
LOCAL
KIDS SHOWS:
SAN FRANCISCO
in the 1960's and '70's
Mike
Humbert writes:
Some of my earliest and fondest childhood memories are of watching Captain
Satellite on KTVU channel 2. I probably started watching the show
around 1963. Bob March portrayed the good Captain, wearing a futuristic
dark blue uniform with a lighting bolt emblem on the chest.
March
had an enthusiastic demeanor, and would occasionally get a case of the
giggles. He used to crack himself up as he recommend peanut butter and
bubble gum sandwiches to his young viewers: "They stick to your ribs--
and everything else!"
In
the earliest days of the show, the Captain would introduce cartoons
from his rocket ship, the Starfinder 2, which strongly resembled a television
studio with about five dollars worth of set dressing. Every day, about
a dozen kids would act as the Captain's "crew," sitting in bleachers
to the left. (I remember Bob March commenting later that in those first
days, the knobs on the control panels were actually pie tins held in
place with nails!)
Around
1967, KTVU revamped the show. The Starfinder 2 set was retired and replaced
by the higher budgeted Laser 2. Now at the beginning of each show, the
Captain and his crew of three kids (different ones each day, of course)
sat at a pretty-darn-good control console, preparing to blast off.
One
of the kids was instructed to throw some switches, while another would
sound the alarm. The third would handle the countdown. Footage would
then run of a saucer-type space ship presumably sitting on a launching
pad in the rocky hills. The model was decent, but unfortunately, the
camera angle made it appear to be just what it was: a ten-inch model
sitting on the ground amongst some rocks and dirt.
Smoke
would begin to billow out from underneath, and the saucer would slowly
rise. A different camera angle showed it climbing into the sky. At the
end of the show, the footage was reversed. Usually the videotape technician
would stop the footage before the exhaust smoke was shown apparently
being sucked back into the bottom of the model. But not always. That
must've confused a few kids!
Around
this time, the Captain's uniform went to short sleeves, probably due
to comfort considerations under the hot studio lights. Bob March once
made a promotional appearance at a nearby elementary school, and I was
fortunate enough to meet him and get an autographed picture. I also
presented him with a drawing of the Lost In Space robot that I had made
for him. It was all quite a thrill for a star-struck eight-year-old!
I
also remember that when the show was cancelled, KTVU gave the Captain
a big send-off, with many well-wishers dropping by for the final voyage
of the Laser 2. Bob March later hosted the morning edition of Dialing
for Dollars. March would run old sitcoms like the Patty Duke Show, then,
during the breaks, would phone unsuspecting people "from the nine Bay
Area phone books" to ask them if they knew the "count and the amount."
Occasionally someone did, and won a modest jackpot.
March
also had a tiny cameo at the beginning of Magnum Force, which was Clint
Eastwood's second "Dirty Harry" movie. He played the councilman who
had "no comment." I think it's safe to say that March will be best remembered
as Captain Satellite!
Captain's
Satellite direct competition on KRON channel 4 was The Mayor Art
show. Hosted by the amiable Art Findley (who was later a talk radio
host on KGO 810 AM), Mayor Art would introduce cartoons and perform
short skits for the "City Council," about four dozen kids sitting in
the bleachers to the right.
Befitting
his important position, the Mayor was always dressed in a high hat and
tails. All the members of the "City Council" would each get their own
gray felt high hat with their first names hand markered onto the front,
just above the black band. I was lucky enough to be a member of the
"City Council" in early 1965. I still have the hat to this day!
Mayor
Art also had a hand puppet sidekick, a bird named Ring-a-Ding who lived
in a cuckoo clock, and had a tendency to bite the Mayor on his nose.
Safety tips were also featured, and Mayor Art would advise against certain
activities because they were "Danger-ROO-so!" Each episode would end
with the Mayor promising the viewers: "We'll be seeing you" "SUBSEQENTLY!!!"
the "City Council" would gleefully finish.
I
assume ratings were dropping toward the end of the series. During the
last year, the show was slashed from an hour to thirty minutes. In the
end, Mayor Art did not get the big send off that Captain Satellite did.
I remember Art Findley simply saying: "Well, kids, that was our last
show!" and then closing the episode normally. I cried. Art Findley was
later host of KRON's short-lived answer to Dialing for Dollars, called
Pick-a-Show. It was shamefully low budget, and looked it. It tried to
pass itself off as a game show, but was really nothing more than a half-hour
commercial for the evening NBC shows.
