Here's 30 seconds of silent footage of three Los Angeles area kids' show hosts from the late fifties and early sixties, all from KTLA. KTLA had a pretty powerful late afternoon lineup of such hosts, starting with Skipper Frank, who's the third gent you see in this clip. Let me take them in order…
First up in the footage is our local Bozo the Clown, Vance Colvig. Vance was the son of the actor who first played Bozo, Pinto Colvig. In fact, just to keep this accurate, Pinto's full name was Vance DeBar Colvig and his son, who followed in his size 23 shoes, was Vance Colvig Junior. Junior did a lot of acting work out of the clown makeup and performed a novelty act where he played tunes on various parts of his anatomy. He was also the voice of Chopper the Bulldog on the Yakky Doodle cartoons.
Next up is a fast shot of Tom Hatten, who put on a sailor costume and hosted Popeye cartoons on KTLA, and in between them, he'd give little cartooning lessons. He's the only one of these guys who's still around, doing stage acting and working as an entertainment reporter for a local radio station.
And then last, we have Skipper Frank Herman. Skipper Frank did magic and ventriloquism and showed the same Bugs Bunny cartoons over and over and over. He had the most interesting show in the KTLA lineup because he would sometimes just talk to kids about how to get along in school or how to treat your parents right…and it was pretty sound, honest advice delivered without a hint of condescension. On the other hand, when he did a live commercial for some product, he was such a good communicator with young people that he practically hypnotized us into demanding our parents buy us whatever he was selling. That skill could have been dangerous in the wrong hands.
The brief footage you'll see is him making a personal appearance somewhere with one of his ventriloquist dummies. He had two, one of which replaced the other. There was a local mini-scandal in L.A. one day when Skipper Frank appeared at a supermarket opening or some such event and someone stole his dummy out of his car. There were public appeals for its return and they employed the same rhetoric one might use addressing kidnappers who held a child. It was very traumatic for the Skipper's audience. Newspapers reported that parents called the station complaining that it was making their kids hysterical with worry…and that was literally the last I heard of it. Apparently, they just decided to drop the matter and a week or so later, Skipper Frank introduced his new friend — a different wooden guy who had the same voice as the one who'd been abducted. (One of them — I forget which — was named Ziggy.)
Anyway, I've written an awful lot here to introduce 30 seconds of silent footage but as you can tell, I have fond memories and affection for these guys. This is also pretty rare film. The shows were done live and only a few hours were ever preserved in any way…and most of those were lost. Each of them did about nine years of programs, five days a week…and in total, less than an hour of any of it still exists. So here's a real quick peek at three guys who made a large chunk of my childhood fun. Or at least, less painful than it had to be…