Kukla, Fran, and Ollie

   

I have only fuzzy memories of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, a wonderful puppet show that was one of the first kids’ shows on TV.  I wish I could remember it more clearly, because from all accounts, it was one of the most creative, sophisticated, and entertaining kids’ shows in TV history.  Created by puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, who handled all the puppets on the program, the show debuted in 1947 on the NBC station in Chicago, the source of so many great children’s programs in the early days of television.  In 1949, it became an NBC network show and was broadcast nationwide until 1954, when it moved to ABC, where it ran until 1957.

Kukla, Fran, and Ollie quickly became enormously popular and was the first children’s show to attract a large adult audience.  The format consisted simply of host Fran Allison standing in front of a puppet stage and interacting with Kukla and Ollie, the two puppet stars of the show, along with a host of other puppet characters. The secret to the show’s success was that it combined a simple format and seemingly gentle, sweet atmosphere with adult-level wit and sly satire.  

Amazingly, each show was completely ad-libbed, a fact that most child viewers must have been oblivious to (I certainly was).  When you watch old videos of the show today, you can hear the crew laughing off-screen during some of the funnier moments.  They were apparently as surprised and entertained by the unscripted comedy as the viewers at home were.

The puppets on the show were designed in the traditional Punch and Judy style, but they didn’t engage in slapstick, and their personalities were much more nuanced.  Kukla was a sweet and gentle clown who served as the sensible though somewhat over-earnest leader of the group.  Ollie was short for Oliver J. Dragon, a mischievous snaggle-toothed dragon who often instigated the funnier interchanges on the show.  There were a host of other puppet characters collectively referred to as the Kuklapolitans, including Fletcher Rabbit, the town mailman and fussbudget, Madame Ophelia Oglepuss, a former opera diva, Beulah Witch, a liberated witch, stage manager Cecil Bill, who spoke a language that only the other puppets understood, Colonel R.H. Crackie, a courtly southern gentleman, Ollie’s mother Olivia Dragon, and Ollie’s cousin, Dolores Dragon, who started out as a toddler and grew into a teenager during the years that the show ran.  Host Fran Allison, the only human who appeared on air, served as straightman to the puppets but could also hold her own during the often-rapid improvised banter.

What made Kukla, Fran, and Ollie unique was how well-developed and three-dimensional the puppets’ characters became during the show’s run.  Through the ad-libbed banter that took place during each episode, viewers learned more and more about the distinct personalities and individual as well as family histories of each of the characters, so that the show created a varied and engrossing world populated by characters that the audience felt they really knew and quickly came to love.

After ABC cancelled Kukla, Fran, and Ollie in 1957, it returned to NBC in the form of 5-minute vignettes.  In 1967, the KFO cast began hosting the CBS Children’s Theater, but they only provided a brief introduction to each show and segues between commercials.  The Kukla, Fran, and Ollie show was revived on PBS from 1969-1971, and later appeared in occasional syndicated specials. 

The earliest Kukla, Fran, and Ollie show kinescopes have only recently become available in a wonderful DVD set, Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, the First Episodes: 1949-54.

You can also see Kukla, Fran, and Ollie in the DVD collection  Hiya Kids!  A 50's Saturday Morning Box.  

Wonderama

 

Wonderama was a very popular and long-running kids' show that aired from 1955 to 1978.  It originated from WNEW-TV in New York City and also appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations in Los Angeles, Washington DC, Cincinnati, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Kansas City. 

Wonderama was a variety show with a studio audience of enthusiastic kids and featured a range of segments that included games, contests, interviews, audience participation, musical performances, and cartoons.  The show ran three hours long on Sunday mornings, and there was also a one-hour weekday version for a time.   It had a series of hosts over the years, but the longest-running and best-known were Sonny Fox and Bob McAllister. 

The show reached its peak of popularity under McAllister, the former host of a children's show in Baltimore.  McAllister was a multi-talented performer who sang, played guitar, and clearly had a way with kids.  He presided as ringmaster over a fast-paced three hours of fun and games, including several regular features: 