Findley
would phone people at home, and ask them to guess if the "X" was behind
the picture of (for example) the Dean Martin Show, Laugh-in or I Dream
of Jeanie. A right guess would win you a whopping five dollars. Making
it the final round, which was almost unheard of, would net the contestant
eighty dollars.
Both
Captain Satellite and Mayor Art ended their runs in the early seventies.
About that time, KBHK channel 44 introduced Captain San Francisco.
Opening credits consisted of five seconds of stock NASA footage depicting
an Apollo mission blasting off. The set was a porthole with stars outside.
I
understand there actually was an on-camera "Captain" at some point,
but by the time I started watching, the host was Sgt. Sacto, a nice-enough
young guy in a jumpsuit, sitting in front of the porthole and introducing
cartoons. There were no kid guests.
Also
around the same time Stockton's KOVR channel 13 had Captain Delta.
Televised from a studio made up to be the "Delta Queen," a Mississippi-style
paddleboat, the four kid guests of the day sat uncomfortably as Captain
Delta stuck a microphone in their faces.
I
remember thinking how phony and smarmy the Captain was. He would ask
each child a question about himself, and then chime in with a generic
"Well, good for you! I'm proud of you!" --regardless of what the answer
had been.
In
any case, if Bob March, Art Findley and the rest are out there somewhere,
"thank you" on behalf of a lot of us who were bay area kids in the sixties
and seventies. You gave us a lot of nice memories!
"By the early
70s, kids shows in the San Francisco area were mostly half-hour or hour-long
collections of cartoons. KTVU-Channel 2, then an independent (now a
Fox affiliate), was one of the last stations in the Bay Area to have
kids shows with hosts. In the late 60s-early 70s, Captain Satellite
was a Channel 2 favorite.
"After Captain
Satellite went off the air, about 1971, another Ch. 2 personality, Pat
McCormick, brought back his creations "Charley and Humphrey." The "Charley
and Humphrey" show had originally aired in SF on Ch. 7 in the 60s,
and was brought back by McCormick on Ch. 2 when he became the fulltime
host of "Dialing For Dollars." (McCormick had also previously hosted
another children's show, "Brother Buzz.")
McCormick didn't
appear on-screen on "Charley and Humphrey": they were puppets and he
provided the puppeteering and the voices. Charley was a horse and Humphrey
his not-too-bright dog friend. Also seen on the show (which I believe
ran daily from 3:30-4:30 PM) was Pussyfoot, a classical piano-playing
tabby.
Much loved in the
Bay Area, the 70s version of "Charley and Humphrey" was on the air until
about 1975-76. Public service announcements from the 70s featuring the
duo ran on Ch. 2 late at night well into the 90s. Sadly, when McCormick
retired from Ch. 2 a few years ago, he stated that virtually all of
the episodes no longer existed. He also said that the puppets were still
around but had deteriorated to the point where they could no longer
be used.
In 1977, KTVU brought
another kids show to the air, "Captain Cosmic." This was a half-hour
show (airing, I think, from 4:30-5 PM) that primarily showed reruns
of "Ultra Man." Captain Cosmic was Bob Wilkins, the longtime host of
"Creature Features," a Saturday night horror-movie show seen on KTVU
and in Sacramento on KCRA Ch. 3 (later on KXTL Ch. 40). Captain Cosmic
was joined by his trusty robot, 2T2 (in a takeoff on Star Wars, which
had just been released at the time.) Captain Cosmic welcomed guests
such as Anthony Daniels, who played C3PO in Star Wars.
Captain Cosmic lasted
about one year; rerunning shows like "Ultra Man" that were already in
reruns for years sealed its fate.
About the same time,
KTVU enlisted Pat McCormick to host another show. This would be KTVU's
last live kids' show, called "TV Pow." It was a game show for
kids; a giant version of Mattel Intellivision was put on the screen
and kids called in to play the giant video game over the phone. The
game was voice-activated by the kids going "Pow! Pow! Pow!" All too
often, McCormick would have to stop the kids from overmodulating and
going to fast. This concept lasted about a year as well.
I'm sure there are
others who remember these Bay Area 70s shows as well.
