The Roy Rogers Show

 
Happy Trails to you, until we meet again...

If you watched The Roy Rogers Show as a child, you probably have the rest of the show's theme song running through your head now.  The Roy Rogers Show debuted on NBC on December 30, 1951, and ran there until 1957.  After that, it appeared in reruns on CBS for another four years.  Like Sky King, the show was a contemporary cowboy series set in the present day.  It starred Roy Rogers and country singer Dale Evans, who lived in the fictional town of Mineral City in Paradise Valley.

Rogers, dubbed the "King of the Cowboys," was a popular B-movie Western film star of the 1940's when he made the move to TV.   On the TV show, which Rogers produced, he played the owner of the Double R Bar Ranch, who continued the fight for law and order in the contemporary West that he had begun on the silver screen.  Rogers was assisted by his real-life wife Dale Evans, who played the owner of the Eureka Cafe in town and Rogers' love interest, and Pat Brady, Roy's comic sidekick who drove around in his cantankerous jeep, named Nellybelle.   

The show also featured several animal performers.  There was Trigger, Roy's faithful golden palomino stallion, who had made more than 80 movies with him, and who could be seen galloping along at breakneck speed in the show's opening.   Dale's horse was a beautiful buckskin named Buttermilk.  Last but not least came Bullet The Wonder Dog, Roy's German Shepherd, who was actually a Rogers family pet in real life.   

The plot lines of The Roy Rogers Show were simple and familiar: Roy or Dale would find out about someone who was in trouble and needed help, and they would help them. Roy's character was that of an easy-going singing cowboy who wasn't afraid to use his fists when necessary.  There were always bad guys to catch, lots of chase scenes with horses, and a good fist-fight or two.  Roy and Dale both packed six-shooters on their hips in order to be ready to shoot a gun out of a bad guy's hand (but never to kill or seriously wound anyone). 

Though Roy and Dale played sweethearts on the show, there was no mushy stuff between them.  Their relationship was one of mutual friendship, respect, and trust in one another.  They both played nice, smart, competent people who worked together to uphold the law and the moral order.  Each episode of the show closed with Roy and Dale singing the chorus to the couple's signature theme song, "Happy Trails," which was written by Dale.

In the 1950's, almost every kid in the country wanted to be like Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy or Davy Crockett, which fueled a marketing bonanza of lunch boxes, toys, games, and other licensed products.   I still have fond memories of the Dale Evans cowgirl outfit I wore one Halloween, with its fringed buckskin vest, felt circle skirt, white cowboy hat, white cowboy boots, and holster with toy six-shooter.   

Roy Rogers fans might consider buying The Roy Rogers Collection - Classic TV Shows, a set of 16 DVD's containing 64 episodes of the show, or Roy Rogers: King of the Cowboys, Collector's Edition, a 2-disc set packaged in an embossed tin, featuring five of Rogers' movies and ten episodes of his TV show. Episodes of the TV show can also be seen on Roy Rogers with Dale Evans, Volumes 1-6 and Volumes 7-12. 

Sky King

"From out of the clear blue of the Western sky . . .comes Sky King!"

Sky King was a modern-day (at the time) cowboy show with a twist -- the cowboy was an airplane pilot living on a ranch in Arizona, who used his small plane to chase down the bad guys or rescue the good guys.  Based on an earlier radio series, the Sky King TV show debuted on NBC in 1951, later moved to ABC, and remained on the air in reruns until 1966. 

Schuyler (Skyler?) or "Sky" King, the show's starring character, lived on the Flying Crown Ranch with his teenage neice Penny and nephew Clipper, who were also licensed pilots.   Penny, who seemed a little older than Clipper, was an accomplished enough pilot that Sky King sometimes let her fly his plane, the Songbird.  

Another regular character on the show was Mitch the sheriff.  Mitch was a good friend of Sky's, and he was always coming to Sky for help in dealing with criminals.  
 

