Along with many minor awards that KCET has been given over our 48 year history, hangs this one. It is the Peabody award that we received for the 13 part series, Cosmos (with Carl Sagan). You can read about the history of the groundbreaking science series, HERE.
It originally aired beginning September 28, 1980. Ironically KCET's 16th birthday. I had been working at the station for just over a month, when it hit the air. As a matter of fact, I parked my car right next to Adrian Malone, the Executive Producer of the series, in those long ago days. :-)
During my year of volunteering for Pledge, I did get to see the set up on Stage B that was The Spaceship Of The Imagination. It went from the floor to the ceiling of the huge sound stage. Quite an impressive thing, to a 24 year old who someday wanted to work on productions like this.
I loved the series, my family loved the series, I was so proud of working for an organization that could produce this wonderful show. Shortly thereafter, we had something called the financial disaster. We were a million dollars in the hole, though Carl swore it wasn't that his show went over budget. But who knows, we were doing many productions at that time, so he may be right.
No matter what, we did something we had never done before. We sent out a direct mail piece and we begged our members to send money...and send money they did. I was one of the team that did the data entry of all those checks. Unfortunately, due to a misunderstanding between the members and us, the money was not as helpful as it initially looked. When our contributions moving forward were not coming in, it all hit the fan. The next year, January of 1982 to be exact, KCET laid off a whole lot of people...including me and my current boss. It all ended up working out for me and my boss, but it is a bitter sweet show and memory.
In good things about the show, we won an audio Emmy for the episode "Blues for a Red Planet".
I still love the title of that episode and think of it every time we send another rover out to Mars.
I just looked up all the Emmys and see that it was nominated for 5 Emmys and received 3 of them. The 2 losses were actually to ourselves. Meeting of the Minds (with Steve Allen) won over Cosmos in one category and we had 2 nominations for Cosmos in another category. It was probably KCET's finest hour.
It also won the Peabody award that you see in this photo, which hangs just outside my area of the 5th Floor. I end up passing by it, all day long.
We sold our rights to the series to Ted Turner, back in 1989 (a sad thing, but hey). In good news, I hear that there may be a new version coming in 2013. Science for a new generation, hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson. Let's see if they can beat Carl's Version.
As to our 48th Birthday, Happy Birthday KCET!
Thanks for hiring me and bringing me back after the lay off. My family and I truly appreciate the opportunity you gave me.
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