- Jim
I was reading
about KTVU's 'Charley and Humphrey' and remembered that I have the full
audio of one of those Bits and Pieces spots, the one
about "Borrowing Without Asking." I used to sit in front of
the TV many an afternoon with my tape recorder, and still have quite a
few of those old tapes. I was recently digitizing
it all (all that was worth saving, anyway), and the C&H spot is one
of my favorites of them. I
read where Pat McCormick himself said that most of those episodes don't
exist anymore.
- Sebastian Morgan
LISTEN
TO IT IN MP4 FORMAT
"By
a happy accident, I came across the article on the old local kids
shows in the S.F. Bay Area by "Jim". I can elaborate on KTVU Channel
2's use of the Charley and Humphrey characters.
"Growing
up in the late 70's-early 80's, I clearly recall KTVU's Bits N' Pieces
Public Service shorts which ran between commercials during their afternoon
cartoon reruns. Charley and Humphrey were prominently featured in these
segments.
"There
could not have been too many of these little "life's lessons" produced,
because the same ones kept turning up consistently! A favorite seen
many times had Humphery borrowing friend Pat McCormick's "favorite lamp,
the family heirloom" without asking him. Charley finds out, tells Humphery
its not right to borrow something without asking, convinces Humphrey
to return it and... as Humphrey hurries off-screen to return the lamp,
a piercing shattering sound is heard. Oops.
"By
the way, Pat McCormick was also the longtime weatherman on KTVU's 10
O'Clock News. He had replaced the aforementioned Bob Wilkins of Creature
Features and Captain Cosmic fame, who had simply tired of doing the
weather forecast around 1974-75 . By that time not only was he doing
Charley and Humphrey, but also hosting the afternoon Dialing for Dollars
(according to KTVU's web page, they had two versions of this show initially--
Bob March hosted in the morning and Pat later in the day)
"Pat
retired in the mid-90's to Oregon. KTVU has an extensive background
on their 40-plus year history at their website, ktvu.com in the "About
KTVU" section."
- Bill Griffiths
"P.S.
- KTVU had a long-running campaign starting in the mid-70's "There's
Only One 2" which was still being used periodically before I moved.
They had a very upbeat theme which was last heard (I think) during their
40th anniversary in 1998.
"I'd
love to hear it again in the clear, sometime. There were lyrics, but
the often-used instrumental variations were the best. Brian Karmizad's
80's TV Theme Super Site had some local station themes, but his site
has been down for some time."
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SAN
FRANCISCO
LOCAL KID SHOWS
(by you)
"I
grew up in Hayward and fondly remember those shows, especially Creature
Features. Here's a sample of Bob Wilkins' original
Creature Features theme - it's original title was "The
Gotham City Municipal Swing Band".
"Incidently,
it was composed by Neal Hefti and was originally featured on the
60's "Batman" television soundtrack. I also have the 2nd theme as
well (short version). Attached
is a sample of that one.
"Last
year at WonderCon in S.F. I met for the first time, Bob Wilkins
and John Stanley. They were very nice and open to talking about
the show. They both had very fond memories of those days.
"Bob's
retired and living in Reno, and John still continues to write books
and articles. I was lucky enough to take a picture with the both
of them, and I just happened to have my home made Tom Servo Replica
with me! The photo's also attached. Keep up the great work."
- Larry
Lee Moniz
"Thanks
for the great memories about the old Captain Satellite
TV show from the 60s. I used to watch show every afternoon after I
got home from school.
"I
also remember Mayor Art on KRON Channel 4, Hocus Pocus on
KNTV Channel 11, and Captain Delta on Channel 13 (I think) in Sacramento.
I think there might have been a few others, but for the most part
I can't remember the names now.
"A
lot of the others were short lived. I think there was one called
Buckaroo 5000 also on Channel 11 in San Jose. Do you have
any information on any of these old Kids TV shows in Bay Area, or
do you know of any other web sites that might have some information?
"I
have a couple of friends that I grew up with during the 60s that
I stay in contact with now and then. Every once a while the subject
comes up, and we all three reminisce bout the few times that kids
got yanked off the show while it was running, because a kid said
something naughty on the air. Live TV at is finest.
"The
example used most often always includes the kid saying a four letter
word while messing up during the bean toss game on Hocus Pocus.
