60 years of KTLA 5 in Los Angeles

Exactly 60 yeas ago today, on January 22, 1947, KTLA 5 was licensed for commercial broadcast, becoming the first commercial TV station to broadcast west of the Mississippi.

Estimates of TV sets in the Los Angeles area at the time ranged from 350 to 600.

Bob Hope emceed for KTLA's inaugural broadcast, broadcast that evening from a garage on the Paramount Studios lot. Called the "Western Premiere of Commercial Television," it featured appearances from many Hollywood stars. At that time (and until 1948), it was a Dumont affiliate.

An independent station from 1948 to 1995, it's became a WB affiliate (now CW, of course; last September 18, it became known as "KTLA 5 The CW."

Licensed by the FCC in 1939 as experimental station W6XYZ on Channel 4, it went on the air in September 1942 -- but still as an experimental station.

KTLA was built on the site of the Sunset Boulevard and Bronson Avenue studio of Warner Bros., where cartoons were shot during World War II.

The ancestor of the animated Beany and Cecil show -- the puppet show Time For Beany -- originated from KTLA's studios in Hollywood and began airing on February 28, 1949. Veteran Termite Terrace animation director Bob Clampett sold the series to Paramount's KTLA-TV. The show earned Clampett three Emmys and a following of fans which included Groucho Marx, Jimmy Stewart and Albert Einstein! Stan Freberg, Daws Butler (later the voice of practically every early Hanna-Barbera character), and Bill Scott (best known as the voice of Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right) were just a few of the people responsible for putting out the 15-minute, five day a week, 52 weeks per year Time For Beany series.

Longtime KTLA personality Tom Hatten (on the air from 1956 to 1991) hosted Popeye cartoons. Paramount owned the station in the 1950s, when the studio was also producing Popeye toons. In one episode, Popeye's nephews turn on their TV to "chanel number five" -- a reference to KTLA 5.

Also in the 1950s, "Skipper Frank" Herman hosted Cartoon Carousel. His program, combining cartoons, magic and ventriloquism, was a L.A. favorite for years. Cartoon Carousel was the first L.A. program to feature on a daily basis the Looney Tunes now shown regularly on Nickolodeon.

"What we did was mostly ad-lib. We all wrote our own shows," Herman said at the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills in 1997.

In the fall of 1995, KTLA added an afternoon cartoon block from Kids' WB, offering children's programming for the first time in years.

On Wednesday, January 24, KTLA will be receiving its very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The KTLA Morning Show will be broadcast live from Hollywood and Highland on that day beginning at 7 a.m., with the presentation of KTLA's Award of Excellence Star at 9:30 a.m. on Hollywood Boulevard at the Roosevelt Hotel by Hollywood's honorary mayor, Johnny Grant.


KTLA's original 1947-55 logo (note the Paramount logo in the background).


KTLA's logo today.