Sneak Preview

Coming in April on WHYY TV12...
Compiled by Abigail Esten

Frontier House
After surviving a competitive selection process, a rigorous training program and a dangerous overland wagon trip, three contemporary American families face 19th-century life in this new six-part "hands-on" history series.

Chosen from over 5,000 applications, the Glenn family of Tennessee, the Clune family of California and the Brooks family of Massachusetts headed west to Montana to live as 1880s homesteaders for six months, with only the clothes, food, tools and technology of the period at their disposal. The cameras rolled throughout the families' historic adventure, revealing their trials, triumphs, simple pleasures and daily rigors.

Check out the companion Web site www.pbs.org/wnet/frontierhouse for an up-close look at the drama of this unique experience, which included a June snowstorm, unanticipated weight loss among the families, encounters with bears and a family sneaking modern cosmetics into their 1883 experience.

The Red Skelton Show
Richard "Red" Skelton is remembered and loved as the comedian whose family-oriented humor made millions laugh for more than 70 years. This series consists of episodes from the first two seasons of The Red Skelton Show, one of the first variety shows to make the successful transition from radio to television in the early 1950s.

Each episode features monologues, pantomimes and sketches with such memorable Skelton characters as Clem Kadiddlehopper, the unsophisticated country boy; the perpetually drunk Willie Lump-Lump; San Fernando Red, a slightly-dishonest politician; and Freddie the Freeloader, a loveable, always-silent hobo.