The Popeye Show

 
If you were a kid growing up in the Los Angeles area from the late 1950's through the early 1980's, chances are that you're familiar with The Popeye Show, which aired on KTLA Channel 5.  The Popeye Show grew out of an earlier show called The Pier 5 Club and was later rechristened as Popeye and Friends.   

The Popeye Show was one of the many wonderful children's shows that stations around the country produced for their local audiences in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's, before they were replaced by syndicated talk shows or local news programs.   These home-grown children's shows gave local broadcasters a way to strenghten relationships with the community by entertaining kids and the moms who usually stayed home with them.  The shows were initially broadcast live and usually featured a host who introduced cartoons or short filmed segments and often interacted with a live studio audience of local children. 

In the case of The Popeye Show, the host was actor/entertainer Tom Hatten and the cartoons were early black and white Popeye cartoons produced by Paramount Studios, which owned station KTLA.   What made Hatten and the show special were Hatten's skills as an artist and cartoonist, which Hatten used on the show by teaching viewers how to draw the characters in the Popeye cartoons.   He would also read viewer mail and draw cartoon characters that his viewers requested. 

One of the special features on the show was the "squiggle" contest, in which viewers would mail in a single-line doodle called a "squiggle," and Hatten would quickly turn it into a drawing of a cartoon character.   Sometimes he had guests on the show compete with each other to turn the "squiggles" into recognizable drawings. 

Thanks to one of my readers for telling me about The Popeye Show.  I haven't found any footage from the original show, but here is a video of host Tom Hatten's appearance on a local talk show where he discusses the early days of the show and how he came to host it. 

The reader who turned me on to The Popeye Show also had a question for those of you who grew up in LA.  She remembers a TV show she watched as a child, in which there was a man-sized wolf with a black cape or coat, who wore white gloves and sat behind a desk and talked. The show gave her nightmares, but she'd love to know what it was.  Does this ring a bell for anyone? 

You can read about The Popeye Show and other local children's shows in Hi There, Boys and Girls!  America's Local Children's TV Programs.

Diver Dan

 

Debuting in 1960, Diver Dan was a strange and distinctive kids' show that featured two live-action characters and a large cast of fish marionettes.   The show was a continuing serial that was produced as a series of 7-minute shorts that aired in syndication on local stations, mostly NBC affiliates, around the country.  Some stations combined several shorts into half-hour programs.   In New York City, Diver Dan shorts ran as part of Felix & Diver Dan, a 30-minute children's show airing from 1960 to 1962, which also included Felix the Cat. 

The show looked as if it was taking place underwater by having the camera shoot through an actual aquarium with real live goldfish, which seemed to be mingling with the live actors and fish marionettes.  It featured the adventures of a deep-sea diver in an old-fashioned diving suit with a large bell helmet, who interacted with the passing fish.  There was also a beautiful blonde mermaid, Miss Minerva, a live-action character who spoke to the fish the way that Miss Francis talked to her child audience on Ding Dong School about manners and morals.   Diver Dan and Miss Minerva had a thing for each other, but their relationship didn't progress beyond the stage of mutual attraction.

The puppet cast consisted of a veritable school of fish marionettes with funny pun-like names, including the villainous Baron Barracuda, his dumb henchman Trigger Fish, Finley Haddock, Doc Sturgeon, Georgie Porgy, Gabby the Clam, Gill Espy, Glow Fish, Goldie the Goldfish, Hermit Crab, Sam the Sawfish, Scout Fish, Sea Biscuit the Seahorse, and Skipper Kipper.

The fish marionettes had human voices (all done by Allen Swift, who did the voices on the Howdy Doody Show) and the personalities of stock TV or movie characters.   Baron Barracuda wore a monocle in one eye and spoke in a Transylvanian accent. Trigger Fish, the Baron's accomplice, always had an unlit cigarette jutting from the side of his mouth.  Scout Fish was an ethnic stereotype who carried a tomahawk and spoke in pidgin American-Indian dialect.  Gill-Espy was a bongo-playing beatnik. 

The plot lines generally consisted of Baron Barracuda and Trigger Fish hatching various schemes to take over the bottom of the sea, and being foiled by Diver Dan, Miss Minerva, and the other fish.

 

Diver Dan was a strange and enchanting show, but because it aired only in syndication, it never got the national exposure that other puppet-based shows like The Howdy Doody Show or Kukla, Fran, and Ollie received.   Nevertheless, the show still has an enthusiastic and dedicated, if small, fan base among former viewers.  Watching videos of the show today, one can't help but see it as a precursor to Sponge Bob Square Pants, right down to its sweetly goofy atmosphere.  

Episodes of the original Diver Dan series are available on DVD in Diver Dan Classic TV Series Collection: Vol. 1 and 2 and Kids TV of the 50's and 60's. 

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 Lone Ranger

 
"A fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty "Hi-yo, Silver!"

Who was that masked man?  Of course, it had to be The Lone Ranger, star of a TV series set in the Old West that aired in primetime on ABC from 1949 to 1957 and was hugely popular with both kids and adults.  The Lone Ranger, whose real name on the show was John Reid, was portrayed by actors Clayton Moore and, for a short time,  John Hart, while Jay Silverheels played Tonto, the Lone Ranger's loyal Native-American friend.   

