Punky Brewster: Not In Birmingham

Brandon and Glomer from the Animated Punky Brewster

For whatever reason, the NBC affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama refused to air Punky Brewster.  ANY version of the show.

The live action series, which started in 1984, was forever preempted by something else:  sports, local programming, etc.  As a kid, I would check NBC every Sunday evening in the hopes that it would air when it was supposed to.  It actually did air ONE time (Part One of "The Perils of Punky"), which I can only assume was an accident.  Of course they did not air Part Two the next week.

The animated Punky Brewster was a 1985 Saturday Morning cartoon produced by Ruby-Spears.  In Birmingham, the series was not shown.  Instead, the station aired a locally made version of Bugs Bunny and Friends.

Punky Brewster was not totally banned from Birmingham, though.  When the series left NBC for syndication, it was shown on local station WTTO 21.  Merchandise for the animated series was sold at Toys R Us.  It is worth noting that the design for Brandon the dog looks very much like the dog character in another Ruby-Spears animated series, 1983's Rubik The Amazing Cube.  They were Recycling before Recycling was a thing.

As a kid, the refusal of our NBC station to air either version of Punky Brewster was a baffling mystery.

If only we had the Internet back then...

However, it was not the only network affiliate in town to refuse to air a series.  For example, Birmingham's ABC station would forever preempt Mr. Belvedere.  I have no idea what problem our ABC affiliate had with Mr. Belvedere.  The funny thing is that they apparently thought the robot girl show Small Wonder was a better show to air in its time slot.