Today's Video Link

I can't believe this is on YouTube but it is. It's a clip of Bill Holly, who was a kids' TV host for about two years on Los Angeles television. The clip says 1966-1967 and I guess that's right, but I thought it was more like 1965-1966. He was on KHJ, Channel 9 and this footage is from a brief time when that station had somehow stolen the Popeye cartoon package away from a rival. (Before and after, Tom Hatten hosted the spinach-eating sailor's exploits on KTLA, Channel 5.)

The clip starts with some news footage about viewers picketing the station because they thought Holly's program had been cancelled when he was, in fact, just on vacation. This sounds to me like a publicity stunt that Holly and/or someone at KHJ arranged, rather than a real protest. The person who posted this material on YouTube says they can be seen in the clip and that they obtained it from Mr. Holly, which makes you wonder. Then there's a clip of Holly doing some magic…and I remember his shows generally being more entertaining than this. I also remember one period when his show turned into an exact carbon of the classic Soupy Sales format, complete with dog gloves and hurled shaving cream pies.

It's amazing that any film at all exists of Bill Holly. Most local TV stations did their programming live, well through the sixties and even when it became possible to record on videotape, they either didn't or they promptly erased and reused the tapes after broadcast. I wasn't a regular watcher of Mr. Holly's shows. He was on TV during the period when I thought I'd outgrown that kind of programming…but I caught him occasionally because KHJ was also running Laurel and Hardy films in the time slot that adjoined his, and I've never outgrown Laurel and Hardy, not even for a minute. Still, it's nice to see Bill Holly again. It's always nice to see any of those guys — Tom Hatten, Skipper Frank Herman, Engineer Bill Stulla, Sheriff John Rovick and all the rest who were such a part of so many childhoods in this town.