Sky King was designed for kids but also attracted a loyal adult audience.  As on other cowboy shows or family-oriented dramatic series of the day, like The Lone Ranger, Lassie, or The Adventures of Superman, the supporting cast on Sky King would often find themselves in danger, and the show's star would fly/run/ride to the rescue just in the nick of time to save them from imminent death.  Penny in particular seemed to be always falling into the hands of bank robbers, spies, or other bad guys. 

Like most TV cowboy heroes of the time, Sky never killed the bad guys, he just disarmed them and handed them over to the authorities.  But he didn't hesitate to punch them in the jaw if they gave him any trouble. 

Though plot lines on the show were often formulaic, the writing and acting was better than average.  In particular, actor Kirby Grant, who played Sky King, had a naturalistic and easy style that enhanced the show's dramatic appeal.  Even the villains were portrayed as intelligent and believable, rather than one-dimensional buffoons.  

The Songbird, Sky King's two-engine Cessna, was featured prominently on the show, appearing in both the opening and closing credits and figuring as an important element in every story.   Many episodes included shots of spectacular low-level flying as the desert flashed by in the background. 

In addition to its focus on aviation, the show also made use of other cutting-edge 1950's technological devices, like geiger counters, metal detectors, and tape recorders.  Looking back on Sky King now, the show seemed to be heralding the end of the cold war and the beginning of the "new frontier" of America's space age.

If you're a dedicated Sky King fan (or looking for the ultimate fan gift), consider buying the definitive Sky King DVD collection:  Sky King Official Box Set, All 72 Episodes with Book.  There are 4 episodes of the show on Sky King Vol. 1 TV Series.    If you're interested in reading about the show, Sky King is one of the TV series discussed in Hollywood's West:  The American Frontier in Film, Television, and History (Hardcover). 

Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney

Paul Winchell was a superb ventriloquist, comedian, singer, and all-around multi-talented performer who appeared with his featured dummy sidekick Jerry Mahoney on NBC in the 1950's.  Winchell and his wooden co-star were originally seen in primetime on the Spiedel Show and later moved to Saturday mornings, where they hosted the Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show.

 

Broadcast live, the show was set in Jerry Mahoney's Clubhouse and featured an audience of twenty children who competed for prizes and were entertained by the antics of Jerry Mahoney, the club president.  Other clubhouse members included Knucklehead Smiff, a country bumpkin who served as the club's vice-president, and Irving the Mouse, a scholarly rodent who lived in a piece of cheese at the clubhouse and helped Knucklehead Smiff with this homework. 

Jerry's personality was that of a sassy wise-cracking child/adolescent, and his interactions with Winchell usually consisted of Winchell becoming increasingly exasperated with Jerry's antics and insolence.   As you watch the hilarious clips below,  keep in the mind that this performance was broadcast on live TV.

 

As noted in comments to a previous post, there is often something unsettling and a little creepy about watching ventriloquists and their dummies, and the sketch in these videos certainly plays off that unease.   

After the Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show on NBC went off the air, Winchell and Jerry moved to ABC, where they hosted Circus Time and later the Paul Winchell Show on Sunday afternoons.

Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney can be seen on DVD in Rare Christmas TV Classics - Volume 1  and More Kids TV of the 50's and 60's!    

Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

It was always a beautiful day in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, as Mister Rogers entered his TV set house singing the show’s theme song, “Won’t you be my neighbor?” He would hang up his coat and put on his cardigan sweater, take off his shoes and put on his sneakers, and settle in to talk directly to his young viewers.

Debuting on the National Educational Television network (the predecessor to PBS) in 1968, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was the longest-running series in PBS history when it went off the air in 2001 (though its record was later surpassed by Sesame Street).  With his gentle and calming manner, Fred Rogers entertained, educated, and reassured several generations of preschoolers, becoming one of the most beloved and iconic figures on television.   His sweater even ended up in the Smithsonian Museum.

