All right kids, pay attention. What I have here on the blog today is a series of children’s programs that were actually live-action programs designed to entertain and educate. Some of these aired on PBS (back when PBS had about three hours of children’s programming every afternoon) and others are local TV shows, and hopefully we’ll have a great time going back to the shows of our youth.
| VILLA ALLEGRE
This show is nearly impossible to find; I was only able to find an audio clip of the show for this blog post. This was a truly bilingual show, in that every character either spoke English or Spanish at one point or another, and it was expected that everybody who watched was either bilingual or learning a new language. Awesome stuff. Sadly, there are several rights issues with this show and it has not appeared on DVD. |
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| JABBERWOCKY
If you grew up in Boston in the 1970’s, this show was part of your culture, along with episodes of Major Mudd and Boomtown. I always wondered if the person who created the opening credits watched a few too many episodes of Monty Python’s Flying Circus… but it’s still a great show. |
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| VEGETABLE SOUP
Produced by the New York State Education Department, Vegetable Soup spent 30 minutes every day teaching viewers about racial tolerance and acceptance of other cultures. Trivia note: Bette Midler provides the voice of a character named Woody the Spoon, who explains how to make different recipes from other lands. |
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| THE MAGIC GARDEN
I think this show had maybe five episodes and they ran the same episodes over and over and OVER AND OVER again. Very popular in New York City, where the show originally aired. And don’t even get me started on the Chuckle Patch… |
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| HODGEPODGE LODGE From Maryland Public Television comes this show about nature, as hosted by Miss Jean. I think this used to air on PBS at about 530 in the afternoon, right after Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. |
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| MAKE A WISH
This Saturday morning show mixed music and song with film clips. Interestingly, if you think that voice sounds very familiar, that’s Tom Chapin – his brother Harry had a few Top 40 hits back in the day. Trivia tip – Tom Chapin actually played professional basketball in Schenectady in 1972, as a member of the Schaefer Brewers team with Barry Kramer. |
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| PIXANNE
A very popular children’s show from Philadelphia, although I think it also aired in Boston. Jane Norman dresses up in the Peter Pan outfit and does a half-hour of children’s entertainment. Apparently for kids in Philadelphia, it was either her or cowgirl Sally Star, who had her own children’s program. |
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| THE FRIENDLY GIANT Look up… look way up… this was arguably one of the most popular Canadian children’s shows of all time. Over 3,000 episodes aired between 1953 and 1984. |
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| MULLIGAN STEW Another 1970’s educational program, this one was produced by the 4-H group and spent 30 minutes each episode talking about nutrition. When I saw this clip, one of the kids starts shouting, “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you what you are” – and all I could think about was that was the same intro to the Japanese version of Iron Chef. |
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| BREADTIME TALES
Yes, I needed to include the Freddie Freihofer show. What, you thought I was going to leave that one off the list? |
Yeah, I know I left off some of your favorites. So feel free to add to the list – tell me what your favorite rare children’s shows – not the standard ones, but the ones that nobody remembers but you?
Chuck The Writer 
I definitely remember the THE MAGIC GARDEN- wow that was fun to watch your video of the intro!
I used to watch a program called “The Hilarious House of Frightenstein” which was out of Canada…I really liked that program as a kid (probably mid- to late- 70s). “The Professor” and “Wolfman” were great characters. And I remember some very quirky music videos during the Wolfman sketches with Igor dancing.
Anyone else see this? It was pretty funny.
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When cable first came to this area, the former WNEW (now WNYW) in New York had a weekend program titled “Wonderama.”
At that time, it was hosted by a very genial man named Bob McAllister, who had that Fred Rogers “thing” of really being able to connect with young viewers.
I remember it being designed primarily for fun, but I also seem to recall some gentle lessons being taught by it along the way.
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Jay –
I would have included Wonderama, if for no other reason than they had such an electic group of guest stars – everyone from Muhammad Ali to ABBA appeared on that show at one time or another! But I had 10 shows for the list, and Wonderama would have been #11. Maybe in another blog post…
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“HodgePodge Lodge” is the only one of these that seems to have permeated far enough South for me to pick it up . . . . but I do remember it well.
