50 Fun Facts About PBS

Which future Academy Award winner played Easy Reader on the 1970s PBS series The Electric Company?

Morgan Freeman stayed for all six seasons, also playing a disc jockey called Mel Mounds and a vampire who was obsessed with eating vegetables.

Which rock drummer played Mr. Conductor in the first season of PBS's Shining Time Station?

Ringo Starr handed the part to comedian George Carlin after one season. The series wrapped American stories around clips of the British show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends.

Which Muppet was orange during the first season of Sesame Street before turning the green that viewers know?

Oscar the Grouch changed colour for the second season. Grouch is his species as well as his mood, and his pet is a worm named Slimey.

Which children's TV host's 1969 Senate testimony helped save $20 million in public broadcasting funding?

Fred Rogers spoke for about six minutes, and his calm delivery won over the sceptical subcommittee chairman, Senator John Pastore, after the White House had proposed halving the money.

Which soft-spoken artist finished a landscape in each half-hour episode of PBS's The Joy of Painting?

Bob Ross spent twenty years in the US Air Force and rose to master sergeant. Tired of being the man who shouted orders, he decided never to raise his voice again once he left.

What kind of animal is Arthur Read, the eight-year-old hero of Marc Brown's books and PBS Kids cartoon?

An aardvark, Arthur began as a bedtime story that Marc Brown invented for his son Tolon. The cartoon went on to run for 25 seasons.

Which Star Trek: The Next Generation actor hosted the PBS children's series Reading Rainbow for 23 years?

LeVar Burton was already known as Kunta Kinte in Roots when the show began in 1983. As its host and executive producer he collected 12 Daytime Emmys and a Peabody Award.

Which Sesame Street character did Mitt Romney name in a 2012 debate as he vowed to cut PBS's subsidy?

Big Bird, who stands eight feet two inches tall, soon turned up in a satirical Obama campaign advert that mocked the remark.

Which cookbook author hosted The French Chef, made by Boston's public television station from 1963?

Julia Child got the series after a one-off appearance to promote her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Her first regular episode showed viewers how to make boeuf bourguignon.

What does the S stand for in PBS, the American public television network founded in 1969?

Service completes the name Public Broadcasting Service. PBS has no central production arm of its own, so every show comes from a member station or an outside producer.

Which bow-tied former Boeing engineer hosted a 1990s science show made by Seattle PBS station KCTS?

Bill Nye worked on the 747 airliner before he left engineering for sketch comedy. His show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards and won 19.

Which teacher, voiced by Lily Tomlin, leads the science field trips in PBS's The Magic School Bus?

Ms. Frizzle reached television in 1994, when The Magic School Bus became the first fully animated series that PBS had ever aired.

What kind of dinosaur is Barney, the purple star of the PBS children's series Barney & Friends?

A Tyrannosaurus, though a huggable purple and green one, Barney was created by Sheryl Leach of Dallas, Texas. His young friend Baby Bop is a Triceratops.

Which PBS Kids cartoon follows a monkey who lives in a city apartment with the Man with the Yellow Hat?

Curious George began on PBS Kids in 2006 as a sequel to a film released that year, and actor William H. Macy narrated the whole first season.

Which PBS Kids cartoon sends zoologist brothers Chris and Martin out in Creature Power Suits?

Wild Kratts gives its heroes a flying turtle ship called the Tortuga as a base, and the two real-life brothers provide the voices of their own cartoon selves.

Which PBS Kids cartoon follows a girl whose family runs a trading post in the fictional village of Qyah?

Molly of Denali made its heroine the first Alaska Native lead of a nationally distributed American children's show, and some dialogue is in Gwich'in.

Which filmmaker's 1990 PBS series The Civil War popularised slow pans across still photographs?

Ken Burns drew more than 39 million viewers to at least one of the nine episodes, a record for PBS at the time, and the camera technique was later named after him.

Which scientist presented Cosmos, the 1980 PBS series later seen in more than 60 countries?

Carl Sagan's series won two Emmys and a Peabody Award, and for ten years it stood as the most widely watched series in the history of American public television.

Which BBC drama with Benedict Cumberbatch as a modern-day detective came to PBS's Masterpiece in 2010?

Sherlock won Emmy Awards in 2014 for both of its leading men and for its writing, and its 2016 special was the first episode shown on the same day in Britain and the United States.

Which British drama about the Crawley family and their servants came to PBS's Masterpiece in 2011?

Downton Abbey was filmed at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, which really did serve as a hospital for wounded soldiers during the First World War.

Which PBS series, based on a BBC original, has experts value heirlooms brought in by their owners?

Antiques Roadshow reached PBS in 1997, eighteen years after the British original began, and for its first two decades it was taped indoors in convention centres and ballrooms.

Which premium cable channel became the first-run home of new Sesame Street episodes in January 2016?

HBO won first-run rights under a five-year deal announced in August 2015, a response to sweeping changes in the media business, and the series went on airing on PBS as well.

Which US president signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, the law that paved the way for PBS?

Lyndon B. Johnson signed it that November. The law was first going to be called the Public Television Act and cover television alone, which alarmed supporters of public radio.

Which American radio network was founded in 1970 following the same Public Broadcasting Act that led to PBS?

NPR made its first broadcast in April 1971, when it carried United States Senate hearings on the Vietnam War.

Which British children's series with a baby's face in the sun aired on PBS Kids from 1998 to 2008?

Teletubbies was created by Anne Wood and Andrew Davenport for the BBC, and its four colourful stars live in an earth house called the Tubbytronic Superdome.

Which PBS Kids cartoon stars a four-year-old cub who rides Trolley and sings short strategy songs?

