KTLA - better known to us denizens of LA-la-Land as Channel 5 - went on the air for the very first time at 8 PM on January 22, 1947. It was the first commercial television station in Los Angeles, and also the first station to broadcast west of the Mississippi.
| KTLA in 1949 | KTLA's original test screen |
KTLA's inaugural broadcast played to a pretty limited audience that night, as there were only about 300 TV sets in LA at the time. Bob Hope emceed the program, with the matter-of-fact title Western Premiere of Commercial Television. The show was shot live from a garage on the Paramount Studios in Hollywood and featured a variety of popular acts, such as the Hopeman's zany sidekick Jerry Colonna, The DeCastro Sisters, and The Rhythmaires.
| Bob Hope | Jerry Colonna | The DeCastro Sisters | The Rhythmaires |
 | A guy called Klaus Landsberg was the drivin' force behind KTLA. In fact, he was pretty much the drivin' force behind the entire television industry. Klaus came from Germany where he was involved with electronic television from the very beginnin'. He worked on the experimental telecast of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. After that, he emigrated to the United States where he helped NBC with their futuristic television broadcast demonstrations at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Klaus was definitely the go-to guy for this brand-new technology. That's why Paramount Pictures hired him to run things for their own television enterprise. In 1941, young man Klaus went West to pioneer a whole new era on the electronic frontier. He became the station manager and chief engineer at W6XYZ, the experimental forerunner to KTLA. For the next five years, Herr Landsberg and his handful of dedicatedly talented staff hammered out all the technical details of how to operate a station and successfully broadcast TV to the masses. By '47 they were ready to go, and the rest is television history. |
| Klaus Landsberg |
And what a history it was! You see, Klaus Landsberg was a real genius. He had a vision for television. He knew exactly what he wanted it to be, and he used his technical know-how and innovative impulses to shape TV into somethin' really special. Klaus created, produced, or directed over 40 different shows back then. Under his artistic guidance, KTLA produced a wide variety of original programmin' for everybody to watch. All the kinda shows we take for granted these days - drama, comedy, news, reality, sports, wrestlin', live music and variety, kid stuff, games, even shop-at-home - Klaus and his KTLA cronies did it all, did it well, and oftentimes did it first. And they did it all live, too - as in get in front of the camera and do your thing, Charlie. There were no tapes, there were no edits. It was raw talent shown first take to the audience exactly as it happened. Most of the time, there weren't even any scripts! They winged it all the way. It was total seat-of-your-pants improvisation in those days.
| The first ever Emmy Award (for Most Outstanding Television Personality, natch) was given to KTLA's resident ventriloquist and all-around Girl Friday Shirley Dinsdale - and her perky puppet pal Judy Splinters. |  |
| Emmy Award Winners, January 25, 1949 |
 | Shirley (and Judy) recalled this historic occasion for a documentary in 1987:
Shirley: They told me I had to go to this banquet at the Hollywood Athletic Club that night after my show. I didn't want to go - I had a date - and I really didn't know what this was all about. They said it was for the Academy - it meant nothing to me - it was the first one!
Judy: She got the award and it shouldn't have been.
Shirley: Well, it said to Shirley Dinsdale, and Judy has always felt very badly about that.
Judy: I thought it was for me. I mean, I'm the one that had the personality. She learned to talk later... |
| Judy and Shirley, 1987 |
| I think it's funny how Shirley didn't care that she was gonna be honored with the most prestigious award in television. For the very first time, even! Nowadays, an actress would give her eyeteeth just to be nominated for an Emmy! Television was still too new to mean much to anybody back then. |  |
| Judy Splinters (1949) |
KTLA put out some pretty awesome shows durin' that Golden Age.
I wish I could've been around to watch 'em all!
I mean, this is the kinda stuff that made TV great!
Like this one...
Frosty Frolics (1951)
 | Frosty Frolics was the coolest thing on TV. Kinda like the Ice Capades of comedy, if you know what I mean. The show was shot by live remote from a skatin' rink in Pasadena. Talk about a Happy Birthday! No magic silk hat on this show, though. |  |
Or this gem...
Fantastick Studios Ink (1950)
 | This kids show was about a bunch of kids who run their own movie studio. Are you kiddin' me? How awesome is that? Nope, can't think of nothin' awesomer! By the way, this show was a novelty at the time 'cause it was one of the first TV shows to ever work directly off a script. No ad-libbin' it here, kiddies! |  |
Then, of course, there was always one of the most famous kid shows of all time...
Time for Beany (1949)
Beany was the brainchild of Bob Clampett. It starred Daws Butler and Stan Freburg portrayin' a plentitude of playful puppet people like Beany Boy, Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, Uncle Captain, Dishonest John, and Tearalong the Dotted Lion. Absolutely fantastic. This was Albert Einstein's favorite TV show. One time he walked out of a high-level conference of brainiac rocket scientists at CalTech just so he could watch it.You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. It's Time for Beany. 
oh yeah!This spot guest stars El Presidente, Ol' Harry S. of The Buck Stops Here fame...
Time for Beany also helped spawn another popular TV show...
Musical Adventure with Korla Pandit (1949)Korla Pandit got his big chance to be on TV when Klaus Landsberg offered him his own show, with the followin' condition: he also had to play the music for Beany and Cecil. Korla took the bait, and
Musical Adventure was seen for the very first time in February, 1949.
Basically, the idea for the show was pretty simple: just a guy playin' with his organ. I'm down for that ; )
was the first all-music show ever broadcast, and it was a big hit. Nobody panned it, but Pandit panned it for gold. A couple years later he moved on from KTLA and was ticklin' the ivories for a national TV audience. Not too shabby for a guy in a turban. He was totally flyin' in that rarified stratosphere of TV super-stardom, but his magic carpet ride ended when a contract dispute got him kicked off the air. Korla was replaced with another kinky keyboard virtuoso, the famously flamboyant and mononymously likable
Liberace.Whew! This was a long one! I hope you all enjoyed readin' it as much as I enjoyed writin' it! Lemme tell you, this has been one of the funnest blogs I've ever done! Before I started, most of this stuff was totally unknown to me. I had to read read read dozens of Wikipedia articles, and check check check out at least as many websites to connect all the dots that put this thing together. But the research was easy. The hard part was pullin' myself away from watchin' hour after hour of video to all these classic shows! Tee hee!