Later promotional image showing (left to right) Mr. Beeper (later Biff Beeper), Mr. Flo Sweetly, Mrs, Sweetly, Dave Thomas, and Promo the Robot
Rocketship 7 was created to promote the work of Bell Aerospace, an aircraft manufacturer in Wheatfield, and featured a Space Age theme popular at the time and an explicitly educational format, decades before it was made mandatory.[1] The host of the show was Dave Thomas, who had joined WKBW in 1961. Promo the Robot was the show's other main on-air character. Rocketship 7 featured segments with Thomas and Promo along with cartoons and other short programs such as Davey and Goliath, and Gumby. Thomas left the station in 1978 to join WPVI in Philadelphia, where he assumed the name "Dave Roberts" (He remained at WPVI until his retirement in 2009). When Roberts left, WKBW canceled Rocketship 7.
Rocketship 7 shared some similarities with the Commander Tom Show, a show hosted by Tom Jolls; the two shows bookended WKBW's daytime schedule. The two series never crossed over, due to Thomas and Jolls working different shifts. Commander Tom was also never explicitly identified as the commander of a spaceship.[1]
In 1992, Rocketship 7 was revived as a weekly Saturday morning series. Airing at 7 AM, Captain Mike Randall assumed hosting duties for this version of the show with his sidekick, Yeoman Bob (Stilson), with a freshly repainted Promo the Robot and Captain Comic (Tim Warchocki) making guest appearances. Jolls, whose Commander Tom's World had ended its run a year prior, made his first and only cameos on Rocketship 7 during this time.
Bob would always open the show with "Yo!" Cartoons aired included Super Chicken and George of the Jungle. Recurring feature on the 1992 series included "Crummy Cartoon Theater 2000," a parody of Mystery Science Theater 3000 where Randall and Stilson would riff on public domain cartoon shorts, and "Are You Kidding?", where children would tell riddles and jokes). To keep with the "Rocketship" theme, the station used the term "Planet Earth" as part of the station's mailing address for feedback and contests.
Rocketship 7 was cancelled for good in 1993, as infomercials, public affairs, and educational/informational programming began to dominate the Saturday morning lineup. It was effectively replaced in WKBW's lineup by the late-night hosted movie series Off Beat Cinema.
Former WKBW-TV Graphic Designer and 3D animator Tim Warchocki (who played Captain Comic) is responsible for Promo the Robot's updated fluorescent green and yellow paint job. Prior to the 1992 version of Rocketship 7 Tim was asked to update the robot's look to fit color television and modern design. The original body, designed when the show was still in black and white, was gray and (on color episodes) red.
Rocketship 7 is mentioned in "The X in the File", an episode of the Fox television series Bones. In the episode, Agent Booth is excited to see a photo from the show, and claims he watched it regularly as a child. Booth is played by David Boreanaz, son of Dave Thomas.
David Paul Boreanaz is an American actor, television producer, and director known for playing the roles of vampire-turned-private investigator Angel on The WB/UPN Buffy the Vampire Slayer supernatural drama (1997–2003) and its spinoff Angel (1999–2004); FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth, a homicide investigator, on the Fox television crime procedural comedy-drama series Bones (2005–2017); and United States Navy SEAL Master Chief Special Warfare Operator Jason Hayes in the CBS/Paramount+ military drama series SEAL Team (2017–present).
Adult Swim is a prime time and late night programming block broadcast by the American basic cable channel Cartoon Network. The block features stylistically varied animated and live-action series targeting a young adult audience, including original programming, syndicated series, and short films with generally minimal or no editing for content. Adult Swim is programmed by Williams Street, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Television Studios that also produces much of the block's original programming.
Oh Yeah! Cartoons is an American animated anthology series that aired on Nickelodeon. Created by Fred Seibert, it was produced by Frederator Incorporated and Nickelodeon Animation Studio, running as part of Nickelodeon's Nicktoons lineup. In the show's first season, it was hosted by a variety of schoolchildren, and the second season was hosted by Kenan Thompson of All That and Kenan & Kel, and later Josh Server of All That in the third and final season. Bill Burnett composed the show's theme music.
