After last week’s episode, I got a message from Robert and he really remembered the show that he used to watch on WHAS-TV in Louisville, KY station, the Randy and Cactus show. He even remembered the theme song for the show, (INSERT THEME SONG)
So, as I have asked, if there is something that reminds you of a memory let me know at Larry’s Sorta Fun Stories dot com …
After hearing from Robert, I thought it might be a good idea to research other Cartoon shows around the country as we were growing up. And to my surprise, I discovered that practically every television market had a ‘local kiddie show.”
One of the best known shows was the Bozo the Clown show. This started in 1949 and then became a franchised television show and Bozo was then in different markets. Willard Scott who became the weather-man on the NBC Today Show for many years, was an early Bozo. Willard also helped McDonalds to create their famous clown, Ronald. The most famous and last Bozo Show was in Chicago on WGN-TV.
As you listen to this, I am sure there are happy moments of you remembering home after school and you turned on the one channel out of three channels at that time, to the show with the local talent that you remember watching.
So, this is my story as how I got to the Cartoon Corral in Lincoln, Nebraska
After I had become a TV director in Peoria, Illinois, my wife and I were looking to move to the mountains in Colorado. I had on opportunity to applied to the ABC affiliate in Colorado Springs. They gave me my first commercial plane ride.
This was an early morning flight from Peoria and airlines at that time were serving a full breakfast on all their flights. All I can remember was the poor flight attendant practically crawling up the aisle at what was a very steep angle as the plane was hardly off the ground getting the breakfast cart out to serve the passengers.
I do not remember if I was offered the position in Colorado Springs, but I remember that I was not impressed with the station and did not want to take it.
The next year I got a call from the television station KOLN/KGIN 10-11 Strong in Lincoln, Nebraska and they were looking for a young energetic creative director who had street smarts. The year before the station had hired a young person with a college degree and he didn’t do well. They were glad to know I did not have a college degree, just the street smarts of what I had learned all that time skipping my college classes at Bradley University. I got the job.
The main studio of the station was on North 40th Street in Lincoln, Nebraska and the transmitter site and tower was about thirty-five miles west of Lincoln outside a small town called Beaver Crossing, Nebraska. The tower stood one thousand four hundred eighty-nine feet (1,489) and was reported to be the tallest structure in the state of Nebraska. It had an elevator in it so you could get to the top, but I missed my opportunity to ride to the top at a company picnic because I got there late. (By the way, this tower actually collapsed in 2019 in a winter storm.)
One of my assignments was directing The Cartoon Corral program Monday – Friday at 3:30 PM. The show was hosted by Kalamity Kate. Not a-lot-of-jokes, but kids with birthdays were invited to the show to sit in the corral. You had to sent in a request to be on the show and the station received so many requests that there was only a few lucky kids chosen for each show. This show was so popular that kids would be driven in from as far west of 150 miles from the station. For instan