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thatcrazycajunListening to American Public Radio's weeknight business-news program Marketplace tonight, this story about saving elephants in Thailand was followed by what I'm sure most found a perfectly innocuous piece of music as a bumper between it and the show's closing segment: "Baby Elephant Walk" by Henry Mancini.
But for many of us baby-boomers who grew up in south Louisiana and watched lots of television—particularly on weekday afternoons after school or the rare morning off from it—that song has a special meaning: it was the theme to one of the two kids' shows hosted Monday through Friday on Baton Rouge's WAFB-TV (then, as now, that city's CBS affiliate, on Channel 9) by one "Buckskin Bill" Black. So powerful is its signal that it can easily be caught even without cable or satellite aid from either Lafayette (where I grew up, to the west) or New Orleans (where I later lived, to the east). Together with his now-deceased Cajun colleague John "Polycarp" Plauché (closer to home at Lafayette's ABC station, KATC), Mr. Black livened up many a dreary school-age day for me.
A genial, Western-styled character in the "Buffalo Bob" Smith mold, Buckskin would probably seem pretty cheesy and dated today, but back then, to kids not yet jaded by growth and more mature fare, he was the shizzle. His "Storyland" program would follow the late Bob Keeshan's Captain Kangaroo each weekday morning, and his "Buckskin Bill Show" came on about 3:30 PM right before reruns of Gilligan's Island and such. "Baby Elephant Walk" always opened and closed the afternoon show; both were filled with silly stuff like Bill talking to his marionette sidekick, Señor Puppet, leading youngsters in the "Monday Morning March" with his pretend flute and running classic Warner Bros. and Paramount cartoons featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny and Popeye. Along the way, he encouraged reading, good manners, civic-mindedness and responsibility.
Black and his short-panted/pinafored target audience were instrumental in raising funds for the establishment of the Baton Rouge Zoo in the 1970s. He was among the first kids' hosts to offer sign language on his show for the hearing-impaired, and later went on to teach communications to somewhat older kids at my alma mater, Louisiana State University. (Sadly, I never was able to take his course, though he and I were both there around the same time.) TV Acres lists him among its pages of children's TV hosts here.
Who was your favorite TV personality in your rugrat days? And what music takes you back to those days whenever you hear it?
But for many of us baby-boomers who grew up in south Louisiana and watched lots of television—particularly on weekday afternoons after school or the rare morning off from it—that song has a special meaning: it was the theme to one of the two kids' shows hosted Monday through Friday on Baton Rouge's WAFB-TV (then, as now, that city's CBS affiliate, on Channel 9) by one "Buckskin Bill" Black. So powerful is its signal that it can easily be caught even without cable or satellite aid from either Lafayette (where I grew up, to the west) or New Orleans (where I later lived, to the east). Together with his now-deceased Cajun colleague John "Polycarp" Plauché (closer to home at Lafayette's ABC station, KATC), Mr. Black livened up many a dreary school-age day for me.
A genial, Western-styled character in the "Buffalo Bob" Smith mold, Buckskin would probably seem pretty cheesy and dated today, but back then, to kids not yet jaded by growth and more mature fare, he was the shizzle. His "Storyland" program would follow the late Bob Keeshan's Captain Kangaroo each weekday morning, and his "Buckskin Bill Show" came on about 3:30 PM right before reruns of Gilligan's Island and such. "Baby Elephant Walk" always opened and closed the afternoon show; both were filled with silly stuff like Bill talking to his marionette sidekick, Señor Puppet, leading youngsters in the "Monday Morning March" with his pretend flute and running classic Warner Bros. and Paramount cartoons featuring the likes of Bugs Bunny and Popeye. Along the way, he encouraged reading, good manners, civic-mindedness and responsibility.
Black and his short-panted/pinafored target audience were instrumental in raising funds for the establishment of the Baton Rouge Zoo in the 1970s. He was among the first kids' hosts to offer sign language on his show for the hearing-impaired, and later went on to teach communications to somewhat older kids at my alma mater, Louisiana State University. (Sadly, I never was able to take his course, though he and I were both there around the same time.) TV Acres lists him among its pages of children's TV hosts here.
Who was your favorite TV personality in your rugrat days? And what music takes you back to those days whenever you hear it?
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 02:59 am (UTC)Hmm
Back in NOLA we had Miss Linda and Romper room, the great mac nutt,Popeye and Pals and Morgus..
*sigh*
The kids now are cheated out of so much..
Wanna hand me my cane sweetie? *smirks*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 03:40 am (UTC)But what WAS the show I'm thinking of? Gerald McBoingBoing? ...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 03:48 am (UTC)Did you know Peter Boyle's father was a kiddie show host in Philly in the 50s and 60s?
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 04:52 am (UTC)Others: Bill Bennett ("Who Stole the Kishka" anyone?), Happy the Clown, Pixanne, Gene London. My brother had Sargent Sacto, Dickory Doc, and Wee Willie Webber.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 04:19 am (UTC)we didn't steenking *have* a Nintendo. The kid across the street had an original Magnavox set with PONG and TANK and that was about it. But I digress...
My favorite Saturday morning personality was a critter of very few words. I think MEEP MEEP PBPBPBPBPBPTH! was about the extent of it... but I loved the ol' Road Runner... Weekdays, we had Bert and Ernie and Big Bird and Cookie Monster, and Rita "HEY YOU GUYYYYYYYYYYS!!" Moreno and Morgan Freeman (!!) and Letterman (not Dave, but the cartoon character)... and this older lady whose name escapes me but whose show was called "Hodgepodge Lodge". And a few game shows... Rita Moreno was an *awesome* celeb for $64,000 Pyramid; I think that woman is freakin' psychic. I mean, give or receive, it's like she's just reaching in to the contestant's brain and either putting stuff in or taking it out... Match Game, and Gene Rayburn's outrageous suit/tie combos... Hollywood Squares, with Paul Lynne in the center square cuttin' a rug... didn't realize at the time *why* he was so weird, but it made sense later... Jeopardy!, of course...
