One of my favorite "kid's shows" (which is to say it was not just for kids) was Hot Dog, which ran on NBC Saturday morning back in 1970. That was the year that network yielded to rather feeble public pressures and tried to program their kidvid lineup with more "enlightening" shows. The entire schedule suffered a humiliating rejection in the ratings, partly (I thought) because kids wanted comedy and adventure, not school on Saturday mornings; partly because (I thought) most of the educational shows weren't very good.
An exception was Hot Dog, which was a show about how things were made. They'd show you how things were made but before and during the presentation, there'd be little spots with three "experts" — Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen and Joanne Worley — offering their insights on the topics for that week.
Here's four and half minutes of Hot Dog, tackling the burning question of how to make a baseball glove. Ms. Worley isn't in this one but Woody Allen discusses the subject at hand (all improvised on the spot) and Jonathan Winters does a brilliant bit of mime with vocal sound effects. The off-camera voice you'll hear asking questions — and I'll bet he's one of the people you'll hear laughing at Johnny Winters, too — is Frank Buxton, a friend and frequent contributor to this site. Actually, several people involved in the making of Hot Dog read this site but only one of them, and it isn't Frank, has the power to get Hot Dog released on DVD. I wish this person would get off his ass and arrange it.
