As I remember, she was Wunda Wunda!
Tell me about it. I was born in 1984, but there were still plenty of reruns from this period on in my day, and shows made even years later weren’t much better. Kids’ programming, especially animation, didn’t improve in this country until the early 1990s, and even then it was somewhat hit-or-miss.
Ah, early cable. I remember a somewhat different era, because the Nickelodeon I remember from early childhood had cartoons like David the Gnome and animated bumpers featuring an evil cat and a good-natured pig engaging in various sports. I also remember Pinwheel as probably one of my very earliest memories of watching TV.
I watched some PBS, but TLC was actually good back then, with shows like Connections (hosted by James Burke), and the Discovery Channel had Wings, I believe. (I actually bought the book connected to Connections, The Day The World Changed. Good read.)
This had the best theme tune. It seemed so sophisticated when I was in early grade school.
One of my little brothers loved the Power Rangers. I was already too old for it by the time it came out.
This hung on long enough I got to watch it, and it was indeed quite good. One of the better SNL-for-kids shows anyone ever produced. (Given that it was Canadian, shouldn’t it be SCTV-for-kids?)
This I do not recall. By the time I was watching TV, Cartoon Network was showing unedited Warner Brothers classics back-to-back throughout long portions of the daytime in the summers, at least. They didn’t show the more racist ones, sure, but if you saw a cartoon duck get his beak blown backwards, well, if it was good enough for theater audiences in 1943, it’s good enough for you. And if you learn about “A” stickers from Bugs Bunny’s aircraft running out of gas and stopping right before it crashes into the ground, hey, bonus.
I saw the tail end of these, and re-runs of some of the older ones. My parents tell me I was a big He-Man fan as a very young child, but I do not recall that at all; I do recall crap like The Snorks and Captain Planet and reruns of 1970s dreck like Jabberjaw and the old Scooby-Doo being passed off as children’s entertainment, and I knew it was crap back then.
Wuzzles… Gummi Bears… crap, all crap. I am so glad I grew up with the Animaniacs and Ren & Stimpy and South Park. (Funny story: Back around 1998, my dad had moved to Worthington, MN, to take a job and generally get things settled so my mom and us kids could move up from Poplar Bluff, MO, when the school year ended. This meant he had Dish Network while the rest of us were still watching cable, so he had Comedy Central and we didn’t. He apparently tuned into Comedy Central late one night, watched the first episode of South Park, saw that it was focused almost entirely on things going into and coming out of Cartman’s ass, and then waited so he could tape it and mail the tape to his three sons, then aged 10, 12, and 14. I believe he did this for multiple episodes. Needless to say, when people talk about how their parents never let them watch vulgar comedy and toilet humor, I find it hard to relate.)
Duck Tales was golden, and had a theme tune that easily ranks in the top ten of all time. I also liked TaleSpin, The Pirates of Dark Water, and Darkwing Duck, for the more adventure-oriented cartoons. Of course, the greatest adventure cartoon was Batman: The Animated Series, which still holds up and even introduced a whole new character into the Batman canon: Harley Quinn. That, and it marks Luke Hamill’s first turn as the voice of the Joker, which is still seen as one of the definitive performances. All that plus the memorable, atmospheric Dark Deco art style.
One cartoon which never gets much love is Count Duckula, about a vampire duck who was mistakenly resurrected with ketchup instead of blood so he’s a vegetarian, despite the best efforts of his manservant to get him to feast upon the living. He also has a ten-ton “nanny” who can never be persuaded to use a door instead of bashing a hole in the wall. More subtle, understated comedy from the land of Benny Hill.
And a few of them made it onto Nickelodeon back in the early days, before it had much of its own programming.
I remember this.
Yep, still remembered among people who watched Nick in the 1990s.
I remember this, but I don’t think it was on Nick in the US. I could be wrong.
Might as well list a few more especially good shows from my early years:
The Adventures of Pete & Pete
Rocko’s Modern Life
The Angry Beavers
Invader Zim
Beakman’s World (It might be heresy, but I have fonder memories of Beakman than I do of Bill Nye. This show was just stranger and I responded to that.)
Space Ghost Coast to Coast (The proto-[adult swim], the anti-talk-show, the little injection of weird, sophisticated humor.)
The Moxy Show (Bizarre CGI dog voiced by Bobcat Goldthwait.)
Dexter’s Laboratory
Samurai Jack
Cow and Chicken
Johnny Bravo
I Am Weasel
Two Stupid Dogs
… and whatever I mentioned in my previous post, including a lot of cartoons from the 1920s onwards on Cartoon Network back before it had any of its own programming and actually had a show called ToonHeads which existed purely to showcase classic cartoons, including the really old black-and-white ones.
Philly had an abundance of good local kid shows. Dr. Shock was good, campy late night entertainment, too.
Chief Halftown “is thelongest running local TV children’s show in the history of the world.” He was on the air for 50 years. Great guy, too!
The longest running kid’s show in history. Thanks, TV Time. I understand what you mean by your quote.
Did you know that Wallace and Ladmo was also aired in some parts of Idaho and Utah? I read an article about that, not sure of the exact dates, but 1960s I think.
There was a generation of kids in Dallas who were traumatized (let’s say even MORE traumatized at the time) when they realized that beloved kid’s show host Mr. Peppermint was actually Jerry Haynes, who had witnessed and reported on the assassination of JFK.
In fairness, some version of that story has been told about pretty much every kid’s show since the dawn of radio.
Ft. Worth late 60’s to early 70’s.
