The above photo is the entire voice cast of Cool McCool (a series that, many of my correspondents assure me, is just as good as I remember it was). Left to right, that's Bob McFadden, Chuck McCann and Carol Corbett. James H. Burns sent me the following message about Ms. Corbett and I thought it oughta be posted here…
You gave short shrift — no make that no shrift! — to the lady voice artist, on Cool McCool, Carol Corbett. For those of who grew up in New York in the sixties, Carol was one of the great practitioners of local kids' television.
Corbett hosted a lunchtime program in the mid-sixties on the former WPIX/Channel 11, presenting Hercules and then other cartoons. Wearing an artist's smock, she would draw at an easel, present other crafts, and also do skits with puppets.
Corbett was part of that last great infusion of New York childrens' show hosts, most of whom disappeared from the airwaves, with no explanation, by 1968. Working in the studios at the Daily News building, Corbett joined the incredible WPIX afternoon roster of Chuck McCann, Officer Joe Bolton, Beachcomber Bill Biery, and Captain Jack McCarthy in the era when Sandy Becker, Soupy Sales and Paul Winchell (the last, in national syndication), were being seen on Metromedia Channel 5. There were episodes of Corbett's series when Office Joe (who hosted The Three Stooges) and I believe McCann, would pop over, to Carol's show…
What made Corbett memorable was her genuine winsomeness, a charm that has made her audience recall the twinkle in hey eyes, and her smile, forty years later. For many kids, outside of their immediate family, she was the first good looking woman, they came into contact with, on a daily basis. What makes Corbett's background even more interesting is that she was featured on a couple of the comedy albums of the era, including, I believe, one of the Vaughn Meader efforts. Nor did she just disappear into that void where so many local performers seemed to vanish. In 1968, she had a role in the Steve McQueen/Faye Dunaway thriller, The Thomas Crown Affair.
Corbett also made the unusual crossover from cartoon show-host to "educational TV" when the local CBS flagship hired her, in 1971, for The Patchwork Family. Another generation of New Yorkers remembers Carol hanging out with a puppet named Rags (operated by Carey Antebi, who had been with Jim Henson's Muppet crew), and in some segments — remarkably! — film historian, John Canemaker. (In another strange bit of trivia, one of the kids on the show was a young actress named Joanna Pang, who, five years later, would be a student sidekick for Filmation's The Mighty Isis.)
When WPIX produced a fortieth anniversary special some years back — worth catching alone, if possible, for some terrific material by Chuck McCann — Corbett still looked like a million bucks. And, happily, hadn't lost the smile that had once joined so many of us.
Carol Corbett and Bob McFadden were on a number of the Bob Booker-George Foster comedy albums produced in the sixties and seventies, including one of my favorites — Jack E. Leonard's Scream On Someone You Love Today! (It's out on CD. Here's an Amazon link if you want to buy a copy.) But other than that, I didn't know much about Carol Corbett…so thanks, James, for cluing me in. It's amazing the affection some of us still retain for the kids' show hosts of our youth, and sad that the generation after us has no one comparable to remember.