This will age me for sure.Today I was talking with my son about how weird kid’s TV always was and that started me reminiscing.
In another thread a long time ago, I mentioned being a very disappointed preschooler when Miss Julia never mentioned my name. According to Wiki, it should be a Miss Louisa who disappointed me but I remember a Miss Julia. I was a tiny tot, so I could have imagined the name. But I sure as hell remember even now how sad I was when she never, ever saw me through her looking glass which, as I explained to the boy, was a big, plastic hand mirror with the mirror taken out.
My introduction to snake-in-a-can was watching Wonderama with Bob McCallister. I knew all the words to Kids Are People, Too and loved the segment where an audience member had a few seconds to find the can with the paper bouquet in it. All the other cans had snakes. As I explained to my son, the cans were just lined up on a table. The kid had a few seconds to open cans until he or she got a bouquet. The Boy didn’t get it.
Watched Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood for two things-- Neighborhood of Make Believe and the original How It’s Made video segments. The Boy didn’t believe me when I said The Science Channel ripped off Mr. Rogers.
The Boy grew up with purple dinosaurs and giggling suns. Not so different from Witchiepoo and Hippo Hurricane Hollers.
Mine was Miss France’s and Ding-Dong School, and since I had a pretty common name, I did get to hear it.
Otherwise, it was cartoons, Garfield Goose, and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. There wasn’t a lot because no one had yet decided to cater to children that much. It kept us occupied while Mom made dinner (if she hadn’t told us to go outside) and on Saturday mornings.
I always felt bad for half of the people who hosted The Polka Dot Door. The show had a series of different hosts. One of them always happened to leave the room just before Polkaroo arrived and return just after Polkaroo left, so they’d never get to meet him. I took my concerns to my parents, who explained that the absent host was wearing the Polkaroo costume.
I watched Captain Kangaroo a lot because I had a Mr. Rabbit hand puppet. In the DC area there was Pick Temple in the morning, a singing cowboy, and Piccolo the Pony. He had the cool cartoon Space Explorers. In the evening was Captain Tug. He patrolled the Potomac river looking for commie spies or something like that, and played Popeye cartoons.
The Banana Splits
The Bugaloos
The Land Of The Lost
Josie and the Pussycats
Sigmund and the Sea Monsters
The Electric Company
Lost In Space
New Zoo Review
when I was a kid, “kid’s TV” was split into three groups.
PBS, basically Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
1a) Since I lived in Detroit, we also got CBC so we had the Canadian Sesame Street and The Friendly Giant.
Saturday morning cartoons like Bugs Bunny and whatever preceded it
the 22-minute toy commercials which aired every weekday from 2:30 to 4:30.
At the same time I was watching Romper Room I had a Bozo the Clown punching bag. I punched him a lot hecause he was scary and I did not like him one tiny bit. No way was I gonna watch his show.
P. S. Bozo’s big, red nose beeped when bopped and his bottom was full of sand. Found out about the sand the hard way.
Apologies in advance for the hijack, but I need to share this (most likely apocryphal, but still a good laugh):
On “Professor Kool’s Fun School,” they frequently hosted Cub Scout troops. There was a segment where a kid could come up and tell a joke, the kid would stand on a box to be eye level with PK in front of a wall with raspberry-making devices tacked to it and they would get Pppbbbbbtttt-ed off the stage. One Cub Scout told the following joke: Why are women like frying pans? PK says, I don’t know Why are women like frying pans? You gotta heat 'em up before you put the meat in! PK says, I don’t think that’s very funny. CS says, Fuck you, clown! Pandemonium shuts down the taping.
When I was growing up it was Mr Wizard and You Can’t Do That On Television and Mr Rogers (my favorite part being the How It’s Made part) and 3-2-1 Contact/The Bloodhound Gang, Newton’s Apple etc.
Bill Nye The Science Guy and Beakman’s World came on sort of as I was getting into High School.
And for all of you that grew up watching Captain Kangaroo…I once hit him right square in the forehead with a ping pong ball.
Chicago area, vintage 1970s.
I remember Dirty Dragon, but the name of the host & the show escape me.
The Electric Company, with a live-action Spider-man.
Speed Racer.
Fireball XL-5
Thunderbirds.
Marine Boy (My First Anime).
Gigantor (2nd Anime)
Star Trek: The Animated Series.
We had Ding Dong School, but I didn’t watch it a lot; it seemed too young for me.
When we got cable and could watch the NYC stations, I used to love The Chuck McCann Show, Wonderama, and The Sandy Becker Show. McCann was especially good.
We also saw Colonel Clown (promoted from Captain) and Pinky Lee out of Connecticut. Lee was once a big national kiddy show host, but collapsed due to exhaustion on stage during a live broadcast and his show was cancelled. This was an attempt at a comeback.
There were also Shari Lewis and Paul Winchell, both ventriloquists. Officer Joe Bolton hosted a daily show of Three Stooges shorts.
For cartoons, I loved Rocky and Bullwinkle and other Jay Ward shows. There was also Roger Ramjet and, of course, all the old Warner Brothers cartoons.
I was a wee lad in Philadelphia, which had a lot of local children’s programming in addition to the network stuff.
Locally produced programming:
Gene London
Pixanne
Sally Star and Popeye Theatre
Chief Halftown
Pete Boyle (Our Gang/Little Rascals)
Happy the Clown
Lorenzo the Clown
Other programming:
Captain Kangaroo
Leave It To Beaver
Shari Lewis
Paul Winchell
Soupy Sales
Three Stooges
Fireball XL5
Bugs Bunny/Looney Toons
Huckleberry Hound
Tennessee Tuxedo
Quick Draw McGraw
Mr Wizard (there were two of these. One was with Don Herbert and one was a cartoon.)
Beanie and Cecil
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Davey and Goliath
Kukla, Fran, and Ollie
The Flintstones
The Lone Ranger
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans
Superman
