Back in the Summer of 1963, the production company that shot the CBS series Route 66 was in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls, New York area, to shoot some exteriors and scenes for the program. The news of the filming of scenes was reported in the Buffalo Evening News, with pictures of the locations and celebrities.

The first of those shows aired on Friday night, 11/15/63. In it was a couple scene shots of the City of Buffalo, a helo shot from above the old War Memorial Stadium, and a ski resort.

The local folks were excited about the way the city was portrayed, and we eagerly awaited the next week to see what the storyline was at Niagara Falls.

Comes 11/22/63, and with the assassination of President Kennedy, of course all regular programming was suspended for the round the clock news coverage. Therefore, that episode of Route '66 was never aired on CBS-TV to my knowledge, as I believe the show was axed by 1964.

Fast forward to the early 80's. I had just gotten cable where I live, and was zapping around, when I saw on Nickelodeon (or Nick-at-Nite, if you prefer), the old Route '66 show at 11pm ET.

I thought great! I had not seen the show since its network run, and since I caught it 1/2 way through, I figured it should be good.

Well, it turned out I started to recognize some of the buildings of Niagara Falls, and realized, it was the episode that was pre-empted by the assassination.

But, all that pales in comparsion as to what the story was about...it had something to do with the assassination of a world leader who was visiting Niagara Falls. I would like to know more about this particular show, but what are the chances like that, of life imitating art?

Gary Walters
Operations Engineering
WKBW-TV, Buffalo
gwalters@buffnet.net