How 'bout Captain Noah* from the Philly area? Or Sally Starr?
- Send your pictures to dear old Captain Noah/He’ll hang them high/In the TV sky …
In Memphis during the 60s, our late night fright films were hosted by Sivad, a Count Dracula like fella. Real name was Davis. Get it?
Our kid’s show was a circus themed thing with the usual cartoons, skits, ads for Bunny Bread and mail-in contests. I got to be on once and went anti-tharn and could NOT stop talking to the host. Totally out of character. My mom was even asked by Trent, the host to indentify herself 'cuz he wanted to Talk To Her.
We had Mr. Cartooner on WSAZ channel 3. He told jokes, showed cartoons , and had a studio full of kids. He always wore sunglasses, pork pie hat, and a really loud sports coat.
I grew up in the New York Metropolitan Area in the 1960s. Some of the local ones have been mentioned already:
Sandy Becker – Here’s a website:
http://www.christophergross.com/becker/becker.html
Although this and other sites talk about other shows, the one I remember is “Sandy’s Hour”. His characters I can recall are Norman Nork and Hambone and The Big Professor:
http://www.tvparty.com/lostbecker.html
I gather that he has died.
** Sonny Fox** – hosted “Wonderama” (originally hosted by Sandy Becker, before my time, then briefly by two other guys – most sites seem to get that bit wrong – before Fox took it over) on Sunday mornings (a full four hours of stuff), and “Just for Fun” on Saturdays (the highlight of this was the kid winning the competition having his arms loaded with so many toys and games that they towered over his head). Site:
http://www.tvparty.com/lostkids1.html
I didn’t realize until much later that he had been host of one of those shows involved in the 1950s quiz show scandals. At this site he claims to have been host of the show that “made” Dr. Joyce Brothers:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/sfeature/part5.html
“Sonny” (Irwin) Fox seems still to be alive at this writing.
Chuck McCann
"Officer" Joe Bolton
http://www.angelfire.com/ny/nyuk/bolton.html
Not only hosted The Three Stooges (and, like many TV hosts for the Stooges, got a part in the movie “The Outlaws IS Coming”), but also Popeye cartoons and old movie serials. I remember watching Jack Larson talking about playing “Jimmy Olsen” on TV’s Superman.
Sally Starr
I never saw this, as it was a Philadelphia show, and conditions were rarely good enough to bring those in on our pre-cable TV. But ** Pepper Mill** watched her a lot.
http://www.tvparty.com/lostsal.html
** Claude Kirschner**
The sites all talk about him as host of “Super Circus” and later “Terrytoons Circus” on WWOR (Channel 9) out of New York (actually, Seacaucus, NJ), but I seem to recall him hosting a slightloy different cartoon show with a different name – “Big Top Circus” or something. Perhaps my memory is faulty:
http://www.toontracker.com/terry/terry2.htm
http://www.marxmuseum.com/pages/544077/index.htm
I say this in part because a lot of the cartoons I recall were not Terrytoons. They weren’t even American – they were dubbed over. To this day, despite being an animation fan, I haven’t seen them again. I think I’ve tracked down one – a French cartoon. Others seemed to be Japanese. Pre-“Astro-Boy” Japanese, at that, although I may have the country wrong again. The cartoons seemed to be animated folk tales.
Claude Kirschner was the Ringmaster, as he had been on “Super Circus”, but Mary Hartline was nowhere around – he had a puppet clown sidekick called “Clowny”. Kieschner is also still alive, I think.
It seems I’m wrong – Kirschner died in 1993:
In BOSTON, a local TV Channel (WBZ) had an old fart called “Big Brother Bob”. This guy was really weird-he hated kids! Hi show was pretty boring…it consisted of live segments of the kids playing games, interspersed with cartoon clips and ads for toys. Anyway, I got invited to go on the show…when you got to the TV studio, they gave you a bag containing a few cheap toys, candy, and a big bar of hershey’s chocalate! Most of the kids would did into the chocalte, and by the time the show started, each wouldhave a nice brown mess around the mouth, and usually chocalate stains on the fresh white shirts! So some old hag would comeout with a wash cloth and try to claen up all the little tyke’s faces!
Big Brother Bob had a foul temper-many times, he would actually scream at the kids! One time, a kid dumped a glass of milk onto his pants-the old fart went nuts!
If anyone from the DC metro area is interested in seeing what’s up with this guy (Dick Dyszel), here’s a link:
And a link to “Count Gor’s Website” with info on “Creature Feature”:
“Box three-five-0h,
Boston, Mass,
Ooooh-two-ooone-three-foooouuur.
Send it to Zoom!”
is burned forever into my soul.
h.sapiens, thanks for the memories!! Guess what my new desktop wallpaper is?
http://wgntv.trb.com/about/station/wgntv-timeline-70simage8,0,4296922.photo
A show called “Circus 3” on channel 3, the CBS affiliate in Madison, Wisc. It was live, had a male host (didn’t all these shows have male hosts? … interesting), with the usual clowns and cartoons.
Oh, and they made a big deal of it if you were in the audience and it was your birthday. They gave out “Wonder Bread” as a parting gift to every kid in the audience.
I was born in 1960, and must have watched 100s of episodes of “Circus 3” before I was 10 (then I discovered girls). Still, I can’t recall anything more specific than what I wrote above.
Spiff, my family used to watch Circus 3 when we vacationed in the Madison area every summer. We didn’t really like it, it was the only thing on.
Which reminds me, how could I have forgotten Bozo’s Circus? This Chicago institution ran for 40 years, with only 2 guys playing Bozo that whole time. Parents and kids sat in the studio audience, and it was so popular that at one point the waiting list for tickets was several years long. I got to go twice, and I still have vivid memories of what at the time was a very special occasion.
The quality had gone downhill in the last few years, but on the prime time farewell show Billy Corgan, who was a fan as a kid, appeared and sang a song.