Dallas had Mr. Peppermint in his prissy red and white striped blazer and straw panama. In Ft. Worth, we were a little grittier. We had Icky Twerp and Slam Bang Theater with Ajax, Delphenium, and Arkadelphia: three stage hands in gorilla suits.
The man behind the Twerp was Bill Camfield and he also hosted the Saturday night horror movie as Gorgon. He lived directly behind the station and was used to going back and forth several times a day to work behind or in front of the camera.
I came in at the end of the 70s beginning 80s but I kept moving between CA which was all the leftovers from the 50s-70s (although I miss getting up at 6 am and watching 2 hours of felix the cat) and in Indiana the only major things we got was wgn and 4 so when I was a kid it was bozo but back then they didn’t have after noon cartoons and then years later they didn’t have morning cartoons … and gramps got a satellite so we watched a lot of those costumed Disney shows (pooh corner dumbos circus ) in like a 4 hour block then theyed show something cool like tron or the black hole and then about 1 pm repeat the whole block over again
But I remember on channel 5 "KTLA"in la the Popeye guy would do 3 or 4 hours in the morning on sundays and then would do a family movie afternoon … sometimes hed run over on Popeye so the camera would shw him walking over from the drawing set to the den set while he changed clothes mr Rogers style … mr frazer on wgn’s bozo would do the same thing
In the late 80s Disney took over the afternoons after ducktales were popular although I watched gi joe at 4:30 but its strange theres no afternoon cartoons on any of the 4 la channels … 5 9 11 and 13 although 13 never had afternoon cartoons (bring back anaimacs!)… but I remeber 13 because right before they became upn they ran Disney Saturday morning reruns but at 9:30 they had the first us version of a cartoon that I thought that was funny as hell but wasn’t going to make it …it was weird like most Japanese cartoons and it was about catching animals in fact I told my disabled nephew about it so he could see it before it got cancelled …
It was pokemon… and man every kid in my family since then has been in to pokemon … I cant escape it although its not on as much anymore but that’s only due to warners giving up network tv and putting almost everything in cartoon network or boomerang
oh and the CH4 in Indiana mascot for years was this preschool type they called "Janie " but she wasn’t around by the time I was really old enough to remember but we watched wgn or the other Chicago indy channel… 30 something
Heres something …Who watched the ghost-busters cartoon ? the one where it was based off an old 30 movie and then the kids show mentioned above ? I always thought it was lame … I mean tracey the monkey some guy that was the human version of Launchpad mc quack … and the red headed 30s moll type and the inappropriate chick from the future … they had some sort of triangle going with the blonde hero …
I do wish I had gotten the toys when I seen them … since there one of the rarest toy lines ever … only reason I remember them is they had the whole series in a cd strip case that Walmart had hanging on a budget wall that said “kids after noon shows” but you could see the characters and name on the dvds …
Probably 32, (former) home of the Sox. We hardly watched that channel because the only TVs we had that could pick up UHF were B&W.
But the story about Soupy Sales telling kids to go into their sleeping father’s wallets and mailing him the ‘green pieces of paper with the presidents on it’ is totally true. He wasn’t fired and the show wasn’t cancelled. It was suspended for a bit, though.
Does anybody else remember the Popeye show hosted by Tom Hatten on Sunday mornings, that aired on KTLA channel 5 in the Los Angeles area in the 1970s?
Between cartoons, Tom Hatten would draw pictures on a big sketchboard, and occasionally pull letters randomly out of a chest for giveaway prizes.
He later appeared in an L.A. stage production of Annie, playing the role of president FDR.
Sesame Street
Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood
Darkwing Duck
Inspector Gadget (in the rare cases where we had cable)
When I was very young, Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street , Mr. Rogers and I used to love the Electric Company. I remember watching a lot of The Flintstones and Speed Racer. One of my favorite memories is always watching Top Cat with my dad. I recall The Archies and Josie and the Pussycats on Saturday mornings. I watched a ton of Hanna Barbara stuff like Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. I also loved Underdog. I remember Kimba and I posted upthread how upset I always was when I was quite young that the teacher on Romper Room never saw me in her magic mirror.
I think Howdy Doody was the only show on the air for kids of that age (1952). The Shari Lewis puppet show might have also been on then, but only on Saturdays. Also on Saturdays was The Big Top, a show of circus acts. We could only get one channel, so there might have been a kids show on another network that we wouldn’t have known about.
Most early kids shows were locally studio-produced. On our station, Foreman Tom, in a western outfit, would sit on a fence and whittle a stick and introduce old 1930s western movies. The theme song still sticks in my head, “Riders in the Sky” by David Rose orchestra. Nice piece of music.
"But I remember on channel 5 “KTLA"in la the Popeye guy would do 3 or 4 hours in the morning on sundays and then would do a family movie afternoon … sometimes hed run over on Popeye so the camera would shw him walking over from the drawing set to the den set while he changed clothes mr Rogers style … mr frazer on wgn’s bozo would do the same thing”
Channel 11 had afterschool cartoon show for a number of years…"Cap’n Pitt"was the name of the host and, I think, also the title. It was all non-WB cartoons, as I recall. I think Willy the Duck, as voiced by Don Riggs, was a regular. Riggs was also weatherman and Willie was on the nightly news broadcast in the early 70’s ball-busting the lead anchor.
Missed this earlier.
YCDTOTV struck me more as Laugh-In-for-kids. The splashing water, joke lockers standing in for the joke wall, various people gathering on stage between skits, etc.
Seattle had J.P. Patches on channel 8, Brakeman Bill and Crazy Donkey on channel 13, Stan Boreson on channel 5, and Wunda Wunda on channel 5 also. J.P. had a morning show, and all the others(I believe) were after school shows.