Like its host, the show was characterized by its quiet simplicity and gentle pace.  Mister Rogers would talk to his viewers about all sorts of issues that might be on their minds, from fears about going to sleep or going to the doctor, to disappointment about not getting one's way, to experiencing the death of a loved one.  He would sometimes take viewers on visits to shops and factories in his “neighborhood,” demonstrate crafts or experiments, sing songs or listen to music, and interact with a cast of guests and regular characters, including delivery man Mr. McFeely, Neighbor Aber, Lady Aberlin, Chef Brockett, Officer Clemmons, Mrs. McFeely, Handy Man Negri, and Emily the Poetry Lady. 

At the start of each show, a little scale-model trolley was seen chugging along a track through the neighborhood.  The little trolley would reappear later in the show to indicate the transition from the realistic world to the fantasy world of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, which was populated by puppet characters like King Friday the Thirteenth, Lady Elaine Fairchild and Daniel Striped Tiger.  Mister Rogers would usually talk explicitly about this transition, sometimes telling the audience what was going to happen and making it clear that it was all make-believe. This clear delineation between reality and fantasy contrasted with other PBS children’s shows like Sesame Street, where realistic and imaginary elements seamlessly blended together.

The jazz-inspired piano music on the show was also notable.  Played live during each program's taping, It had a lovely simplicity and flow that accompanied and harmonized with the sketches, almost like another character on the show.   The piano was also heard during the many songs that Fred Rogers performed on the program, with lyrics that he wrote himself. 

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood didn’t talk down to its young viewers, and the series addressed some difficult issues over the years, like competition, divorce, illness, and war.  On more than a few occasions, Rogers talked about anger and how to handle angry feelings without hurting others.  One of the most famous episodes in the series was broadcast in March 1970, when Rogers talked about the death of his pet goldfish.  In November 1983, when ABC showed the futuristic made-for-TV movie The Day After, which dramatized the aftermath of a nuclear war, Mister Rogers aired a week-long series of episodes about war, bombs, and the arms race, designed to help children cope with the after-effects of the TV movie.  

 

You can see more of Mister Rogers on these DVDs: Fred Rogers -- America's Favorite Neighbor (2005), Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- A Day at the Circus, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- Adventures in Friendship, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- Going to School, and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: What Do You Do with the Mad that You Feel?   You might also be interested in these books by Fred Rogers:  You Are Special: Neighborly Wisdom from Mister Rogers and The World According to Mister Rogers.   

Good-bye Soupy Sales

 
Sadly, Soupy Sales passed away yesterday at the age of 83 (obituary in the New York Times today).   As my previous post about him noted, Soupy became an icon of children's TV in the 1950's and 1960's.   Soupy was the master of pie-throwing (or should I say pie-receiving), and by his own count some 20,000 pies were thrown at Soupy's face or those of his guests on Soupy's shows (incuding Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis, and Jerry Lewis).  But Soupy was much more than a slapstick artist.  He combined and transmogrified the standard elements of previous children's shows -- puppets, music, clowning, and vaudeville antics -- into a zany, largely unscripted new blend that appealed to children, teens, college students, and adults alike.   Lunch with Soupy Sales wasn't just a TV show but more like a hip club that made viewers feel as if they were insiders to something very cool and crazy.  In the words of one 13-year-old Soupy fan, as quoted in the New York Times, "He's great, he's a nut like us."

Captain Video and His Video Rangers

 

“Captain Video! Electronic wizard! Master of time and space! Guardian of the safety of the world! Fighting for law and order, Captain Video operates from a mountain retreat with secret agents at all points of the globe. Possessing scientific secrets and scientific weapons, Captain Video asks no quarter and gives none to the forces of evil. Stand by for Captain Video and his Video Rangers!”