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood began in 2012 and came from Angela Santomero, a co-creator of Blue's Clues. Its hero is the son of a shy puppet tiger who lived inside a grandfather clock on an older PBS show.

What food gives the family dog the power of speech in the PBS Kids cartoon Martha Speaks?

Alphabet soup does it: the pasta letters travel to Martha's brain instead of her stomach. Skits, the family's other dog, eats the same meal and gains nothing.

Which reggae singer performed the theme song of the PBS Kids cartoon Arthur with his band the Melody Makers?

Ziggy Marley is the eldest son of Bob and Rita Marley, and he led the family band until 2002. They recorded the cartoon's upbeat opening tune in 1996.

Which Three's Company star voiced the title character in the PBS Kids cartoon Clifford the Big Red Dog?

John Ritter voiced the giant pet in every episode of the series that began in 2000, and by the time it finished production he was back in prime time on 8 Simple Rules.

Which company's Bake-Off trademark made PBS retitle a British hit as The Great British Baking Show?

Pillsbury first ran its own Bake-Off cooking contest in 1949, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and registered the name, so the British tent show needed a new title in America.

What breed of dog is Wishbone, the PBS star who daydreams about being the hero of classic literature?

A Jack Russell terrier named Soccer played the part, and he toured American shopping malls to greet his fans from a red armchair.

What kind of animal is Zoboomafoo, the leaping, talking co-host of a 1999 PBS Kids wildlife series?

A lemur called Jovian, a Coquerel's sifaka living at the Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina, played Zoboomafoo on camera, and a puppet took over whenever he had to talk.

Which Back to the Future star voices Hacker, the villain of the PBS Kids maths cartoon Cyberchase?

Christopher Lloyd plays the mad scientist who wants to rule Cyberspace, and comedian Gilbert Gottfried voiced the heroes' feathered friend Digit for the first thirteen seasons.

Where does a family of lions live and work in the PBS Kids reading series Between the Lions?

A library named after Barnaby B. Busterfield III is their home. Parents Theo and Cleo are the librarians, and a dinosaur called Heath serves as the thesaurus.

Which PBS Kids superhero lives as fifth-grader Becky Botsford and fights crime with Captain Huggy Face?

WordGirl was born on the planet Lexicon, the source of her flight and super strength, and her monkey sidekick was once a pilot in its air force.

Which live-action PBS Kids series follows child agents who solve strange cases with maths?

Odd Squad is an organisation run entirely by children, and its first pair of agents, Olive and Otto, worked out of a precinct numbered 13579.

Which vocal group was the house band on the PBS game show Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?

Rockapella doubled as the comedy troupe on the geography quiz, while Lynne Thigpen played the Chief, head of the fictional ACME Crimenet.

Which veteran CBS news anchor voiced Benjamin Franklin in the PBS Kids history cartoon Liberty's Kids?

Walter Cronkite also read a mock newscast in each episode, and the cast around him included Sylvester Stallone as Paul Revere and Billy Crystal as John Adams.

Which Boston public television station produces Frontline, Masterpiece and American Experience for PBS?

WGBH takes its call letters from Great Blue Hill, where its first transmitter stood. It also stages High School Quiz Show, an academic team contest for teenagers.

In which US state is PBS headquartered, in the Crystal City district across the Potomac from Washington?

Virginia is home to PBS, in Arlington County. In 2020 the network moved to another building in the same complex and put up a rooftop sign that can be seen from the Richmond Highway.

Which PBS science series, on air since 1974, was inspired by the BBC programme Horizon?

Nova leaned on its model so heavily at first that its opening episode was a re-voiced edition of Horizon, and only 19 of its first 50 programmes were its own original productions.

Which PBS news anchor moderated twelve US presidential debates between 1988 and 2012?

Jim Lehrer was nicknamed the Dean of Moderators by fellow journalist Bernard Shaw. Off camera he collected bus memorabilia, from depot signs to drivers' caps.

Which country star headlined the 1974 pilot of Austin City Limits, the PBS concert series from Texas?

Willie Nelson's pilot was pitched to PBS for its 1975 pledge drive. In 2003 the series received the National Medal of Arts, an honour that no other television show had won.

Which host fronted This Old House for its first decade on PBS before a row over his commercial endorsements?

Bob Vila left in 1989 after he agreed to advertise a chain of home improvement stores, which led its rival Home Depot to pull its backing from the programme.

Which horror film star hosted the PBS anthology Mystery! for most of the 1980s, before Diana Rigg?

Vincent Price followed film critic Gene Shalit into the chair, introducing each tale after animated opening titles based on drawings by Edward Gorey.

Which British comedy troupe's series was first broadcast in the United States in 1974 by Dallas PBS station KERA?

Monty Python had failed to find an American audience until then. By 1975 Flying Circus was often the most popular programme on the public stations that carried it.

Which earlier network did PBS replace when it began operating in October 1970?

National Educational Television, known as NET, had existed since 1952. After handing over to PBS it merged with a New Jersey station to form New York's WNET.

What was the name of the green cartoon boy who appeared in the PBS Kids logo from 1999?

Dash arrived when the PBS Kids name replaced an older children's brand called PTV, and he was dropped from the logo in a later redesign.

Which British-born broadcaster introduced Masterpiece Theatre on PBS for its first two decades from 1971?

Alistair Cooke was reluctant to take the job at first, yet he stayed until 1992, when a New York Times columnist took over the host's armchair.

Which bandleader's champagne-style show left ABC in 1971 and was later rerun for decades by PBS stations?

Lawrence Welk kept making new episodes for another eleven years in syndication, and he liked to show viewers how the popping-bottle sound that opened the programme was made.