WBEN is a commercial AM radio station licensed to Buffalo, New York, featuring a talk radio format. Owned by Audacy, Inc., the station serves Western New York, the Niagara Falls region, and parts of Southern Ontario. WBEN's studios are located in Amherst, while the transmitter site is in Grand Island. In addition to a standard analog transmission, WBEN is relayed over WKSE's HD3 digital subchannel, and is available online via Audacy.
Space Ghost Coast to Coast is an American adult animated comedy late-night talk show created by Mike Lazzo for Cartoon Network and hosted by a re-imagined version of the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Space Ghost. It is the first TV show to be produced by Williams Street, the company to start up Adult Swim in the early 2000s. In contrast to the original 1960s series, Space Ghost, which aired as a standard Hanna-Barbera Saturday-morning superhero cartoon, Space Ghost Coast to Coast is a reboot and sequel of the series intended for teens and adults, reinterpreted as a surreal spoof talk show and animated using the original series' artwork. Early seasons are more of a parody of late-night talk shows, while later seasons rely more on surrealism and non-sequitur humor.
Toonami is an American late-night television programming block that broadcasts Japanese anime and American action animation. It was created by Sean Akins and Jason DeMarco and produced by Williams Street, a division of Warner Bros. Television Studios, and owned by The Cartoon Network, Inc. subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. The name is a portmanteau of the words "cartoon" and "tsunami". It currently broadcasts every Saturday night from 12 a.m. to 3 a.m. ET/PT.
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WPVI-TV, branded on-air as 6 ABC, is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, serving as the market's ABC outlet. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on City Line Avenue in the Wynnefield Heights section of Philadelphia, and a transmitter in the city's Roxborough neighborhood.
WKBW-TV is a television station in Buffalo, New York, United States, affiliated with ABC. Owned by the E. W. Scripps Company, the station maintains studios at 7 Broadcast Plaza in downtown Buffalo and a transmitter on Center Street in Colden.
King Kong, commonly referred to as The King Kong Show, is an anime-influenced series produced by Videocraft International and Toei Animation. ABC ran the series in the United States on Saturday mornings between September 10, 1966, and August 31, 1969. It is the first anime series produced in Japan for an American company.
Tom Jolls was an American television personality best known for his 34-year tenure at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York. At WKBW, Jolls hosted "The Weather Outside" segments during Eyewitness News, performed many of the station's voiceovers, and served as children's host Commander Tom.
David Thomas Boreanaz is a retired American television broadcaster who broadcast under the stage names Dave Thomas in Buffalo, and Dave Roberts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the main weatherman for WPVI-TV in Philadelphia from 1983 until his retirement in 2009.
The Commander Tom Show was a children's television series that aired weekday afternoons on Channel 7 WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York, premiering on December 20, 1965.
Captain Noah and His Magical Ark was a television program for children and was generally broadcast around the Philadelphia area. The series aired from 1967 to 1994. It was filmed and produced at the WPVI-TV, Channel 6 studios in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Magic School Bus is an animated educational children's television series, based on the book series of the same name by Joanna Cole and Bruce Degen. Running originally from 1994 to 1997, the series received critical acclaim for its use of celebrity voice talent and combining entertainment with an educational series. The show features famous actress and celebrity Lily Tomlin as the voice of Ms. Frizzle. The show's theme song is performed by famous singer Little Richard.
Ricardo Efrain Thomas Aquino Carballada de Babilon, known professionally as Rick Azar, was an American broadcaster who spent 31 years at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York.
Michael E. Randall is an American actor, playwright, meteorologist and reporter from Buffalo, New York. He is best known within his native Western New York for his long run on WKBW-TV, where he has been an on-air personality since 1983 and was the chief meteorologist from 1999 to 2013, and outside Western New York for his stage shows.
Stan Barron was an American sports broadcaster.
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