These are the words that viewers heard at the start of each episode of Captain Video and His Video Rangers, the first science fiction space adventure series on TV.  Captain Video ran 5-6 days a week at 7pm on the now-defunct Dumont Network from 1949 to 1955, and was extremely popular with both children and adults.  Set in the distant future on a secret mountain-top retreat, the series followed the adventures of Captain Video, leader of the Video Rangers, a group of fighters for truth and justice, as they battled evil scientists and other nefarious villains throughout the solar system.

Programmed as a continuing serial, Captain Video employed many of the early staples of children's programming, like the inclusion of inexpensive film clips and pointed moral lessons, but it also capitalized on the growing public fascination with science and space. The show was live and technically demanding, using the new technology of television, like dissolves, superimpositions, and other crude effects to place Captain Video in fantasy surroundings and allow him to travel through space and time.

Besides fighting for truth and justice, Captain Video was a technological genius who invented a variety of communications devices, like the Opticon Scillometer, a long-range, X-ray machine used to see through walls; the Discatron, a portable television screen which served as an intercom; and the Radio Scillograph, a palm-sized, two-way radio. Captain Video's weapons were also futuristic inventions that were not designed to kill but to capture his opponents, like the Cosmic Ray Vibrator, a static beam of electricity that temporarily paralyzed its target, and the Electronic Strait Jacket, which placed captives in invisible restraints.  Captain Video's pro-social uses of science and technology contrasted with the evil purposes to which science was put by such villains as Dr. Pauli, a genius inventor who dressed in gangster-like pinstripe suits and spoke with a Nazi or Soviet-accented snarl.

Without the luxury of video tape and editing, the show’s scripts included a lot of exposition to set up short action scenes.  To pick up the pace and allow time for the crew to change sets and prepare special effects, at some point each episode would have Captain Video or a Video Ranger communications officer at Ranger Headaquarters show short action-filled clips from cowboy movies, described as the adventures of Captain Video’s undercover agents on earth. In addition to commercials for Post Cereal, the series' sponsor, other breaks between scenes were filled with Ranger Messages, which dealt with such global issues as freedom, the Golden Rule, and nondiscrimination, or ads for Video Ranger merchandise, like space helmets, secret code guns, flying saucer rings, decoder badges, and Viking rockets complete with launchers.

 

In the early days of the series, critics derided the show for its awkward scripts and acting.  But after the show became a popular hit, such major science fiction writers as Damon Knight, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Sheckley, and Isaac Asimov wrote more intelligent and imaginative scripts for the show. 

Unfortunately, the Dumont Network couldn’t compete successfully as other new networks began to attract more viewers and more sponsors.  Captain Video left the air on April 1, 1955, and DuMont folded later that same year.  Because of a fire that destroyed most of Dumont’s film archive in the 1970’s, only five half-hour episodes of Captain Video and His Video Rangers are available to the public today.  You can see two of them in the video clip above.  

Other remaining episodes of Captain Video can be seen on DVD in Captain Video and His Video Rangers.  Captain Video is also included in Fantastic Television: A Pictorial History of Sci-Fi, the Unusual and Fantastic from Captain Video to the Star Trek Phenomenon and Beyond (Hardcover). 

Winky Dink and You

   An interactive TV show in the 1950’s?!?  That’s right, Winky Dink and You, which aired Saturday mornings on CBS from 1953 to 1957, employed a simple but brilliant marketing gimmick that actually allowed kids to “interact” with the TV. The show featured host Jack Barry and his sidekick, the aptly-named Mr. Bungle, who showed clips of the animated adventures of a crudely-drawn star-headed, big-eyed little boy named Winky Dink and his dog Woofer.  

What made the show unique was the use of a “magic drawing screen” and set of special crayons that came in a kit that children could buy in order to interact with the cartoon.  The screen was actually a large TV-shaped piece of see-through vinyl that stuck to the TV screen by static electricity.  At a climactic point in every Winky Dink cartoon, Winky would encounter some obstacle or danger, along with a connect-the-dots picture included in the scene.  Winky Dink would then ask the children at home to help him out by connecting the dots on the screen with their crayons, and the resulting drawing would turn out to be a rope, ladder, bridge, or whatever Winky needed to solve his problem. 