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1. Love your blog!
2. How about “The Electric Company” with a young Morgan Freeman!
3. “The Good Ship News”. with Ralph Vartigan.
Thats all I got!
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Heavyt –
Ralph Vartigan, Mr. Monkey and the Good Ship News got some love in a previous blog post. Click here to read.
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I loved “Wonderama” too . . . . thought it was a national show, though. I actually wrote about the Ali-Frazier marble championship, filmed the day before the actual heavyweight title fight, a while ago. That’s when boxing meant something to kids, even . . . . not like today . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLMLpGPLbK0
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I guess I’m not as old as I thought as I was thinking “Land of the Lost” or “Dr. Who”.
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Actually Vegetable Soup is my favorite kids show that no one else remembers! I don’t even remember much about it, except that it must have been on around dinner time, because I was very excited one night to be eating vegetable soup while the show of the same name was on TV.
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Guess I’m at that in-between age, Chuck. Only show on the list that I remember is Breadtime Tales. Never knew that was the real name. Like everyone who I’ve run into who were actually on the show(I never was), I thought it was the Freddie Freihofer Show.
Growing up in the Capital District, with the name Freddie, lead to a great deal of teasing, ribbing, kidding, etc., which never really bothered me. I took it in stride.
But revenge is sweet, pun intended. About 5 years ago I drove for Penske Trucking, who held the contract to deliver Freihofer products to the various distribution centers around the area. When I walked into each center, for the first time, I just couldn’t resist walking up to the receiver, holding out my hand in greeting, and announcing quite proudly, “Hi. I’m Freddie, Freihofer….driver”! Needless to say, I never had to tell them my name again.
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2 out of ten…how about Betty and Moo?
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We didn’t have PBS 😦
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Yeah, “Hodgepodge Lodge” is a blast from the past.
How about “Sigmund and the Sea Monsters”?
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I was fortunate to have grown-up in Boston and to have benefitted from the pioneering-era PBS programming mentioned in this blog. I am trying to find clips from WGBH that promoted racial tolerance with animated interaction of different kinds of fruits. They may have been featured on Vegetable Soup. Does anyone remember the one where the grapes are told to ” go play with the bananas”?
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And to add to the list, “The New Zoo Revue”, “Zoom”, and the cartoon collection called “Banana Splits”…
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My brother and I would get up at 5 am to watch a tv show about a town named gaudes golindas. Sometimes they would speak english, and sometimes they would speak spanish. We have asked everyone if they have ever heard of it, but have yet to find anyone who has ever heard of it. The theme song goes as follows. “Have you ever been to Gaudes Golindas? Gaudes Golindas, Gaudes Golindas…” One of the characters was a lion, who would swing his tail in his hand. Please help. I’m beginning to believe my brother and I made this whole thing up when we were little kids. It was in the early to mid 70’s!
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Darin,
You and your brother are not the only ones who remember Gaudes Golindas. My sister and I used to watch the show Saturday mornings in the late 70’s. I’ll never forget the guy who dressed up like the lion. Unfortunately, I can’t find any information about the show online. It would be great to see it again!
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I love it! My first job in television was on “Vegetable Soup”, and I wrote most of the recipe songs that Bette sang, along with assorted other scripts, but I can always say I got my start writing for Better Midler! I have many happy memories of that show and some of the other shows you list — besides my own, I was also a big fan of “Make a Wish”, surrealist TV for kids and stoner college kids… 😉 What about “Marshall Efron’s Painless and Illustrated Sunday School”?
I spent 20 years writing for children’s television before dropping out to finish my first novel, a vampire trilogy magnum opus that begins with “BITE MARKS” A Vampire Trilogy” out last September and “BLOOD PRESSURE: A Vampire Testament” that came out in March…vampire novels for people who hate vampire novels…check my website to see what the man who raised you as a child is doing to you now… 😉 http://doyoubelieveinvampires.com/
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