The Comeback of San Francisco's KOFY TV 20

KOFY TV got its start in the Bay Area as KEMO, known for broadcasting a very eclectic mix of off-beat programming such as dubbed Japanese cartoons, Spanish language shows and late-night B movies. In the early 1980s they switched call letters to KTZO and added their signature commercials featuring local dogs as well as the show TV-20 Dance Party. The station didn't become known as KOFY until 1986, and ran under the name until 1995 when they were sold and became WB affiliate KBWB. This continued until 2006 when CBS and Time-Warner decided to close their WB and UPN affiliates and merge them into the CW, and after a few experimental format changes, KBWB reverted to KOFY in October of 2008.

KOFY's present mix of programming is typically very eclectic and not everything on it is to everyone's taste. However, they seem to have much more in the way of hits than misses now, and they're showing some stuff that you just rarely see on TV anywhere anymore. As such, despite some rough patches through the day where it's The Steve Wilkos Show and failed sitcoms from the 1990s, it is still often worth tuning into.

KOFY's main theme that they are running with these days is "local focus." Every hour is topped off by some local dog or another being put in front of the camera, then they fire a gun or dangle some Schnausages or something off to his left so it looks like he's watching the KOFY logo fly out of the TV. Pet owners can fill out a form on their website to try to get their dog featured in a commercial. KOFY also sends out vans to regularly comb the area, give people free Weavers coffee and get them to appear in ad spots for the station. A lot of the shows have vote functions through the website as well, like Retro Night every Wednesday and Friday, where they put up a few choices of old episodes of like Hawaii 5-0 and such and people can go and vote on what they want to see on the next day, plus most of the hosts for their little interstitial segments are non-professional walk-ins who just take the job for a little while for fun.

The mid-day line up suffers from an overdose of Steve Wilkos (former Jerry Springer bouncer who acts like an Internet Tough Guy IRL by threatening to beat up guests who he knows he won't ever really touch due to epic lawsuit potential, plus they're probably paid actors half the time anyway) and Jerry Springer as well as really craptastic failed sitcoms that they've dredged up like House of Payne and According to Jim. In the mornings and evenings, though, things are pretty solid if you want some quality popcorn TV to just relax with.

10 A.M. to 11 A.M. starts off the good part of the day now with a double dose of 70's wa-chika-wa in Starsky and Hutch followed immediately by The Streets of San Francisco. The first show needs no introduction but the second is a kinda obscure cop drama for anyone born in the 1980s or beyond, and I likely never would have heard of it if not for seeing it on KOFY. It's a pretty typical semi-fascist police show but it has badass 1970s music, you get to see San Francisco in the 1970s when it was grittier and way more real, and Karl Malden and Kirk Douglas make the writing seem much better than it actually is. Right after that is Perry Mason, another okayish show made better by an awesome theme song and a solid main character (who got even more and more "solid" as the years of the show wore on ... lol Raymond Burr.)

Then you've got the crappy afternoon hours of Steve Wilkos acting like a big man in front of skinny pedophiles 'cause he can't hack it in the WWE or cage fighting, followed by JER-RY! JER-RY! JER-RY! and his endless parade of mutant redneck freaks. Finally after all that crap we get back to some good stuff with the Fresh Prince at 6 P.M. every weeknight. There's another kind of dead zone after that with like an hour or more of House of Payne, but then there's Law and Order if you're into that, then after that the ABC 7 News, which is probably the most polished of the local mainstream coverage, and their "Seven On Your Side" at least represents the basics of community-driven investigative reporting (which is still farther than most other news outlets get in this day and age.) Finally, the high note of the night is reruns of all the seasons of Reno 911 up to the most recent one, which as far as I know is the only way to watch Reno 911 without cable or satellite or DVD (or pirating on the internets.)

Other high points - the station covers all types of local high school sports, and for roller derby fans they actually show matches of the Bay City Bombers. There's some interesting weekend late night stuff - the KOFY "dance party" has been revived in the various retro-themed hour-long dance specials on at nine on Saturday nights. Saturday at midnight you'll see Creepy KOFY Movie Time, which shows a lot of old Mystery Science Theater caliber horror movies, in fact they did two that MST3K did back-to-back not too long ago. It isn't really an MST3K ripoff though, they show the movies straight, but break away from them frequently for commentary (and plugging their sponsors.) There's also a show on Sunday mornings at 2 A.M. called Distortion 2 Static that is supposed to be about socially conscious, real hip-hop, but hell if I can make it up that late for it. Maybe if you have TiVo or one of those deals you can check it out.

So KOFY isn't exactly something right now that you can just flip on at any time and be guaranteed to see something you enjoy, but I think the extreme diversity of programming is a net benefit on the whole, and the Bay Area is getting the benefit of having them back in their original format.