I belong to the Baby Boomer generation. In fact, I’m one of the older Baby Boomers which means I’m part of the first generation that grew up in a household with a television. I’m sure studies have been done that suggest the profound influence television has had on my generation. We witnessed our president being assassinated before our eyes, we saw a man walk on the moon, and it became increasingly impossible to hide the horrors of war and civil unrest from us. However, for the children growing up in the 1950s and early 1960s, television offered a world of entertainment that no one had ever dreamed of before.
Growing up in the Chicagoland area, a hot bed of early broadcast communication innovation and excellence, we had some pretty wonderful children’s television shows to keep us distracted and out from underneath Mom’s feet. Perhaps my favorite was The Blue Fairy starring a lovely young Bridget Bazlen as the eponymous character who would sit on an oversized mushroom in the Blue Forest and admonish her young audience to “drink all of your milk” and “always tell the truth.” Launched in 1958 on Chicago’s WGN-TV and the recipient of the coveted Peabody Award that same year, The Blue Fairy was one of the station’s first two children’s programs produced in that amazing new innovation simply called “color.”
The other was Garfield Goose and Friends which the station had purchased and moved from WBKB in 1955. When Frazier Thomas brought his beak snapping goose to Chicago in 1951 he hosted the show in a suit and tie. But when Garfield, self-appointed King of the United States, made Thomas the Admiral of his Navy and Prime Minister in 1952 it was obvious Thomas was in need of a snappy uniform, hence the giant gold epaulettes and distinguished service medals on a royal blue coat. With the help of Roy Brown, who would go on to play a major role in Chicago children’s television as the beloved Cooky the Clown, Thomas brought the smiling goose sock puppet and his friends, Romberg Rabbit, Beauregard Burnside III, Macintosh Mouse, and Christmas Goose into our homes and hearts. The show, the longest running puppet show on television, finally went off the air in 1976.
One of the most popular and long running children’s shows was Bozo’s Circus. What began as Bozo in 1960 as a half-hour live cartoon show showcasing Bozo cartoons hosted by local announcer Bob Bell, ended with a forty plus year history of Chicago television broadcasting. By 1961 Bozo’s Circus debuted with Bob Bell as the title character surrounded by a host of other loveable circus misfits and a ringmaster who tried to keep them under control. With a cast of characters that included Ringmaster Ned, Wimpey the Clown, Cooky the Cook, Oliver O. Oliver, Sandy the Tramp and Wizzo the Wizard, lunchtime was never so much fun. Legend had it that when a Chicago area mother found out she was pregnant she immediately put in for tickets to the show. If she was lucky, her child might be an audience member by the time he or she went to school. And if she was exceptionally lucky, that child would be chosen by the Magic Arrows to play the Grand Prize Game and make it to the sixth bucket!
Ray Rayner was another Chicago TV performer who was on the television scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps his best known show was Ray Rayner and Friends, sort of a Today Show for kids, it was an early program that got us out the door in the morning. Ray was assisted by his pet duck Chelveston who waddled around the studio making a mess of his water bowl and a ubiquitous head of lettuce. Not the friendliest of fowl, Chelveston would occasionally nip at Ray making him a bit wary of his feathered sidekick. Cuddley Dudley, a dog puppet created and voiced by Roy Brown of Cooky the Clown fame, shared a segment where he and Ray read letters and showed off artwork created and sent in by children who watched the show. It was a chance for them to ad-lib and engage the adult audience. Ray always wore a bright orange jumpsuit that had numerous notes pinned to it to remind him what to do next on the show. As adults in this part of the country we often joke about pulling a “Ray Rayner” because (as aging Baby Boomers) we have to write so many notes to ourselves to make it through the day. Ray would muddle through an arts and crafts segment with the outcome barely resembling the sample his staff had provided. He would simulcast traffic reports from sister station WGN Radio as he showed stock footage of traffic moving along Chicago highways and during baseball season he would wear a Cubs/Sox two-billed hat that he would spin around on his head as he gave highlights of the previous day’s games. A man of many talents, Ray Rayner was also Oliver O. Oliver on Bozo’s Circus. His show lasted until 1981.
My children may have grown up in Mister Rogers Neighborhood, but I went to Ding Dong School with Miss Frances. According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago , Ding Dong School was the brainchild of NBC executive Judith Waller who engaged Frances Horwich, professor of education at Chicago’s Roosevelt University, to develop a program format that would engage preschoolers and provide information to their parents. No colorful Big Birds or grouchy garbage can dwellers lived in Miss Frances’ classroom, but her soft voice and grandmotherly authority drew me in and I listened to everything she said. This Emmy nominated and Peabody Award winning children’s program lasted in syndication until 1965 when the competition from cartoon shows proved too great.
Though sadly no postcards exist in the Curt Teich Postcard Archives for Romper Room, it too was one of my childhood favorites. I learned the Pledge of Allegiance watching Romper Room because that was how each show began. All of us Romper Room devotees were very polite because we learned our “please and thank yous” from the show’s teacher who was always addressed as “Miss.” I realize that it’s hard to believe in this age of political correctness, but we said grace before we had our milk and cookies: "God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Amen." An oversized bumblebee called Mr. Do Bee helped us with our manners. Of course Mr. Don’t Bee was also around to show us how not to behave. At the end of every show the Romper Room lady would look through the “magic mirror” which any self-respecting child could see was the frame of the mirror without the looking glass part. Then she would say “Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play?” Then she would name all the children she saw out in televisionland in that stupid mirror without the glass. “I can see Stephanie and Cindy and Timmy and Pamela and Billy and Gail.” Can someone explain to me how she never saw me? I was always there!
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