Well, how about an episode of Diver Dan? Any of you remember Diver Dan from when you were a kid? I don't. If it ever ran on Los Angeles television, I managed to miss it. 104 of these were produced in 1960 and they aired in various cities in various formats — sometimes interspersed with cartoons, sometimes as a whole half hour of Diver Dan adventures.
The series was created by a cartoonist named J. Anthony (John) Ferlaine, who drew a comic strip I've never seen called Fish Tales. Ferlaine produced a couple of puppet shows starring characters from his strip and this project eventually morphed into Diver Dan. One of the writers on the show — you'll see his name in the end credits if you last that long — was Joseph Bonaduce, father of Danny Bonaduce.
The outstanding talent on Diver Dan was Allen Swift, who provided all of the puppet voices. Mr. Swift was a legend in kids' TV in and around New York, hosting Popeye cartoons for years as Captain Allen Swift on WPIX in that city. He was also the voice of many characters on Howdy Doody including, at times, the title character and he was heard in about half the cartoon shows ever recorded in Manhattan in the fifties and sixties. (He was a regular on Underdog and King Leonardo, to name two. On Underdog, he voiced Simon Bar Sinister, among other baddies.) He probably made his fortune — and set some kind of industry record — by doing voiceovers for a staggering number of radio and TV commercials…and I think he's still working.
Are you a fan of Allen Swift? Then you might be interested in a lengthy, fascinating interview with him that's been posted to YouTube. I'm not going to embed it because it's four parts, each of which runs a little over twenty minutes. But if you want to see it, here's a link to Part One and you should be able to find your way from there. I haven't watched the whole thing myself yet but I'm guessing that somewhere in there, he makes mention of his son, who is a brilliantly funny actor named Lewis J. Stadlen.
So here's an episode of Diver Dan. It runs about seven minutes. I don't find it all that much fun but I bet I'd have enjoyed it when I was eight.
