Sunday Funnies: Let's Have Fun (1960)

 The late Chuck McCann built his legend in New York, first hosting a weekday show devoted to Laurel & Hardy. The success of that series prompted his bosses at WPIX to request that McCann also work his magic on Sundays with what started as a four hour block of programming, mixed with comedy skits performed by McCann and puppeteer Paul Ashley.

Let's Have Fun launched in 1960, airing from 9 am-1 pm, which meant being a lead-in to Yankee baseball on Sundays during the spring & summer. The block included reruns of Gumby, The Adventures of Superman, Mack & Myer For Hire, and other goodies.

Unfortunately, WPIX suits butted in, and it led to McCann & Ashley leaving in the summer of 1965. Another daytime host, Jack McCarthy, took over for a week, and then, the merry-go-round began to spin for the final three years of the series run, culminating with then-'PIX staffer and future TV star Scoey Mitchell, as Fireman Frank, taking over as host for the final season. Let's Have Fun was cancelled in June 1968. Mitchell had started as a cameraman at 'PIX. Who knew?

During a newspaper strike, the New York Daily News had asked McCann to read the funny pages without doing his usual cast of characters. Ultimately, he would dress up as Dondi, Little Orphan Annie, & Dick Tracy for skits.

After leaving Let's Have Fun, McCann began his Hollywood career, working in cartoons not only as a voice actor (i.e. Cool McCool), but also as a production staffer. He's best remembered nationally for a series of ads for Right Guard deodorant in the 70's, in addition to his founding the Sons of The Desert, a Laurel & Hardy fan club, and playing Hardy, or an impersonator thereof, on TV in the 70's and early 80's. His last kids show was 1975's Far Out Space Nuts, which he co-created, for CBS in 1975.

Mitchell might be known for many appearances on game shows like Match Game, and co-starring in a 1970 adaptation of Barefoot in The Park for ABC.

Let's move back to 1965, and McCann showing off his talents as a song & dance man with a cover of "Put on a Happy Face":

I wanted to find this three years ago after McCann passed, but the above clip didn't become available until last year.

No rating. We didn't get cable in upstate until 5 years after the series ended.