September 3, 2014 marked the 51st anniversary of the debut of one of NYC's most popular kids TV shows: The Chuck McCann Show.
After seeing the success of his "Laurel & Hardy & Chuck" show and his Sunday morning comedy variety kids show "Let's Have Fun" the station execs at WPIX TV allowed Chuck McCann to create and host another comedy variety series for their weekday afternoon timeslot.
Set against the backdrop of a cartoon village "The Chuck McCann Show" debuted on Monday afternoon September 3, 1963. Where Chuck would perform character comedy skits and interview guest performers and personalities between reruns of "The Beetle Bailey", "Barney Google & Snuffy Smiff" and "Krazy Kat" cartoons along with Universal and Republic movie serials.
At the same time Chuck would try to surpress the antics of The Paul Ashley Puppets (who inhabited The Cartoon Village). Kids would be invited to appear on special programs -
one show had Chuck honoring "Popeye The Sailor" on his anniversary and the show also featured a guest appearance from cartoonist Bud Sagendorf. At the time Mr. Sagendorf was drawing the "Popeye" comic strip).
The program became popular with kids and adults and McCann and his head puppeteer and comedy assistant Paul Ashley would be invited to do personal appearances at many venues in the NYC, NJ and Ct. viewing area.
Unfortunately, one of the station execs Fred Thrower objected to McCann playing the
characters of "Miss Jinx the Witch" and "Dragon Lady's Mama". The characters were replaced by a contest segment that was created by one of Mr. Thrower's children, "The Kookie Cookie Fortune Cookie Contest".
Kids would be invited to come to the studio and try to answer questions that were hidden inside of the many fortune cookies that were inside of a large glass bowl. Contestants who were able to answer the most difficult queries..would earn points and win a treasure chest of toy prizes. The contest did well until one show when Chuck said to the kid, "All right, for an extra 50 points answer this question. Romance will be risky tonight." A real Chinese fortune had gotten into the cookies and that put an end to "The Kookie Cookie Fortune Cookie Contest".
McCann and Ashley continued to host their show until creative disputes with station management got to be too much. "The Chuck McCann Show" left the WPIX TV Airways following the Friday, July 30, 1965 broadcast.
The series returned to the NYC airways on WNEW TV Ch. 5 on Tuesday September 7, 1965 seen weekday afternoons and also Saturday mornings starting on October 7,1965. The format was set against the backdrop of a junk shop inside of an office building where Chuck performed his comedy skits, interviewed guest performers and personalities and for a time he had a studio audience of kids on the show at the same time.
He also engaged in skits with The Paul Ashley Puppets and introduced reruns of "The Casper The Friendly Ghost" movie cartoons and "Sinabd, Jr." and "Space Angel" TV cartoons and old movie comedies.
The addition of the studio audience didn't work out and it was soon dropped as McCann and Ashley performed their character comedy and puppet skits for the viewers at home.
"The Chuck McCann Show" remained on the WNEW airwaves until the station execs closed down the junk shop for good following the Friday, September 9, 1966 and Saturday July 16, 1966 broadcasts
September 3, 2014 marked the 51st anniversary of the debut of one of NYC's most popular kids TV shows: The Chuck McCann Show.