• "Snake Cans" -- McAllister would choose a series of kids from the audience to open one of ten tin cans arrayed on a long table. Nine of the cans were filled with spring-loaded "snakes" that would fly out when the cans were opened. The tenth can held a bouquet of artificial flowers. All the kids received small prizes, but the child that picked the can with the flowers would win the grand prize, usually a fancy bicycle. All the children also had to answer trivia questions correctly before they received their prizes, but McAllister did his best to see to it that they got the answers right.
• "Does Anybody Here Have an Aardvark?" -- McAllister would pick kids from the audience to show off unusual objects they had brought in with them.
• "Wonderama-a-Go-Go" -- This was an American Bandstand-type dance contest, later renamed "Disco City," in which the kids competed to win a prize. The record that the children danced to was brought in by "The Disco Kid," a boy dressed in a Lone Ranger-like outfit.
• "Exercise, Exercise!" -- All the kids in the audience (and undoubtedly most of those watching at home) got up and worked out.
• "Good News" -- McAllister picked children from the audience to read happy news items from newspapers around the country, and then asked other audience members if they had any of their own good news that they wanted to share.
• "Whose is Whose is Whose?" -- Four children and four dads were introduced, and kids from the studio audience had to guess which dad was which child's father.
• "Guess Your Best" -- This was a game-show-type segment in which three kids competed to guess the results of audience polls and relay races.
• "Head of the House" -- This segment featured kids competing against each other in various quirky competitions, like gerbil races, balloon-breaking contests, and so on. The child who won the most competitions was named "Head of the House."

Because it originated from New York, Wonderama was able to feature some of the top stars of the day, including Abba, the Jackson Five, Jerry Lewis, the cast of Monty Python, and even boxers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, who competed against each other in a game of marbles. 

The show would end with McAllister singing the show's theme song "Kids Are People, Too."  This became the program's title when it later aired briefly as a national network show on ABC. 

This song embodied McAllister's approach to the show, which he treated as a kids' version of The Tonight Show combined with The Today Show, with a little touch of circus thrown in.  He was never patronizing to his young audience and seemed genuinely to be having a good time interacting with his guests and the audience as he kept things moving along.  Wonderama and McAllister developed a loyal and devoted following who still remember the show fondly today. 

The Magic Garden

The Magic Garden was a locally-produced half-hour children's show that aired weekdays on WPIX in New York City from 1972 to 1984 and was also syndicated to other parts of the country.   The show starred co-hosts Carole Demas and Paula Janis, who sang and played guitar throughout the program, which took place on a studio set decorated like a "magic garden."  The Magic Garden set included a Magic Tree with two tree swings, as well as a barn, a stone path, and a giggling bed of flowers called the "The Chuckle Patch," that grew at the foot of the Magic Tree.   There were also two puppet characters on the show -- Sherlock, a mischievous pink squirrel, and Flap, a happy, colorful duck-like bird. 

Each half-hour episode of the show included songs, games, jokes, stories, and life lessons.  At some point in the show, one of the co-hosts would pluck a leaf from the Chuckle Patch and  ask the other co-host a simple joke question that was written on one side of the leaf.  When the other co-host couldn't answer the question, she would then turn the leaf over and read the punch-line answer written on the other side.  There was also a  "Story Box" that provided the hosts with costumes and props for acting out stories on each show. 

Every episode of The Magic Garden was infused with music, from the show's introduction to its close and during the transitions between each segment of the program, as Carole and Paula sang simple folk-music-like songs and played guitar.  With their guitars, long hair, and bell-bottom pants, Carole and Paula brought a distinctly folk/hippie 1970's look and sensibility to this children's show. Like the female hosts of such earlier children's shows as Ding Dong School and Romper Room, Carole and Paula had been school teachers, and they seemed to be natural performers with an ease in front of the camera and an ability to connect directly with their young viewers.   They also released several albums of their music and developed a live show that they took on tour throughout the country.   

Originating in the biggest television market in the country, The Magic Garden had a simplicity and sweetness that drew a large and enthusiastic audience of children, parents, and grandparents, many of whom still remember the show fondly.  The Magic Garden wasn't frenetic like some other children's shows at the time but instead presented its viewers with a gently-paced selection of lovely songs and child-friendly jokes that appealed to both kids and adults. 

For those of you who want to experience or re-experience the The Magic Garden for yourself, try Carole and Paula in the Magic Garden, a 2-DVD set that also includes a bonus CD with 6 of Carole and Paula's songs. 

The Mickey Mouse Club

 
Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me?
M-I-C-K-E-Y   M-O-U-S-E!

In the 1950's, every child in America (and probably every adult as well) instantly recognized this refrain as the beginning of the theme song for The Mickey Mouse Club, another iconic hit show from Walt Disney Productions, which had already launched the popular Disneyland series.  With its debut in 1955, The Mickey Mouse Club, named for the Disney studio's best-known cartoon character, quickly became one of the defining children's TV shows of its day.  It had a variety show format that featured singing, dancing, guest stars, classic Disney cartoons, and continuing serials like The Hardy Boys and Spin and Marty. 