Oh, and prime time had some good stuff, too. ABC Monday Night Mystery Movie was always good. Colombo was my fave, although they were almost all good. Ellery Queen. Hawaii [sic] 5-0. Magnum, p.i. Lot of good detective shows. Later on, M*A*S*H. Too serious for a comedy, too funny for a drama, too damn good to miss. The best ones had Sidney in'em. Alda was freaking awesome when he played opposite Sidney. I quit watching TV so much after M*A*S*H went off; nothing else measured up until after I left home. Oh, and the Black Sheep. Dad and I are both big warbirds fans, and between Robert Conrad's snarky narration, a bunch of big beautiful bent-wing birds, Post and Carpenter doing the music, and some decent shooting and stories, it was one of the few decent aviation shows made. (I read Pappy's book, and got it autographed at an airshow near Nashville... I can't remember when, now. Turns out he was from Seattle... small world.)
I remember once being in the Science Fiction and Mystery Bookshop (are they still open?) and hearing this near-classical-sounding music... and it being awfully familiar... and suddenly I started getting pictures in my brain, and went round to the front counter and said, "what *is* that?" Turned out it was an album of Looney Toons soundtracks. Still evoked the right memories....
The chant from my Georgia Tech days, where they would play a cartoon short before the feature film in one of the various campus auditoriums on Friday and Saturday nights, admission $1... "BUGS! BUGS! BUGS! BUGS!" If the short was Bugs or Daffy, we cheered. Droopy the Dog got roundly boo'ed.
But still. MEEP MEEP!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 04:47 am (UTC)Now my brother-in-law who grew up in Seattle had his choice. He could have watched Stan Boreson (who is still a going concern doing silly Scandinavian parodies for the octogenarian Scandinavians around here, of which there are plenty), or Boatman Bill, but no, he was a Patches pal, a faithful follower of J. P. Patches, the mayor of the Seattle city dump. Patches (the alter ego of the station's weatherman) was just plain silly, with outrageous costumes, pies in the face, bad puns and sidekicks like Gertrude (one of the other station hands in drag), Ketchikan the Animal Man, and many others that I don't remember because I never encountered the show much later in life. J. P. is still Much Beloved around here, his occasional performances still sell out, and asking after him will bring a smile to many a long-time Seattleite's face. Pretty good for a guy who broke a lot of hearts -- kids would sometimes beg their parents to take them on an excursion to the city dump only to find out that, no, J. P. didn't really live there after all.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 05:21 am (UTC)sesame street old school is totally taking me back, and the electric company. great to have those dvds out, with lots of music on them.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 09:17 am (UTC)And we can see him once again on Cox 10, one of our public access channels here in NOLA.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 11:44 am (UTC)The morning host was "Cadet Don" Travis [hey: NASA was brand-new back then, too!]; he ran Flash Gordon serials and had an extraterrestrial puppet sidekick named "Seymour".
The afterschool host was a young lady in a black catsuit. Literally.
KTRK was Channel 13 and its logo included a black cat.
So "KiTiRiK" was dressed as a cat. Leotard, tights, hood with ears, whiskers, tail, ... and high heels. Hers was more of a Romper Room / Bozo type show, with live kids. When she took a leave of absence to have a baby, the station was bombarded with mail from her viewers, demanding to know what had become of the "real" KiTiRiK.
These kids don't know what they're missing
Date: 2008-02-28 02:14 pm (UTC)Way back around the age of JFK's assassination and the First New York power blackout, I was a fan of Capt. Jack McCarthy; he'd VJ the Popeye cartoons on weekday afternoons and would pull out the stops on his Irish brogue to narrate the St. Patrick's Day Parade year after year. I don't know if he's still alive but I really miss him.
Also, there was Officer Joe Bolton who wrangled the Three Stooges shorts, and for a while we had Ray Heatherton, "The Merry Mailman" and father of performer Joey Heatherton, who'd sneak into the background on her dad's show from time to time as a little girl. And I was blessed to see Soupy Sales in his prime on what would later become the Fox station (Ch. 5) and Chuck McCann, a pudgy, multi-charactered improv master who gave the ancient and venerable Wonderama show a run for its money on Sunday mornings in the 60s (back when morning didn't need the u).
Most of all, I miss Sandy Becker. He was a tall, deep-voiced gent who could have easily been doing better things with his career, but instead he gave us kids characters like Hambone, an over-the-top DJ with an over-glitzed uniform coat with braid and tassels and eyeglasses with cylindrical lenses, and Norton Nork, a voiceless fool who didn't know how to do anything and needed the instructions of Sandy's disembodied voice. Norton's misadventures were sort of a demo for those of us who'd later own talking GPS devices. If at any time you should hear me say "Norton Nork, you've done it again!" that's where it comes from.
All this generation has to look forward to on after school TV are Judge Judy and Oprah. Although Ellen DeGeneres is fun.
Re: Sandy Becker as Norton Nork
Date: 2009-03-01 09:01 pm (UTC)If you know of any such projects, please contact me!
You can reach me through my page at YouTube.com, where my name is sketchgrrl.
Thanks so much!
Judy
Re: Sandy Becker as Norton Nork
Date: 2009-03-02 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-28 04:29 pm (UTC)wuxrtgxx mswe
Date: 2011-02-04 11:48 am (UTC)