TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — KGUN-TV is celebrating a major milestone. Wednesday marks 70 years since KGUN first signed on the air.
When the station signed on in June of 1956, the call letters were actually KDWI-TV, using the initials of owner D.W. Ingram.
Ingram built his TV studio on 6th Avenue, with a contingency plan.
"A big, big studio but in the center of the studio there's this big H," said former KGUN General Manager Scott Vaughan. "Ever go get your oil changed, and you get raised on one of those? He was figuring that this building would ultimately have another use if television didn't become a thing."
Within a year, Ingram sold the station, never realizing that television would 'become a thing.'
A fan of westerns, the new owner changed the call letters to KGUN-TV on March 14, 1957. That's also when Channel 9 became an ABC affiliate, and when the wildly popular kids show "Marshal KGUN" debuted.
"It has a very small set and a little background that said "Marshal KGUN's Circus" and it had some bleachers and maybe a dozen kids would be at every show," Vaughan said.
"It was an experiment," said former KGUN engineer Barry Joseph. "Television in those days was an experiment."
In the fall of 1958, Joseph began working at KGUN-TV.
"There were days that I was directing it and also loading film, doing all the stuff, running audio," explained Joseph. "We did everything in those days."
Joseph directed the very popular "Romper Room" on KGUN-TV with Miss Evelyn.
Now 86 years old, Barry is retired and living in Mill Valley, California. He still remembers KGUN doing live remotes with a converted truck.
"As I remember, it was an old bread truck," said Joseph.
Live remotes meant rolling out that old bread truck. It also meant a lot of people setting up those old tube cameras.
"I mean, it was heavy," recalled Joseph.
Joseph also worked on the "Marshall KGUN" show along with Scott Vaughan, who started working at KGUN in 1961, running camera for "Marshall KGUN."
That's also the year Bob Love moved from his role as Pepper the talking horse to playing Marshal KGUN.
"Came out in front of the camera and for about two weeks my hands shook so hard that I would have to actually physically hold them," Bob Love said in an interview. "But everything was spur of the moment. Kids never knew what I was going to do, they just loved it."
Love entertained kids across Southern Arizona in his role as Marshal KGUN from 1961 until the show went off the air in 1967.
"It wasn't a job," said Love's daughter Nancy Love Barrett. "It was something that he enjoyed and he was really good at it. He was great with kids."
Many Tucson kids celebrated their birthdays sitting in the audience of the "Marshall KGUN" show.
"Oh my God, I was so excited," said Vicki Housley Wolf.
Wolf celebrated her birthday on the "Marshall KGUN" show in 1961.
"I don't think the studio meant that much to me," said Housley Wolf. "I don't think I got that excited til I saw Marshal KGUN. Because he was like, you know, a star."
The one downside to being in studio:
"I don't think we could see the cartoons very well," said Housley Wolf. "That disappointed me. I think they had a little screen. So you're sitting in the stands and you're like 'wait a minute.' Or I might have even thought the cartoons were going to be real when I got there."
In the 1960s, Channel 9 played cartoons on the "Marshal KGUN" show during the day, and movies at night for the grown-ups.
With KGUN-TV's emphasis on local programming, another Tucson television staple was born, thanks to the imagination and theatrical ability of then-program director Jack Jacobson.
"We'll do a chiller movie Saturday night," said Jacobson. "So, I came up with the character Dr. Scar."
An unusual duo, Dr. Scar and Marshall KGUN routinely made public appearances together for Channel 9.
"The community really caught on to both shows, in a way that these were local celebrities," said Vaughan.
Marshall KGUN and Dr. Scar became fixtures on KGUN 9 in those early days, helping lay the groundwork for 70 years of broadcasting excellence and helping KGUN 9 become Absolutely Arizona.
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Pat Parris is an anchor and reporter for KGUN 9. He is a graduate of Sabino High School where he was the 1982 high school state track champion in the 800 meters. While in high school and college, he worked part-time in the KGUN 9 newsroom. Share your story ideas and important issues with Pat by emailing pat.parris@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