The series aired five days a week, and each day had its own theme:

Monday - Fun With Music Day
Tuesday - Guest Star Day
Wednesday - Anything Can Happen Day
Thursday - Circus Day
Friday - Talent Round-Up Day

The show's most distinctive element was its cast -- a group of wholesome, talented teenagers called the Mouseketeers, who wore mouse-ear hats and sang and danced their way into the hearts of the viewing public.  There were also two adult regulars, "head Mouseketeer" Jimmie Dodd, who had also composed the show's theme song, and "Big Mooseketeer" Roy Williams, a rather rotund staff artist at Disney.   Every episode of the show would start with the Mouseketeer Roll Call, a musical number in which each of the Mouseketeers would announce themselves by name. 

Though many of the Mouseketeers gained name recognition and loyal fans, the most popular Mouseketeer was Annette Funicello, a beautiful and talented teen who was given her own serial on the show and later went on to a successful movie career.  Annette was TV's first real child star.  Her dark Italian features gave her an "ethnic" look that was unusual for TV in those days, which largely favored blond, blue-eyed actors.  In fact, all the Mouseketeers on the original show were white. 

The Mickey Mouse Club ran on ABC from 1955-1959, but was cancelled when ABC and Disney couldn't come to terms for renewal.  Audience demand brought it back in 1962 as a syndicated series in the form of edited half-hour reruns that ran in various markets until 1968.  Disney revived the show in 1977 as The New Mickey Mouse Club, with a disco re-recording of the theme song and a new cast that now featured some minority Mouseketeers.  The new version of the show spawned such stars as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, Keri Russell, Kenan and Kel, and Melissa Joan Hart.   

Among the many Mickey Mouse Club DVD collections currently available, I would recommend:

• Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse Club, featuring the first five episodes of the show, color archival footage of the Mouseketeers' first appearance at the grand opening celebration of Disneyland, and a reunion of six of the original Mouseketeers on the soundstage where the show was produced 
• The Best of the Original Mickey Mouse Club
• Walt Disney Treasures: The Mickey Mouse Club Presents Annette - 1957-1958 Season, a boxed set that includes 20 episodes from Annette Funicello's Mickey Mouse Club serial, a documentary featuring an interview with the adult Annette from the 1990's, and commentary by film historian Leonard Maltin  

I would also recommend The Official Mickey Mouse Club Book (Paperback), which tells the story of the show from its beginning and traces the careers of some of the best-known Mouseketeers. 

The Wonderful World of Disney

From its debut on ABC in October 1954, through its final telecast on Christmas Eve 2008, the Walt Disney anthology television series commonly known as The Wonderful World of Disney (initiallycalled simply Disneyland) appeared on all three broadcast TV channels at various times under a variety of names, becoming the second-longest-running prime-time program on American television.   Watching the show with my family when I was growing up, I was of course oblivious to Disney's incredibly forward-thinking synergy strategy, with the TV show,  the Disney studio's theatrical films, and the new Disneyland theme park all designed to promote and market each other and strengthen the overall Disney brand.  All I knew was that the show was fun to watch and something that my mom and dad enjoyed watching with me. 

 
The format was a mixture of cartoons, live-action adventures, documentaries, and nature stories, all initially hosted by the affable Walt Disney himself.  Much of the material came from the Disney studio library, including one-hour edits or multi-part miniseries of recent Disney films.  Unlike the heads of the other major Hollywood movie studios at the time, Disney didn't worry that the new television medium would destroy his movie business.  On the contrary, he understood that he could use his TV show to promote and extend the life of his theatrical releases, and vice versa. 

A good example of this synergy was the huge success of the 3-part miniseries about the historical American frontiersman Davy Crockett that aired under the show's umbrella in 1955.  In the ensuing Davy Crockett craze, the show's theme song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett," became a hit record, and Disney sold millions of dollars of Davy Crockett merchandise.  Every child I knew had a Davy Crockett lunch box, coonskin hat, fringed jacket or pants, or similar paraphernalia.  Then Disney edited the TV episodes into two theatrical films that were quickly released to benefit from and build upon the show's popularity. 

Walt Disney approached both NBC and CBS with his plans for producing a TV series, but he ultimately chose third-place network ABC for the debut of Disneyland, because ABC was willing to give him what he wanted in exchange -- a $500,000 investment in the amusement park he dreamed of opening in Anaheim, California.  ABC executives were desperate to obtain programming that would give them an edge against their two more established rivals, and they were also very interested in attracting the growing family market in those baby-boom years.  ABC's investment paid off quickly, as Disneyland became the network's first series to hit the top ten in ratings.

