Richard Sebak (born June 5, 1953) is an American

public broadcasting Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...

television producer A television producer is a person who oversees one or more aspects of a television show, television program. Some producers take more of an executive role, in that they conceive new programs and pitch them to the television networks, but upon acce ...

, writer and narrator who lives and works in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Early life and education

Richard Sebak was born on June 5, 1953, in Bethel Park,

. He attended

Bethel Park High School Bethel Park High School, also called BPHS, is a four-year, comprehensive high school located in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, with an enrollment of 1,391 students in grades 9–12 for the 2018–2019 school year. Its curr ...

and the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

, where he was a

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

graduate.

Career

Sebak's first foray in the nostalgia documentary is the 1984 documentary ''Shag'' for South Carolina ETV, about a dance popular in the region. Four years later at WQED, Sebak produced ''The Mon, The Al & The O'', about the Monongahela, Allegheny, and

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

rivers, which meet to form at Pittsburgh's

Golden Triangle Golden Triangle may refer to: Places Asia * Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia), named for its opium production * Golden Triangle (Yangtze), China, named for its rapid economic development * Golden Triangle (India), comprising the popular tourist sp ...

; and ''Kennywood Memories'', about

Kennywood Kennywood is an amusement park in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, just southeast of Pittsburgh. The park opened on May 30, 1898, as a trolley park attraction at the end of the Mellon family's Monongahela Street Railway. It was purchased in 1906 ...

, a historic local amusement park. As of March 2006, 313,227 copies of Sebak's films had been sold or given away as pledge gifts by public television stations nationwide, which WQED credits with largely helping it become financially solvent. Sebak's scrapbook documentary format has been copied by other stations, many of whom see record

pledge drive A pledge drive is an extended period of fundraising activities, generally used by public broadcasting stations to increase contributions. The term " pledge" originates from the promise that a contributor makes to send in funding at regular interva ...

numbers when their documentaries air at pledge time. For his 25th year at the station, WQED produced a program called ''What Makes Rick Tick.'' Special photos of Sebak to celebrate this 25th anniversary were added to

Yinztagram Yinztagram is a free photography mobile app for iOS that allows users to superimpose images of Pittsburgh landmarks in photos. The name "Yinztagram" is a portmanteau of yinz, a term from Pittsburghese, and Instagram, a popular photo application. ...

. The City of Pittsburgh declared the 1st week of December "Rick Sebak Week." Starting in 2018 the Rick Sebak specials for WQED have been shortened to 30 minutes and put under the umbrella title "Nebby: Rick Sebak's Tales of Greater Pittsburgh". Nebby is a Pittsburghese term meaning "nosy." Sebak fell and seriously injured his leg in 2018, and his special "Nebby: My Seven Weeks in Magee" showed his recovery and the support (and food) he received from many Pittsburghers. Due to Sebak's injury, 3 of the 8 episodes re-used 20 year old footage from older, out of circulation, documentaries with updates. Sebak is the creator of the "scrapbook documentary" genre, many of which he has created for WQED and

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

. This scrapbook style incorporates many old films, home movies, postcards, old photos and memorabilia of all sorts. Sebak does not appear on-camera in these programs, but audiences have learned to recognize his voice and distinctive narrative style. His work is supported by the Buhl Foundation.

Filmography

Home video

* The PITTSBURGH HISTORY SERIES (WQED Multi-media)- From the start, 1988, as each new documentary was produced VHS tapes were made as "Thank You" gifts for WQED supporters and sold at specialty stores throughout Pittsburgh. In 2002 releases switched over to the new popular DVD format. WQED re-issued all but two of the VHS shows onto DVD with new bonus material under the "WQED Classics" banner. "The Mon, The Al & The O" got combined with "Flying Off The Bridge to Nowhere..." for their DVD re-issue. "Holy Pittsburgh" never got re-issued. "Our Neighbor Fred Rogers'(1989) was updated and re-titled to "Fred Rogers, America's Favorite Neighbor"(2003) for the DVD release. VHS tapes were sold as long as stock remained, but no new dubs were made. NONE of these documentaries were made available for video streaming. * The ALL-AMERICAN SERIES (PBS Home Video) – 1996 to 2002 Documentaries were sold on VHS Tape. 2003 PBS Home Video switched over to DVD. The VHS documentaries were re-issued on DVD with bonus material, later the first four were collected as one set. To date, July 2021, all of the PBS Home Video DVDs are still available, although their website indicates less than 10 copies of each title is in stock. NONE of these documentaries are currently available for video streaming. * NEBBY: RICK SEBAK'S TALES OF GREATER PITTSBURGH – 2018 & 2019 After their broadcast these Half Hour Documentaries were posted on both WQED and PBS websites for video streaming.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sebak, Rick 1953 births Living people University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill alumni People from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania American documentary film directors American documentary film producers Film directors from Pennsylvania Film producers from Pennsylvania Pennsylvania Democrats