# "Ding Dong School" & "Kukla, Fran and Ollie"



## fuzzybuddy (May 25, 2016)

I saw the shows on YouTube. Got to say the version I have in my head is way better than the real shows. The reason isn't that they were done on a shoe budget, nor was it just very early TV; it's because I'm not 5 or 6 anymore.


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## SifuPhil (May 25, 2016)

I saw them the first time around and would like to see them again - I'm still 5 or 6 at heart.


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## Falcon (May 25, 2016)

I remember Fran was a nice looking lady.  Not so sure about Kukla  and Ollie.


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## Guitarist (May 25, 2016)

I wish they had more full episodes of "Captain Kangaroo" on YouTube!


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## SifuPhil (May 25, 2016)




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## Ruth n Jersey (May 25, 2016)

I watched both shows when I was a kid. I think Ding Dong school was the show where the teacher held up a looking glass and mentioned the names of children she saw. I always hoped she would mention mine. The show I really loved was Winky Dink. You could send for a screen in the mail that you placed over your own TV screen and then you could draw along with the person drawing in the studio. I don't remember his name. I must have been a bit to young for it because I had trouble keeping up with him. My Mom hated it because I always managed to smear up the TV screen and it was hard to get off.


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## SifuPhil (May 25, 2016)

Ruth n Jersey said:


> I watched both shows when I was a kid.* I think Ding Dong school was the show where the teacher held up a looking glass and mentioned the names of children she saw*. I always hoped she would mention mine. The show I really loved was Winky Dink. You could send for a screen in the mail that you placed over your own TV screen and then you could draw along with the person drawing in the studio. I don't remember his name. I must have been a bit to young for it because I had trouble keeping up with him. My Mom hated it because I always managed to smear up the TV screen and it was hard to get off.



Hmmm ... I thought that was _Romper Room.

"I see Mary ... and I see Joey ..."

_They also prayed before they ate their snacks - 

God is great
God is Good
Let us thank Him
For our food. Amen.

And Mr. Do-Bee? Do-Bee a good doer? Remember that? 

Winky Dink - lol - I couldn't afford to get the magic screen so I just drew directly on the TV screen. Mom was not amused.


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## Ruth n Jersey (May 25, 2016)

SifuPhil said:


> Hmmm ... I thought that was _Romper Room.
> 
> "I see Mary ... and I see Joey ..."
> 
> ...


You are so right, it was Romper Room. My memory is fading. I remember Do-Bee though. Sometimes I wasn't a good doer. My Mom wouldn't give me a snack in the morning when the show was on because then I wouldn't eat my lunch.


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## Guitarist (May 25, 2016)

SifuPhil said:


> Hmmm ... I thought that was _Romper Room.
> 
> "I see Mary ... and I see Joey ..."
> 
> ...



I was a Do-Bee!  I still have my certificate.  I loved Romper Room and was on it for two weeks when I was four.


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## jujube (May 25, 2016)

Ruth n Jersey said:


> I watched both shows when I was a kid. I think Ding Dong school was the show where the teacher held up a looking glass and mentioned the names of children she saw. I always hoped she would mention mine. *The show I really loved was Winky Dink. You could send for a screen in the mail that you placed over your own TV screen and then you could draw along with the person drawing in the studio.* I don't remember his name. I must have been a bit to young for it because I had trouble keeping up with him. My Mom hated it because I always managed to smear up the TV screen and it was hard to get off.



My mom wouldn't send off for the piece of film to place over the screen so I just marked on the screen with my crayons one day.  Sheesh, what a grouch!

One of my younger sisters was, to put it mildly, quirky.  At five, she had this preoccupation with bras and had a scrapbook that she pasted pictures of bras that she had cut out of the  magazines.  She talked a lot about bras....a lot.  She was chosen to be on a local TV show called "Kindergarten Kollege" for a week and my mother was concerned that the subject of bras would be brought up by her at every opportunity, so she sat down with her to have a "talk"....it's ok to talk about bras at home but WE DON'T TALK ABOUT BRAS ON TV, UNDERSTAND???  "Oh no, Mommy," she replies, "That wouldn't be _sanitary_, would it?"  To this day, that's a catchphrase in our family.


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## fuzzybuddy (May 25, 2016)

Yeow. I forgot about Winky Dink. I remember getting the plastic screen in the mail. It's strange  that my parents forked over the money to get it. (They wouldn't buy me a coon skin hat. Life is cruel.) Only played with it a couple of times-the pictures were real easy to figure out without the screen. And it was on opposite "Fury" or "Rin Tin Tin", etc.


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## Pappy (May 25, 2016)

Watched most of the shows mentioned above every week night. We were entertained by: Ho Ho, he he, my name is Pinky Lee. Big Jon and Sparky were a favorite Saturday morning radio show.


