Inside the Guide: 8/20/55 Part 3: The listings! Saturday, August 20

It was 70 years ago today that...a lot of locally produced programming was on the air, at least in the Pittsburgh area. I don't only mean shows made in Pittsburgh, but shows made at local stations. It was a different time, when network affiliations were much looser and everyone was still trying to figure things out.

KDKA-2 and WJAC-6 at the time are listed as affiliates of ABC, CBS, Du Mont, and NBC! Every channel in the listings apart from WQED-13 (later a PBS station) have multiple network affiliations.

70 years ago, Saturday, August 20, 1955, this program stands out, right here in the middle:

Yep, that's our pal Fred "Mister" Rogers! Notice pals like Daniel Tiger are already here, too, in this Pittsburgh original.

Later in the day, we get Rassling. Not wrestling. RASSLING.

Here are a few ads for the shows in prime time tonight:

Here's an overview of late prime time. One thing I like about early TV is that the same show will appear on different networks, different channels, even with different episodes on the same evening. An example here is Your Play Time, one of the many, many dramatic anthologies on the airwaves this week.

Wrestling at 11:05 is obviously a different show than RASSLING earlier in the day.

Earlier in the evening, all kinds of stuff. Take 8:00's The Soldiers, a short-lived military comedy that stars John Dehner, Tom D'andrea, and this issue's cover subject, Hal March!

Musical Chairs is a panel show, I think, not a literal game of musical chairs. There's a lot of game show and music action in Summer 1955 on TV.