The interactive screen was also used to send secret messages to the audience. A message would appear on the screen, but only the vertical lines of the letters in the message were visible.   Viewers at home would quickly trace these lines onto their magic screen. Then a second screen would appear showing only the horizontal lines, and when viewers also traced these onto their magic screens, the full message would appear.

Another way the magic screen was used was to have the viewers create the outline of a character with whom host Jack Barry would have a conversation. The scene appeared meaningless to viewers without the magic screen and the drawing.

Because of the ingenious magic screen, Winky Dink and You became a big hit in the 1950’s.  And the producers profited handsomely from sales of the screen and crayon kits, which every child had to have.  Of course, you can guess what happened in the homes of kids whose parents wouldn’t buy them the kits.  Some of them simply got out their own crayons and drew right on their TV screens, which couldn’t have been good for their parents’ expensive shiny new Philco or RCA set.   

Winky Dink and You was revived in syndication as a five-minute stand-alone cartoon from 1969-1973, but production was halted because of parents’ concerns about the possibility of radiation emanating from TV sets and about kids’ harming their eyesight by watching the TV screen from so close-up.  The continuing problem of kids drawing directly on the TV screen probably didn’t help matters either.

In an ironic footnote to the show’s history, host Jack Barry went on to fame and notoriety when he later became the host of Twenty-One, a popular prime-time quiz show that he also co-produced.  In 1958, it was revealed that Twenty-One’s top-prize winner Charles Van Doren had secretly been given the answers to some of the questions he correctly answered on the show.  Twenty-One was taken off the air, and Barry’s career was over. 

 

You can see the original version of Winky Dink and You on DVD in Kids' TV of the 50's or the later syndicated version ("magic screen" and special crayons included) in Winky Dink and You! Vol. 1-3.     

Soupy Sales

   

The Soupy Sales show was a unique kids’ show with lots of adult appeal that made us all feel like little hipsters.   Soupy, a multi- talented performer, hosted several local, national, and syndicated children’s shows from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, with broadcasts originating from Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York.   He reached the height of his popularity with the syndicated show produced in New York City beginning in 1964. 

Soupy’s show was a kind of ironic twist on the standard conventions of earlier kids’ TV shows, combining vaudeville antics (primarily in the form of frequent pies in the face, which became Soupy’s trademark), puppets, Laugh-In-style comedy sketches, musical numbers that made use of Soupy’s extensive jazz record collection, and guest appearances by major stars of the day, like Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., and singing groups like the Shangri-Las and the Supremes.  Much of the show was ad-libbed, which gave it a loose and slightly dangerous feeling – you knew that anything could happen on the show, and it often did.

The puppets on the show were pretty strange.  White Fang, billed as “The Biggest and Meanest Dog in the USA,” appeared only as a giant white shaggy paw at the edge of the TV screen.  Fang spoke only in grunts and growls, which Soupy hilariously translated for the viewers.  Fang threw pies at Soupy when Soupy’s jokes bombed.   There was also Black Tooth, “The Biggest and Sweetest Dog in the USA,” who  appeared as a giant furry black paw and spoke with similarly unintelligible but somewhat more feminine doggy sounds, and would pull Soupy off-camera to give him loud wet kisses.

Pookie the Lion was a little hand-puppet who appeared on a puppet stage behind Soupy.  Despite his cuddly appearance, Pookie was a hipster who engaged in rapid-fire repartee with Soupy.  He often greeted Soupy with, “Hey bubby, want a kiss?”  Pookie would mouth the words to jazz, soul, or pop recordings while he and Soupy bopped around to the music. 

