Here's a great one, especially if you grew up in Los Angeles when I did. Once upon a time, we had a line-up of great kid show hosts on television in L.A. By the seventies, they were all off the air…all except Tom Hatten, who from 1956 'til 1964 hosted Popeye cartoons on KTLA, Channel 5. Tom did other things for KTLA after he got out of the Popeye business and on one show he did in 1976, he brought in a group of local kids' show superstars. This is the closing of that broadcast. Hatten is the one acting as host. The people he says goodbye to are, in order…
- Skipper Frank — Frank Herman was a magician, ventriloquist and a very nice, non-condescending kids' show host who mainly showed early Warner Brothers cartoons on his late afternoon show on KTLA. For a while, he also had a morning program that he'd do from a truck at some remote location. I watched it every day while getting ready for school. I wish there was more video around of the Skipper. He had a great way of talking to kids, addressing us as equals and actually giving out useful tips about how to get through life. I learned a lot from that man, including my first card trick.
- Walker Edmiston — Walker, seen here with his puppet R. Crag Ravenswood, was a veteran of Bob Clampett's early puppet shows, including Time for Beany. (He was Beany for a time after Daws Butler quit.) Walker hosted a brilliant series for KTLA called The Walker Edmiston Show that had pretty much the same format as The Muppet Show did years later. It was just as creative and crowded with fun characters…but Walker did it all by himself. He also had quite a career as an on-camera actor and voiced a lot of the Krofft puppet shows. Lovely man. Here's a link to an obit I wrote when he left us.
- Engineer Bill — Bill Stulla was over on KHJ Channel 9 with his Cartoon Express. He showed the worst cartoons — a lot of Colonel Bleep and Q.T. Hush and Davey & Goliath — but there was something so friendly about his show that I watched anyway. For a time, KHJ had him hosting an afternoon series that each day ran one of the great Laurel and Hardy shorts, and that's where I first saw most of them. So Engineer Bill will always hold a special place in my heart. Also, I made my "TV debut" on an earlier kids' show he had, as discussed here and here. Here's a link to the obit I wrote about him.
- Sheriff John — John Rovick was over on KTTV Channel 11 with Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade, a noontime show that ran really early Looney Tunes and things like Tom & Jerry (not the cat and mouse but the earlier, human versions.) Mr. Rovick was otherwise a staff announcer at KTTV and he was still doing that in '76 when this reunion took place, which explains his reference to coming over from across the street. KTTV was literally across the street from KTLA.
- Bozo the Clown — Vance Colvig was our local Bozo, which was his way of carrying on the family tradition. His father, Vance "Pinto" Colvig was the first Bozo…on records and then on local TV. Before that, of course, Pinto was a cartoon voice actor and storyman — the voice of Mr. Disney's Goofy, among many others. As is explained in the video, the son also did cartoon voices, most notably Chopper the Bulldog in the Yakky Doodle cartoons. Then lastly, we have…
- Uncle Jimmy Weldon — Jimmy Weldon and his puppet Webster Webfoot hosted old MGM cartoons and Felix the Cat adventures over on KCOP Channel 13. As noted, Weldon did the voice of Yakky Doodle…and at one point, the Yogi Bear Show (and therefore, the Yakky cartoons) were on KTTV opposite Webster Webfoot on KCOP and Vance Colvig as Bozo on KTLA. I actually was aware of this when I was nine and watching all these shows, channel-flipping madly because they were on opposite each other and no one had been smart enough yet to invent the VCR.
And once more, I've made you spend more time reading my notes on a clip than it'll take you to just watch the clip. But I have a special fondness for these guys so I wanted you to know all about them. The only major omission for me is Chuck Jones the Magic Man (no relation to the cartoon director of the same name) who took over on Channel 13 when Webster Webfoot flew South. A skillful magician, this Chuck Jones performed tricks and taught me a few. He was one of the few hosts who was more interesting than the cartoons he introduced.
We have someone named imashowbizbaby to thank for putting this clip on YouTube. He (I think it's a he) was nice enough to configure this so I could embed it here for you. In return, I'd like to suggest you subscribe to or at least browse imashowbizbaby's YouTube channel. There's a lot of great stuff there and you won't have to wade through my long introductions to get to it.
