I linked to a short, fuzzy excerpt from this before but today, we bring you a better copy of the whole thing, which runs 25 minutes. It's Shenanigans, a game show for kids that ran on ABC on Saturday mornings in 1964 and 1965. The host was Stubby Kaye, the announcer was Kenny Williams and the whole show was an indirect commercial for Milton-Bradley games, interrupted occasionally by direct commercials for Milton-Bradley games.
The series had a long genesis that started on local TV in New York with a much-less-elaborate kids' game show called Shenanigans, hosted and produced by a man named Bob Quigley. Mr. Quigley later moved from in front of the camera to behind, partnering with a gent named Merrill Heatter to produce game shows. One of their first successes was with a show for CBS called Video Village which had contestants running around on a giant game board. Kenny Williams was its announcer, as well. It aired from 1960 to 1962. For part of that time, there was a Saturday morning version called either Video Village Jr. or Kideo Village. As I recall, TV Guide gave it one name and the show seemed to bear the other…then they switched and TV Guide had the name that had been on the show and the show had the name that had been in TV Guide.
Two years later, Heatter-Quigley retooled the kids' version into the show you see before you which used Quigley's old title. I liked Mr. Kaye a lot and the way he sang the title song. This was one of the last game shows ever produced with live music on stage. (I wonder why in the age of synthesizers, no one has tried that again.) I thought the game itself was kinda silly and at times, condescending to children. Still, it's sad to hear that most of the episodes of this program are forever lost. I'm told only two of 'em still exist but this is the only one I've seen around…