When the Disneyland theme park opened in July of 1955, ABC aired a live special honoring the new tourist mecca and its founder. Within a year, millions of Disneyland  viewers who had seen the park constantly promoted on the TV show poured into Disneyland.  In its first year, the theme park grossed $10 million.  Walt Disney and his company had shaped two new entertainment forms and interlinked them in a strategy that continued to generate millions of dollars in profits over the ensuing decades.

In this clip from the series' premiere episode, you can see how the show helped to promote both the Disney studio's movie line-up and the planned theme park:

In 1961, Disney moved the show to NBC to take advantage of the fact that it was the first network to broadcast in color.  In another prescient decision, Disney had filmed many of his earlier shows in color, even though they could only air in black and white at the time.  With the move to NBC, he could now repeat these shows in full color.  The series was renamed Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color and aired under that name until 1969. 

Walt Disney, an inveterate cigarette smoker, died of lung cancer on December 15, 1966.  The intros he had filmed before he died remained a part of the show for the rest of that season, but the host segment was then dropped.  The series was retitled The Wonderful World of Disney in 1969 and remained popular through the mid-70's.  At that point, however, the show's audiences began to decline, as popular tastes changed and the public began to see the Disney brand as square, uptight, and unhip, qualities that America's youth were turning away from.  

In 1979, in an attempt to revive the series' fortunes, it was retitled Disney's Wonderful World and given a new opening sequence with a computer-generated logo and disco-flavored theme song. 

But growing competition from CBS's new 60 Minutes newsmagazine show combined with frequent preemptions and cancellations by NBC, led to further ratings declines, and NBC cancelled the show in 1981. 

CBS then picked up the program and retitled it simply Walt Disney.  It ran for another two years, until the debut of the Disney Channel on cable TV.  The Disney company then decided that the broadcast show and the fledgling cable channel would cannibalize each other, and production of the program was ended.  However, after a change in management at the Disney company, the series was revived in 1986 under the title The Disney Sunday Movie, with new Disney CEO Michael Eisner as host.  This version of the show had a movie-of-the-week format, featuring family-oriented TV movies produced by the Disney studio, as well as occasional theatrical films.   

The series moved back to NBC in 1988 as The Magical World of Disney, with its original anthology format.  But it did not do well and was cancelled in 1990.  The Disney Channel continued to use The Magical World of Disney as the umbrella title for its Sunday night movies and specials until 1996.  In 1997, after Disney purchased ABC, the series was revived again as The Wonderful World of Disney, airing on Saturday or Sunday evenings until its finale on December 24, 2008, with a telecast of the feature film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. 

Walt Disney's endearing on-screen personality made him an icon of American popular culture.  His television series provided wholesome, high-quality, family-oriented entertainment for generations of viewers.  And his marketing acumen created a multi-media juggernaut that combined television, movies, theme parks, and licensed merchandise into one of the most successful and powerful brands in the world. 

Among the many books and DVD's about the Disney TV series, I suggest the following: 

Walt Disney Treasures - Disneyland USA (1955): A 2-disc DVD set of TV specials for the opening of the Disneyland amusement park, hosted by movie/TV historian Leonard Maltin

Walt Disney Treasures - Your Host, Walt Disney: A DVD compilation of several of the most memorable hours from the Disney TV show

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (Paperback):  An insightful biography of Walt Disney, by Neal Gabler

The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life (Paperback): Part biography and part cultural analysis, an anatomy of Disney's productions and their consumption, by Steven Watts.

 

The Collectionary is a great place to visit if you collect Disney objects. Link to the Collectionary here.

Clutch Cargo

Clutch Cargo was an animated show produced by Cambria Productions that debuted on March 9, 1959, as a syndicated series available to local stations around the country.  It stayed on the air through the early 1970's, and could be seen on as many as 65 stations nationwide.

The stories centered around Clutch Cargo, a writer and airplane pilot with a muscular build, white hair and rugged good looks,  who traveled the world (and even outer space) on dangerous assignments.  Clutch was accompanied by his young ward Spinner and his pet dachsund, Paddlefoot, and sometimes by Clutch's grizzled, pith-helmeted friend Swampy.

 

What made Clutch Cargo special was its unique style of animation, if you could call it that.  In fact, the animation on this series was so limited that it looked more like a series of panels from a comic book.   To save money on production, Cambria developed some clever but cheesy-looking ways to simulate motion.  If there was an explosion, they would shake the camera or the drawing of the scene to make it look like the earth was trembling.  If there was a fire, they would blow real smoke across the drawing.  When characters had to walk or run, they would only be shown from the waist up, to save money and time that would have been spent on showing the character's legs moving. 