Hocus Pocus told the kid that was "hokie pokie no no" and the kid
fired back - "cram it clown". Anyway, I don't think these are the
types of stories you want to share on your web site, but I couldn't
resist sharing the story anyway. Thanks again for the great memories."
-
Jeff, San Jose, CA
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A NOTE
FROM THE
CAPTAIN (Bob March)
The creation of
Captain Satellite sprang from my youthful passion for Science
Fiction.
As a boy I devoured
magazines such as Galaxy, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers etc. 1958 was fortuitous
time for the emergence of a television program with a space theme. It
was the year the Russians launched the first earth satellite named Sputnik.
This started the "Space Race" an effort on the part of the United States
to dominate the last frontier.
When I see the high
tech computer generated special effects of today I am green with envy.
The first set for Captain Satellite's space ship was a hodge-podge from
pie plates fastened to the wall along with garden hose to simulate wiring
to a dismantled pin ball machine.
Over the ten years
the program aired the set evolved into a flying saucer. Thanks to film
footage from NASA we were able to simulate a blast off which, at the
time, was quite realistic.
I wanted audience
participation so I created a game called "Space Lock" a contest where
kids would send in a drawing depicting a space theme. If their picture
was selected to be displayed a prize was awarded. The winner would choose
one of three keys to open Captain Satellite's "Space Lock" which contained
a really grand prize.
Captain Satellite
was live television, which made for some hilarious and sometimes scary
moments. Animals would get loose and start savaging the set or Santa's
reindeer would relieve themselves on camera.
The crew would attempt
to catch the Captain off guard. One
day when no children were scheduled to appear on the program KSFO personality
Don Sherwood (who was taping his weekly variety show in the studio next
door) provided a memorable moment. The Captain strolled over to open
the Space LockŠthe door slid open and there stood a beautifully posed
nude model (courtesy of Sherwood)ŠThe Captain broke into hysterical
laughter. Of course the camera had been positioned not to show the model
to the TV audience.
Captain Satellite
and all the other children's shows were a very special part of growing
up in the Bay Area. Through their weekend personal appearances (at parks,
markets, theaters, etc.) They would autograph a picture for you. In
many cases you could appear on their programs.
- Bob
P.S. I am still
working with children in an entirely different capacity as a mental
health counselor at Juvenile Hall in Sacramento. As a licensed Marriage
Family Therapist I find it extremely rewarding to help troubled youngsters
make changes in their lives.
The children of
the 50's and 60's lived in a simple time, they were fun to have on the
show and meet in person at appearances. Today's children are being inundated
in a flood of violence and over stimulation of primary instincts. In
some ways they grow old faster.
Enough sermonizing
I
don't know if you know this, or ever get any inquiries into Baby Daphne,
Princess Pat, or The Princess... but that was my mother.
She
was Princess Pat in the early 1950's in San Francisco, CA, on
KRON TV, then later on KTTV and KHJ in Los Angeles. Her Princess shows
were also syndicated as was Baby Daphne, and I also have some newspaper
clippings of those shows. Actually, my sister found more newspaper reviews,
etc. that our mother had saved, on her Princess shows than on her Baby
Daphne shows.
I
worked for her when she was Baby Daphne at KTTV TV... there was a big
fan club of college students at USC... her fan mail was amazing, thousands
of letters weekly. But it might be fun for her fans to see the photos
of when she was younger and was a beautiful princess, those shows were
equally as popular. She won many awards for those shows. She wrote all
the stories she told, made her own costumes, etc., as she did with Baby
Daphne. Let me know if I can be of help.
After
talking to my sister, she reminded me that my mother was on Mr. Wishbone's
show - but only her voice. She was a character that she created called,
MLF (Mysterious Little Friend) who lived in a beautiful little house.
MLF would read the funny papers with Mr. Wishbone. Later, MLF was a
character on 'Daphne's Cartoon Castle' when she began that show; along
with No Name Spider, Magic in the Air, Itsy Bitsy Pot, Mr. Makeup Man
and other characters. Baby Daphne would talk to her viewers, addressing
them as Witch-Watchers.
Sincerely,
Kathleen Blake
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San
Francisco Local TV Kid Shows
Captain Satellite & More
Creature Feature
Captain Fortune
Mayor Art
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