Doug Whitehead may have the best job in Colorado television.
The Channel 4 producer- photographer travels the state, capturing images and telling stories about historically or naturally significant sites, often off the beaten (tourist) track. He touches down at the station long enough to plan and research, and then he’s on the road again. As the producer and soul of CBS4’s “Colorado Getaways” since 1992, Whitehead has won a bundle of Emmys over the years.
This weekend, Whitehead will introduce the 25th anniversary season of “Colorado Getaways” with a half-hour retrospective at 6:30 p.m. Saturday on KCNC-Channel 4. It’ll launch a year-long, 20-episode celebration of the longest-running regularly scheduled program currently on Denver TV.
Current host Jim Beneman n comments on the “original open” and theme music from the old telecast, and introduces Whitehead as they celebrate the milestone, starting with a flashback to a 1987 “Getaways” story by original host Leo McGuire.
Born as “Denver 100,” a feature within the newscast exploring destinations within 100 miles of the city — and usually set to banjo music — the reports evolved into a slightly more slick, stand-alone program. Never too slick, of course. The scripted banter still feels canned and the shoestring budget is apparent as production values are minimal. Still, it’s the state’s natural beauty that sets the tone.
Only “Blinky’s Fun Club,” the record-setting local clown show, ran longer. (Russell Scott started that kids show on KKTV in 1958 in Colorado Springs and continued with it from 1966-98 on KWGN).
Unlike Blinky, Whitehead isn’t constrained by costume or studio.
The retrospective is more than a collection of old favorites — although it’s that, too. Check out Bill Stuart looking like a kid in 1989!
It’s about change, and not just in TV technology, although that’s apparent, as well. The remake of the ski industry with the arrival of boarding and the push to make Colorado National Monument a National Park (it would be the fifth in the state), are at the top of Whitehead’s list of such changes.
The producer says he can’t improve on a few of his past productions, like a sunrise he caught at Pawnee Buttes, surveying the huge grassland. He’s partial to the Eastern Plains, which require special appreciation.
In his mind, “Getaways” has lasted because it is embraced by old-timers for nostalgia, by newcomers for information and direction, and by armchair travelers for vicarious joy.
“It’s a slow-working phenomenon; it lodges in people’s brains, and they get there eventually,” he said. There have been instances of Sunday crowds overwhelming a site profiled on Saturday’s show. And Whitehead knows his TV exposure has singlehandedly boosted the economies of certain small towns.
Canyons, valleys, hiking, biking, skiing and more, with natural-history lessons, park-ranger interviews and archival photographs on the side, it’s a great way to (virtually) see the state.
In TV terms, the series has lasted because it is inexpensive to produce and draws a competitive audience. Perhaps another reason it has endured is that it has remained free of infomercial, “pay-to- play” influences, remaining firmly rooted in the news department.
Whitehead plans to keep charting the territory. He hasn’t covered it all, “not by a long shot.”
And where is his personal escape?
“My wife and I own a house in Buena Vista. There’s a lot of old Colorado still there.”
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