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## jujube (May 25, 2016)

Pappy said:


> Watched most of the shows mentioned above every week night. We were entertained by: *Ho Ho, he he, my name is Pinky Lee*. Big Jon and Sparky were a favorite Saturday morning radio show.



I was actually watching the day he had his heart attack(?) live on tv.  He was bouncing around in his usual manner and suddenly fell to his knees, clutched his chest and gasped, "Help me, help me."  The camera panned to someone else who got everyone involved in something else.  It was years later that I read about what had happened. He was so weird that apparently they thought he was just being funny. 

Another show that I really loved was the Soupy Sales show, the later version in the 1960's that was a cross between a kid's show and an adult humor show that was clearly over the kid's heads.  I read a funny story about how his crew played a joke on him; he answered the door and was supposed to be talking to one of the characters, but it was actually a nude woman standing there out of camera range.  As it was live tv, he had to stand there and pretend to be talking to the character while she gyrated around. 

I don't know which host it was, but supposedly there was a kiddy-show host who thought he was off the air, but wasn't yet, and said "Are we off the air? Good, we're off the air.  That ought to hold the little bastards for another week."  I guess heads rolled over that one.  The station was fined by the government. 

Ahh, the great old days of live tv.  Anything could happen and everything did.


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## SifuPhil (May 25, 2016)

According to Snopes, the "little bastards" line never happened. I would have sworn it did. 

The Soupy Sales one I've heard too - hysterical! 

Pinky Lee - the man was talented!


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## Ruth n Jersey (May 25, 2016)

I think the show with the little bastards remark was Uncle Fred. He hosted a cartoon show. All the cartoons were silent but at the end of the show, I don't know if they did it daily or weekly, they had a cake for the kids that were guests. He would announce that they were going to cut the cake and the kids at home got to watch a cartoon with sound. This is when he thought the mike was off and the remark was made. I have no idea if that actually happened but I think my Mom read about it in the newspaper.


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## fuzzybuddy (May 26, 2016)

Every TV station had a kiddie show in early TV, because they were cheap, very profitable, and who else is watching TV at 8 or 9 AM. TV networks only had programming starting in the afternoon. When the networks began their own morning kiddie shows, most of the local kiddie shows folded. It became an "Urban Legend" that the local Fluffo the Clown, Uncle Whoever, was kicked off the air for calling the kids "little bastards" while he was on the air.


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## SifuPhil (May 26, 2016)

Good point, Fuzz.


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## Guitarist (May 26, 2016)

We had "Romper Room" when I was four but we also had "The Mickey Mouse Club," which came on in the late afternoon. Mama always said that was the perfect time for a kids' show, because it came on right when dads were getting home from work and kept the kids entertained and from climbing all over dad the minute he walked in the door.  Our local "Romper Room" was done live out of our local CBS affiliate but apparently different cities had their own local "Romper Rooms."  

I also loved "Captain Kangaroo" -- it was another great morning show.

I never liked "Howdy Doody"; don't know anyone who watched it. 

Can someone post more about Kukla, Fran and Olly?  I have very faint memories of a children's program with a lady I thought was "Miss Fran" but I have no memory of Kukla and Olly from those days. What was the format of the show like?


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## Pappy (May 26, 2016)

Pinky Lee Collapses on Liive Television,  September 20, 1955










Frenetic, surreal, careless, and grotesque...these are just a few words to describe The Pinky Lee Show. Critics of children's television in the early 1950's were alarmed, and while parents and children welcomed Pinky Lee into their living rooms, it is hard to imagine that anyone would allow the checkered, silly clown through their front doors. This was not the gentle sophistication of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, but crass production geared toward selling children's products.




The show itself was heavily adlibbed, and the super-kinetic pace kept children's attention; but, the lack of studied scripting allowed questionable content to air live across the nation, and in the prime schedule spot just prior to The Howdy Doody Show. Divided into short, fast-take segments, the show featured sketches, audience interaction, and music. One episode featured a children's song promoting playing with scissors, while another performance featured a ditty about girls hearing wedding bells. Intermingled with this was Pinky Lee's lap sitting with the kids and rapid-fire product placement, such as the Miss Sweet Sue Doll and Pinky Lee's own merchandise, such as Pinky Lee shoelaces and the Pinky doll.


