Here's a regional puppet show from the early 1950's that did spend a little bit of time in syndication, but gone well before ye scribe learned how to change channels.
King Calico was a 15 minute a day, three times weekly daytime show hosted by Doris Larson, and starring puppeteer Johnny Coons, who was credited with voicing all the characters. The show was based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, and apparently had a minor network of stations in the midwest.
Now, I said that Coons voiced all the characters, and that might be true, but, as this sampler shows, the King's voice might bear some resemblance to the later works of Dallas McKennon. Judge for yourselves.
Today, if someone wanted to do a show like this, there are public access channels in need of programming that would take a chance on it.
No rating. Just a public service.
5 comments:
Here in Chicago, we '50s kids grew up with Uncle Johnny Coons.
A few years after this show, Uncle Johnny moved his operation to Channel 5, the NBC station in Chicago, where his Noontime Comics show ran for years.
Uncle Johnny also joined up with Marshall Fields's department store downtown, where King Calico and his friends (all created by Coons, by the way) starred in the Christmas window displays every year.
After several years at Channel 5, and a few at Channel 7 (ABC), Uncle Johnny Coons (whose voice career went back to Old-Time Chicago radio classics like Vic And Sade) started getting West Coast offers; for a while he had a Chicago-Los Angeles commute going.
But Johnny Coons always came back to Chicago, where he became a go-to guy for local commercials and voice-overs.
Uncle Johnny Coons was living here full-time when, sadly, he passed on in 1975, only 58 years old.
Believe me, Chicago mourned.
He never went national, did he, then? I guess he'd be Chicago's answer to NYC icons like Chuck McCann.
"Chicago's answer ..."?
One of many, actually.
Here in Chicago, we had four (4) local stations (one for each network), and that was before the Educational station started up ...
Each of the four commercial stations had a bunch of local talents who held forth mornings, late afternoons, and Saturday mornings, until the New York networks took over.
I can still name many of the Chicago kid show hosts I grew up watching, like:
Two-Ton Baker the Music Maker
Chubby Jackson
Ted (Uncle Bucky) Ziegler
Ray Rayner
Susan Heinkel
Chuck Bill
Kenny Bowers
Ringmaster Ned Locke
Bob Bell (Chicago's Bozo)
John Coughlin (in various characters)
... and many, many others that I'll remember after I hit Publish.
Any of you in other cities can no doubt come up with long lists of your own ...
Ted Ziegler? Is that the same one who would go national appearing with Sonny & Cher and the Hudson Brothers?
For years, Ted Ziegler - Uncle Bucky to his Chicago fans - led the Lunchtime Little Theater on Channel 9, with several comedy partners, including Uncle Ned Locke (who later became Ringmaster Ned of Chicago's Bozo's Circus ... but that's another story).
Ted Ziegler left Lunchtime Little Theater circa 1960, for California; he said at the time that he was "tired of shoveling ten inches of 'partly cloudy' off my driveway every winter."
He did come back to Chicago briefly a few years later, but the Lake Effect winters got the better of him again, and he went back to Hollywood, where ultimately Sonny & Cher beckoned ... and that's another story ...
By the bye, I just reread that list I gave you before -
- and how could I have possibly forgotten John Conrad and Elmer The Elephant?
Or Jim Stewart and The Glovables?
Or Princess Mary Hartline?
Or Uncle Win Stracke and his animal friends?
Or Terry Bennett and the Jobblewocky Place?
(When he wasn't being Marvin the Cool Ghoul on Shock Theater?)
Or - see what happens when you get me started?
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