 

Soupy’s show also featured a number of live characters, including Peaches, Soupy’s girlfriend, played by Soupy in drag; Philo Kvetch, a private detective played by Soupy; The Mask, Philo’s evil nemesis, also played by Soupy and later revealed to be deposed USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev; and Onions Oregano, The Mask’s henchman, played by actor Frank Nastasi, who was always eating onions.  Every time he breathed in Philo’s direction, Philo would choke and make faces, spray air freshener around, and exclaim, “Get those onions out of here!”

 

There are a couple of notorious incidents that took place on the show that illustrate how unpredictable and edgy the live show could be.   One occurred on New Year’s Day in 1965, when Soupy was apparently annoyed about having to do the show on a holiday.  At the end of the broadcast, Soupy urged his young viewers to tiptoe into their still-sleeping parents’ bedrooms and remove the “funny green pieces of paper with pictures of US presidents” from their parents’ wallets.  Soupy told the kids to put the bills in an envelope and mail them to him, promising to send them back a postcard from Puerto Rico.  Then he got hit in the face by a pie. 

When Soupy began receiving envelopes with cash in the mail, he was forced to explain on his show that he had only been kidding and would donate the unreturnable money to charity.  But complaints by parents poured into WNEW, the New York City station that produced Soupy’s show, and the station’s management suspended Soupy’s show for two weeks to try to appease the public.  Of course, this only generated a backlash by Soupy’s outraged fans, and even led to children picketing the station’s offices.  When Soupy returned to the air, he was more popular than ever. 

Another time, Soupy’s studio crew played a joke on Soupy on his birthday.  The show supposedly took place in Soupy’s living room, and a continuing skit involved someone knocking on Soupy’s door and Soupy opening the door to find a guest celebrity or an off-screen character that the home audience couldn’t see, that Soupy would comically interact with.  On Soupy’s birthday, Soupy opened the door to encounter an off-screen stripper who proceeded to perform her act to the tune of “The Stripper,” a popular musical number at the time.  Though the home viewers only saw the beach ball that the “stripper” used strategically as part of her act, Soupy saw the entire number and thought that the home audience could see her, too.   Soupy and the crew cracked up, but Soupy seemed a little worried about audience complaints.  Sure enough, though nothing explicit was broadcast, controversy ensued, which only enhanced the delight that Soupy’s outlaw behavior generated among his young fans. 

You can see Soupy for yourself in several DVD collections, including Soupy Sales Collection (Volume 1),  Soupy Sales Collection (Volume 2),  Soupy Sales Collection: The Whole Gang is Here!, and Soupy Sales: In Living Black and White.   You can read more about Soupy in his autobiography Soupy Sez!: My Zany Life and Times (paperback) and in From Soupy to Nuts: A History of Detroit Television (paperback).  Soupy fans might also want to buy Stop Me if You Heard It!  Soupy Sales Favorite Jokes (paperback). 

Shari Lewis

Shari Lewis and her puppets Lamb Chop, Hush Puppy, and Charlie Horse, entertained and delighted several generations of children during the five decades that they appeared on television.  Unlike other kids’ show hosts who worked with puppets, Shari Lewis was a talented ventriloquist who manipulated and provided the voices for her puppets as she interacted with them on the air. 

Though many of us were first introduced to Shari and her puppets on the nationally telecast Shari Lewis Show, which ran on NBC from 1960-1963, Shari Lewis had previously hosted two local kids’ shows in New York in the 1950’s, The Kartoon Club and Shari and Her Friends.  On The Kartoon Club, Shari played the role of the Mayoress of the mythical kingdom of Kartoonia.  The show featured a live studio audience, whom Shari entertained with cartoons, games, songs, stories, arts and crafts, magic tricks, informational segments, and skits with puppet characters Taffy Twinkle, Randy Rocket, and Pip Squeak.