The show, however, was nearly as popular as Howdy Doody, and millions of children adored Pinky's antics and parents adored his baby sitting services. Then came the day that horrified children for years to come. The author of Classic Kids TV perhaps states it best:


One of my most vivid memories from my earliest days of TV watching is the day that I watched the live broadcast of the Pinky Lee Show when Pinky Lee appeared to have a heart attack right in front of his studio audience and millions of young, impressionable at-home viewers.
On the day in question, I was sitting on the living-room floor watching the show as my mother was in the kitchen.   I think it was at some point near the end of the show when Pinky suddenly stopped singing and running around and clutched his chest, looking straight at the camera, and said something like “Somebody please help me” before he keeled over onto the floor.   I think the camera stayed on the empty spot where Pinky had been standing for a few seconds, and then the TV went blank.  I remember running breathlessly into the kitchen and wailing at my mother, “Mommy, Pinky Lee fell down!  Pinky Lee fell down!” before I burst into tears.  




Indeed, children were stunned, and parents too...and as they tuned in the following day, there was still no Pinky. Nor the following day, or the next. Pinky Lee's collapse from acute nasal problems kept him off the air for a year and a half, instantly ending the popular live broadcast. Rumors abounded that Pinky had died of a heart attack. Ironically, when Pinky finally returned to TV - as host of the new Gumby and Pokey Show, his short run ended quickly on November 16, 1957, soon after he did have a heart attack. Fortunately, this time not on television, but Pinky's career never recovered to the heights of his short-lived heyday in the mid-1950s


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## Butterfly (Jun 11, 2016)

I never watched any of those shows -- we didn't have a TV until I was about 10, and, by the time we did, I was too old for that kind of stuff.  We were only allowed to watch TV for a little while in the evening each day, with our parents.


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## Della (Jun 13, 2016)

Wow this thread has brought back great memories, "It's me, it's me, my name is Pinky Lee, with my checkered hat and my checkered coat and my funny laugh like a billy goat."  I thought that was hi-larious.

My favorite was Ding Dong School.  She did girl stuff! I remember one fabulous show where she washed doll clothes in a little pan and hung them on a tiny clothes line made of sting.  I was all over that.


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## Carla (Jul 29, 2016)

Kulkla, Fran and Ollie was one of my favorites! That came on in the evening though and I used to have trouble staying awake too long after dinner. Howdy Doody was also a fav and Mickey Mouse Club too.


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## NancyNGA (Jul 29, 2016)

Does anyone remember _The Great Foudini_?   I had a hand puppet called Pinhead from that show (1951)

Pinhead is on the right, Foudini is on the left.


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## Pappy (Jul 30, 2016)

It sorta rings a bell, Nancy. I think I saw this once or twice. Long time ago.


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## DGM (Mar 3, 2018)

*Bob Keeshan*



Guitarist said:


> We had "Romper Room" when I was four but we also had "The Mickey Mouse Club," which came on in the late afternoon. Mama always said that was the perfect time for a kids' show, because it came on right when dads were getting home from work and kept the kids entertained and from climbing all over dad the minute he walked in the door.  Our local "Romper Room" was done live out of our local CBS affiliate but apparently different cities had their own local "Romper Rooms."
> 
> I also loved "Captain Kangaroo" -- it was another great morning show.
> 
> ...



Are you aware that the original "Calarbell" on Howdy Dowdy was Bob Keeshan who became Captain Kangeroo?  Are you also aware that Sgt. Bob Keeshan was a WWII Marine war hero in the Pacific?
And, while on the subject of TV when we were kids.  Tom Hanks is in a movie coming out about Mr. Rogers.


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## Big Horn (Mar 3, 2018)

NancyNGA said:


> Does anyone remember _The Great Foudini_?   I had a hand puppet called Pinhead from that show (1951)
> 
> Pinhead is on the right, Foudini is on the left.


This was the best.  Foodinii represented the world the way it should be.  I found one of the shows a while back on YouTube.  The sound quality is terrible, but it's worth the effort.

http://rhettmagic.furman.edu/FoodiniWeb/index.html

http://sbiii.com/foodini.html


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## Smiling Jane (Mar 3, 2018)

Butterfly said:


> I never watched any of those shows -- we didn't have a TV until I was about 10, and, by the time we did, I was too old for that kind of stuff.  We were only allowed to watch TV for a little while in the evening each day, with our parents.



Me too, Butterfly. My dad was pretty much the last holdout on TV. He refused to buy one because he said we would forget how to talk or read a book or any of those simple things we did before. He was certainly right about that.

My brother and I listened to a radio show with Miss Frances every morning while we got dressed for school. My mother wrote and had her gently chide us about dawdling while we were supposed to be getting dressed. We were awed!

I've thought about that experience so many times when I'm remembering how simple life used to be.


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## fmdog44 (Mar 4, 2018)

We had Captain Kangaroo and Bozo's Circus in Chicago. I was a nut for Flash Gordon but I hated waiting a full week to see how Flash would get out of the latest peril brought on by Ming The Merciless (coolest name ever for a bad guy).


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