Forward Into the Past

Colorado Inside Out, the public-affairs roundtable that Colorado Public Television (then KBDI) launched twenty years ago, takes a look at current events every week. And once a year, it takes a very long look back at far-from-current events, in a program that sends the panelists into the past. These annual...

By Patricia Calhoun

November 24, 2011

Audio By Carbonatix

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Colorado Inside Out, the public-affairs roundtable that Colorado Public Television (then KBDI) launched twenty years ago, takes a look at current events every week. And once a year, it takes a very long look back at far-from-current events, in a program that sends the panelists into the past. These annual Time Machine trips started as a holiday tradition back in 2003; the station has now done ten installments. And three of them -- the 1858, 1935 and 1959 episodes -- have won regional Emmys.

"Back in the golden age of Hollywood, it was often said of Ginger Rogers that she did everything her dance partner did, except she did it backwards and in high heels," says CPT-12's Larry Patchett. "This phrase may also come close to describing the challenges taken on by the Colorado Inside Out panelists, producers and crew in our annual Time Machine."

Especially when those other panelists, producers and crew members are stuck dancing with me as I play characters ranging from Helen Bonfils, one-time owner of the Denver Post, to Countess Katrina Murat, the first white woman in Denver.

From 7 to 9 p.m. tonight, Colorado Public Television will offer a Time Machine Marathon, airing all three Emmy winners as well as the 1951 show -- "an Emmy hopeful," Patchett says, that originally aired this July. Fair warning: I play Ethel Merman.
Fri., Nov. 25, 7-9 p.m., 2011

Patricia Calhoun is editor-in-chief of Westword, the alt-weekly she co-founded in September 1977. She’s been inducted into the Colorado Press Association Hall of Fame, the Association of Alternative Newsmedia Hall of Fame and the Colorado Restaurant Association Hall of Fame. She’s also received dozens of local, state and national awards for writing, including first place for feature writing and first place for column writing with the Society of Professional Journalists. Patricia is a weekly commentator on Colorado Inside Out, PBS 12's public affairs roundtable, which has won two Emmys.

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