig

He's also featured on "Warm Heart of Africa" by The Very Best, "Pyromiltia" by Theophilus London, "I Could Be Wrong" by Chromeo, "Dynamo" by Abd al Malik and singing "I Think Ur a Contra" with Angelique Kidjo in her PBS special.

Force Theory

Their later work included composition and sound design on director Marjan Tehrani's Arusi: Persian Wedding (PBS, 2009) and a complete sound design for Benson Lee's Planet B-Boy, which aired on MTV in January 2009.

Garbage Dreams

Garbage Dreams aired on the PBS program Independent Lens for the occasion of Earth Day 2010 and has been screened in many international film festivals.

Gerard Parkes

After Fraggle Rock, in addition to returning as Doc in A Muppet Family Christmas, Parkes continued to work in children's television, guest starring as alcoholic photographer Phil (opposite Sesame Park puppeteer Nina Keogh) on the TVOntario puppet series Today's Special, and appearing regularly on PBS's Shining Time Station as store owner Barton Winslow.

Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Politics

A much shorter, two-hour version, called Get Up, Stand Up: The Story of Pop and Protest, aired on PBS in September 2005, hosted and narrated by co-founder of Public Enemy Chuck D.

Hammer Damage

Hammer Damage were one of the three bands profiled in the 2005 PBS documentary, If You're Not Dead, Play, along with Chi-Pig and Unit 5.

Jamy Ian Swiss

Jamy Ian Swiss is the author of the essay collection Shattering Illusions. He is also a co-author of the companion volume to the PBS documentary The Art of Magic and the Explaining Magic chapter of Visual Explanations by Edward Tufte.

Jean-Joseph Mouret

Even though most of his works are no longer performed, Mouret's name survives today thanks to the popularity of the Fanfare-Rondeau from his first Suite de symphonies, which has been adopted as the signature tune of the PBS program Masterpiece and is a popular musical choice in many modern weddings.

Jerome Toobin

He was Bill Moyers’ producer, including as the first executive producer of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS in the 1970s, and at CBS.

Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Middle School

In 2002, KCET, then the local PBS station, produced a 17-minute documentary on the school and its "severe problems".

Katherine DePaul

She has produced the TV concert of Judy Collins at the Metropolitan Museum of Art shown on PBS Autumn 2012.

Kenny Bishop

He has been a regular performer on the Gaither Homecoming video series and radio program, and has performed on Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN, and PBS.

Kim Mitchell

he has contributed voice work for several episodes of the PBS animated series Cyberchase voicing Appollo in "out of sync", chief in "The guilty party" and Walter the walrus in "When Penguins fly"

Knucker

On the cartoon Dragon Tales which airs on PBS Kids Sprout (SPRT), the characters Zak and Wheezie use Knuckerholes to slide underground as a means of quick travel.

KTUU-TV

Channel 2 also carried a few PBS programs (particularly The Electric Company) until KAKM signed on in 1975.

Lawrence Murray Dixon

The PBS show American Experience called Dixon and Henry Hohauser the principal architects of Deco South Beach including "streamlined curves, jutting towers, window "eyebrows," and neon."

Michal Aviad

The film received several prizes and was the first to be broadcast within the prestigious documentary slot POV (Point of View) on the American public network PBS.

My Life as a Turkey

My Life as a Turkey is a television episode that premiered in 2011 in the UK on BBC (season 30 of the series Nature World, August 1) and in the US on PBS (season 30 of the series Nature, November 16).

Pacific Broadcasting Services Fiji

Consumer Council of Fiji CEO Premila Kumar said PBS had taken money in advance from subscribers and failed to provide services which was illegal.

Papal Concert to Commemorate the Shoah

The concert was broadcast in Italy by RAI (Italian Television), to 52 countries around the world via Eurovision, and in the U.S. on PBS.

Pledge drive

Although the federal government of the United States, primarily through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and corporate underwriting provide some money for public broadcasting organizations like National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), they are largely dependent on program fees paid by their member stations.

In order to appeal to such a largely Euro-American, middle-aged and affluent demographic (the so-called "Baby Boomers" and "Generation X"), PBS has resorted to specials such as self-help programs with speakers such as Suze Orman, nostalgic popular music concerts, and special versions of PBS' traditionally popular "how-to" programs.

Ray Di Carlo

The studio's advertising agency clients including DDB Worldwide(Chicago, NY, LA, and Tribal British Columbia), FCB, Leo Burnett Worldwide, Santo (Bueno Aires/London), Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, Sedgwick Rd., Campbell Ewald, Pedone, Euro RSCG, The Buntin Group, Borders Perrin and Norrander, and Ogilvy & Mather, as well as networks clients NBC, TBS, Cartoon Network, The Learning Channel, and PBS.

Richard Guy Wilson

He has served as an advisor and commentator for a number of television programs on PBS, C-SPAN, History Channel and A&E; he frequently appeared on the program America's Castles.

Rick Kittles

He was featured in the BBC Two films Motherland: A Genetic Journey and Motherland – Moving On (released in 2003 and 2004, respectively), as well as in part 4 of the 2006 PBS series African American Lives (hosted by Henry Louis Gates).

Ronnie Claire Edwards

Edwards also briefly appeared on an episode of PBS's Antiques Roadshow (2008) from Dallas, Texas, when she brought in for appraisal a chair formerly owned by P. T. Barnum.

Smiley v. Citibank

"I certainly didn't imagine that someday we might've ended up creating Frankenstein," he told PBS's Frontline a decade later.

Steve Jay

He has scored more than fifty nationally broadcast PBS specials and series episodes, including three George Foster Peabody Award winners, and contributed to several feature films.

Take a Letter, Mr. Jones

Take A Letter, Mr. Jones was never a ratings success (only running one season), but in recent years it has been resurrected by many American PBS stations, where Are You Being Served? is also a hit.

The Horse Whisperer

Monty Roberts, horse trainer subject of a BBC/PBS documentary "The Real Horse Whisperer"

The Old Guys

In the US the first series is currently available on some PBS stations.

Tom Sito

He co-directed the animation for the Warner Bros 2001 movie Osmosis Jones, and contributed to other animated films such as Garfield (2005), the PBS TV series Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns (2008), and the 2006 Taiwanese short Adventures in the NPM, which won first prize at the 2006 Tokyo Anime Festival.

Vivian Selbo

Selbo has created sites and web works for clients such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), the Walker Art Center, Cal Art's Center for Integrated Media, the Visual Arts Department at the University of California, San Diego, PBS/POV, Visual Understanding in Education, and Eyebeam, among others.

Warren Steibel

Although the liberal Steibel was not always in accord with Buckley's conservative political beliefs, the two had an amicable and creative working relationship, and produced one of the longest-running television programs in the history of PBS.

Welcome Back, Carter

Peter then interjects his hatred of PBS, after viewing a nine-part series on traffic signs by director and producer Ken Burns, the fourth of which on the yield sign.

William Bemister

A 58-minute version of the film was later telecast on PBS in the United States for which Bemister won the 1981 Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism on U.S. Network Television and the 1982 CINE Golden Eagle Award.