But the animation technique that Clutch Cargo is best-remembered for is the way that it showed characters talking.   Using a patented process called Synchro-Vox, the producers filmed the mouths of the live actors speaking the characters' lines and then superimposed the film of the actors' moving lips onto the motionless drawings of the characters' faces.  This resulted in a weird-looking and kind of creepy effect that, combined with the other forms of primitive animation in the series, gave it a truly unique look and feel.   You can still see the Synchro-Vox technique in use today, most notably in the opening to Spongebob Squarepants.  Conan O'Brien used the technique quite often in segments on his former late-night TV show.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its crude animation techniques, Clutch Cargo had a certain charm that helped make it a very successful series.  It was cleverly written and beautifully drawn.  Its musical soundtrack was as limited, and yet as inventive within those limitations, as the animation. Jazz musician Paul Horn provided the score using nothing more than bongo drums, a vibraphone, and a flute.

In all, 52 Clutch Cargo adventures were produced and then serialized in five five-minute chapters each. The first four chapters naturally ended in cliffhangers, with the fifth chapter concluding the adventure. This format allowed local stations to run one chapter a day on weekdays, then recap all five chapters in a half-hour Saturday show.  You can see all five chapters of one continuing episode below.

 

 

 

 

Clutch Cargo was a very popular show whose content and style influenced many animated series that came later.  It may have been the first television cartoon in the U.S. to emphasize adventure rather than humor.  Its emphasis on dramatic action in exotic locales and its low-budget animation style can be seen in such later series as Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, and the Mighty Mightor. 

 

There are some great Clutch Cargo compilations available on DVD, including Clutch Cargo - The Complete Series (Vol. 1),  Clutch Cargo - The Complete Series (Vol. 2), and the Clutch Cargo Cartoon Collection (Vol. 1).

Happy 40th Birthday, Sesame Street!

 
It seems hard to believe, but Sesame Street just celebrated its 40th year on the air.  I celebrated the show's birthday by attending a panel discussion on "40 Years of Life on the Street" at the Brooklyn Public Library on November 21.  The panel was moderated by Louise A. Gikow, a Sesame Street writer, former editorial director at Jim Henson Productions, and author of Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street, and featured Bob McGrath, one of the original cast members on the show, where he plays a music teacher who lives in an apartment over Hooper's Store; Fran Brill, the first female muppet performer on the show, who created the muppet characters Prairie Dawn and Zoe; Chris Cerf, the songwriter behind tunes like "Letter B" and "Put Down the Duckie"; Carol-Lynn Parente, the show's Executive Producer; and Rollie Krewson, one of the top puppet designers and builders at the Jim Henson Company, who designed and built Sesame Street muppet characters Zoe, Abby Cadabby, and Murray Monster.   

What can I say about Sesame Street that hasn't been said already?  Seen around the world for decades by millions of children, Sesame Street is still the preeminent show for preschoolers and the gold standard by which other kids' shows are inevitably judged.  As head of research for Sesame Street in the mid-90's, I know a lot about what makes Sesame Street so special, but the panel discussion at the Brooklyn Public Library helped to bring the show's unique features into focus.   

Sesame Street started out as an experiment in a new kind of educational television for preschool-age children.   From its inception, each episode of the show has been written and produced to achieve specific curriculum goals, and intensive research is conducted to help each show achieve those goals and to measure whether the goals are being met.  At the same time, each episode of the show is also written to grab and hold the young audience's attention by entertaining them with amazingly clever and sophisticated comedy, graphics, and music, multi-dimensional puppet and human characters, and engaging plots.   

As the panelists explained, Sesame Street writers were recruited from the Harvard Lampoon, comedy shows and clubs, and Broadway.  Traditional children's literature writers were not welcome.  Consequently, each show has multiple levels of humor and wit that delight adult viewers as much as the kids.  The three-year-old viewer may not know or care that "Letter B" is a hilarious riff on the Beatles' "Let it Be," but he or she can still enjoy the song on its own terms. 

Sesame Street was certainly influenced by earlier kids' shows, but it added a level of contemporary wit, edge, and intelligence, all in the service of predefined and explicit educational goals that resulted in a transformative new kind of kids show.   We can all be grateful that Sesame Street has continued to renew and reinvent itself for successive generations of children and parents around the globe. 

In honor of Sesame Street's 40th anniversary, there is a special DVD compilation available -- Sesame Street: 40 Years of Sunny Days, a commemorative collection with over 5 hours of iconic moments, favorite songs, celebrity segments and exclusive backstage footage.   There's also a wonderful new book about the show's history, Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street, which provides an insider's view of all of the Muppet and human characters, as well as the writers, directors, producers, and other creative people who have made learning fun for generations of kids.

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. 

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.