Based on an earlier radio series, the show's premise, which was dramatized in the series' first few episodes, was that John Reid was the only one of six Texas Rangers to survive a canyon ambush  by a murderous gang of criminals.  Reid's childhood friend Tonto comes upon the massacre and discovers Reid is still alive, though just barely. Many years earlier, Reid had rescued Tonto after renegade Indians had murdered his mother and sister and left him for dead. At that time, Reid had given Tonto a horse, and Tonto had insisted that Reid accept a ring. Tonto recognizes Reid by this ring when he comes upon the scene of the ambush.

Tonto takes Reid to safety and nurses him back to health.  Reid vows to devote his life to bringing the killers and others like them to justice.  He decides this will be easier if his identity is hidden, so when Tonto buries the dead Rangers, Reid asks Tonto to dig a sixth grave so people will believe that he, too, died in the ambush.  Unfortunately, one of the gang members returns to the scene and tries to kill Reid and Tonto so he can take Tonto's horse, Scout.  But he falls to his death while trying to drop a rock on Reid, so now Tonto is the only person who knows that Reid is still alive.

Reid and Tonto come upon a magnificent white stallion that has been injured by a buffalo. They nurse the stallion back to health, and Reid adopts the stallion as his mount, calling him Silver. Whenever the Lone Ranger gets read to gallop away on Silver, he shouts, "Hi-yo, Silver! Away!"

Tonto makes Reid a mask out of material cut from the vest of Reid's brother, one of the murdered Texas Rangers, which allows him to create a new identity as the Lone Ranger. He decides to use only silver bullets in his gun, to constantly remind himself that life, like silver, is precious and valuable, and not to be wasted or thrown away.  From that day on, vowing to fight for justice and never to shoot to kill,  the Lone Ranger and Tonto wander the Old West helping people and fighting injustice. 

Like Superman and Batman, the premise of The Lone Ranger revolved around the main character's hidden identity, which meant that John Reid, like Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, didn't seek and never got the thanks he deserved for helping people.  At the end of each episode, the Lone Ranger and Tonto would ride away as one of the characters they had helped would lament the fact that they never learned the hero's name ("Who was that masked man?"), only to be told, "Why, he's the Lone Ranger!"

The show's signature theme music was the finale of Rossini's William Tell Overture, which became inseparably associated with the series.  Even now, I can't hear the Overture without picturing the Lone Ranger seated on Silver as the magnificent horse rears up and paws the air with his front hooves. 

Like other cowboy shows, The Lone Ranger was a family-oriented series designed to teach lessons about morals and values to its viewers.  It was the Lone Ranger's strict moral code that enabled him to prevail over the bad guys who preyed upon the good people of the Old West.  Though Native-Americans were the stereotypical enemy in many other Westerns, The Lone Ranger's partnership with Tonto showed that respecting the rights and beliefs of others was an important part of his moral code and one of the lessons that the show tried to teach. 

Much of The Lone Ranger TV series is available on DVD.   Some good collections are:

• The Lone Ranger: 75th Anniversary, Seasons 1 and 2, a 13-disc collector's edition
• The Lone Ranger, a boxset with 19 of the later (1956/57) color episodes
• Lone Ranger Collection, a 2-DVD set with 17 early episodes

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!    

Gumby

   One of my absolute favorite shows as a kid was Gumby, a trippy, somewhat surreal series filmed using stop motion clay animation.  There were 233 episodes of the show produced over the course of its 40-year history on TV, all featuring the green clay robot-like little boy with the big feet and slanted head, and his sidekick Pokey, a talking pony. 

Created by animator Art Clokey, who developed the unique style of claymation later used in the series while he was a student at the University of Southern California, Gumby made its debut as a short segment on the Howdy Doody Show in 1956 and became a series on NBC the following year.   Production on this version of the show continued through the late 60’s.  In the 1980’s, the original Gumby episodes enjoyed a revival on TV and home video, which led to production of a new version of the series for syndication.

Besides Pokey, other characters regularly featured in the series were the Blockheads, a duo of red humanoid figures with block-shaped heads, who always created mischief and mayhem; Gumby’s parents Gumba and Gumbo, and later his sister, Minga; Prickle, a yellow dragon; Goo, a flying blue mermaid; Tilly, a chicken; and Denali, a mastadon. 

What made the series visually unique was that Clokey didn’t disguise the fact that his characters were made out of clay or try too hard to make the characters and settings look realistic.  Instead, each episode highlighted how the characters could melt into various shapes and then reconfigure back to their original forms.  The settings for the show were little toy houses and villages, and Gumby and the other characters were like toy figures brought to life.  Many of the episodes included a sequence in which Gumby and Pokey would physically slip into a book and then have an adventure in the world of the book’s story. 

There was something about the primitive look of the animation and the way that Gumby and the other characters seemed like clay figures made by a child and brought to life to play out a child’s imaginary stories that delighted and entranced me as a young viewer.  Gumby’s personality seemed very much like that of a real child, but he existed in a surreal, magical world where anything could happen.  I think there is something about that combination that made Gumby so fascinating to so many generations of kids and adults.

There are several good Gumby DVD collections, including Gumby Vol. 1, Gumby Essentials Vol. 1,  Gumby's Greatest Adventures, and Christmas with Gumby. 

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."