The national Shari Lewis Show debuted in 1960, when it replaced The Howdy Doody Show on NBC.  Starring the effervescent and multitalented Ms. Lewis with her flaming red hair, the show also featured a set of hand-puppets that Shari brought to hilarious life.  Lamb Chop was essentially a sock puppet whose character was that of a shy, soft-spoken, but mischievous and wise-cracking 6-year-old little lamb, who seemed to serve as a sassy alter-ego for Shari. Hush Puppy was a sweet 7-year-old country bumpkin, and Charlie Horse was a cocky, buck-toothed 10-year-old.  In addition to her skits with the puppets, Shari also exhibited her song and dance talents on the show, often teaching moral lessons through her performances. 

 

Some 15 years later, Shari starred in a new version of The Shari Lewis Show that aired on NBC and in syndication from 1975-1977.  This show focused on pro-social storylines and featured a cast of twenty-five animal puppets including Lamb Chop and a kangaroo named Captain Person, who worked for Bearly Broadcasting Studios (BBS).

In the 1990s, Shari Lewis hosted Lamb Chop’s Play-Along on PBS, a half-hour interactive show that encouraged children to participate by acting out stories, songs, stunts, games and activities. She also starred in another hit PBS series The Charlie Horse Music Pizza show, which was one of her last projects before her death in 1998.  

 

Though Shari Lewis modernized and adapted her shows to suit the pace and sophistication of each successive generation of young viewers, she never deviated from her essential philosophy and format of actively engaging and educating her audience as she entertained them.  With her vivacious personality and childlike excitement, she often seemed like a kid herself rather than a teacher or mother-figure.  Together with the wonderful hand-puppets she created, I think that’s what made her show so special.

 

You can watch Shari Lewis and her puppets on these DVD's:  A Shari Lewis Christmas (1960), Lambchop's Chanukah and Passover Surprise (1997), and The Shari Show - Featuring Shari Lewis and Lambchop.     

Watch Mr. Wizard

One of my favorite shows when I was growing up was Watch Mr. Wizard.  This was one of commercial television’s earliest educational efforts for grade-school and pre-teen children.  Conceived and hosted by the affable Don Herbert, it made science exciting and understandable for kids without any glitz or special effects and without dumbing the science down.   The 30-minute show premiered on the NBC station in Chicago in 1951 and moved to the NBC network in New York in 1955, where it ran for another decade, with a brief revival in 1971-1972. 

Herbert played the role of Mr. Wizard, a friendly scientist that the neighborhood kids loved to drop in on at his home, where he would have them assist him in carrying out simple but fascinating scientific experiments.  The style of the show was very low-key, with Mr. Wizard and his assistant seeming to ad-lib all their dialogue.

 

What I loved about this show was that Mr. Wizard treated his child assistant with respect and dignity, never talking down to him or her. And each assistant seemed to be smart and capable.   I also loved the fact that his assistant was often a girl, despite the fact that in those days, girls weren’t expected to be interested in or good at science.  The experiments demonstrated on the show were fascinating and magical, but not so complicated that you couldn’t recreate many of them at home on your own.

Watch Mr. Wizard was quite a TV sensation for a while and generated an interest in science for many children.  There were Mr. Wizard science clubs all across the country with a combined membership of over 100,000.  There were Mr. Wizard science kits for purchase, and Herbert also created a very successful business supplying science films and other educational materials to schools.

 

Sadly, the simple format and gentle pace of the show seemed outdated by the time NBC finally cancelled it in 1972.  In 1983, Herbert developed a faster-paced science show called Mr. Wizard’s World, which ran on Nickelodeon until 1990, with reruns broadcast until 2000. 

You can still "Watch Mr. Wizard" on these DVD's:  Kids' TV of the 50's, Watch Mr. Wizard, Watch Mr. Wizard - Electricity and More, and Watch Mr. Wizard - Everyday Illusions and More.  Several paperback books written by Don Herbert are still available, including Mr. Wizard's Experiments for Young Scientists, Mr. Wizard's Supermarket Science,  and Mr. Wizard's 400 Experiments in Science.