Last week’s episode was a story of how I got to Lincoln, Nebraska and one of my directing assignments was directing Cartoon Corral and Diane Simard was on the Cartoon Corral when she was celebrating her 5th birthday and I was directing the program.
I wanted to share with you more about my interaction with Kalamity Kate.
For me, the Cartoon Corral was an interruption in the production schedule of completing local commercials that we were video taping in the afternoon. Many times we would have a studio full of cars from a local car dealer and then have to clear the studio in time to get the Corral-Set set up in time for the kids to enjoy their moment of fame on TV.
Leta Powell Drake aka Kalamity Kate was one of the hardest working people in television. She did everything from stage acting and newscasting to producing the live daily morning show as well as her popular character Kalamity Kate on Cartoon Corral. It’s said that she interviewed over 80,000 kids on Cartoon Corral. Not only did she interview kids, but she interviewed major CBS celebrities on their annual promotion junkets from Mary Tyler Moore to Tom Hanks. She paved the way for many women in entertainment with her brash knack for speaking to people on their own level.
One of the fun commercial clients she wrote for and was the talent for Aunt Betty’s Bakery in Lincoln. Seriously, she came up with the slogan “Bun Meals are Fun Meals. Get Aunt Betty’s Buns” And she could keep a straight face every time she read that line.
I got to know Leta better because she was also the producer and was the talent for a show called Gateway to Homebuying. This was a two hour show that ran on Sunday morning. It was very unique because is was skirting the then time-limit of a commercial program. Back then you were only suppose to run a certain number of minutes of commercial matter per hour. Not like the Informercials of today. The sales department had worked out a deal with Gateway Realty, the first franchised real estate company in the country so they could show houses for sale in all of their markets across Nebraska during this two hour Sunday morning program.
Jim Ebel, the station General Manager and a very smart engineer for the Fetzier Company had created 10/11 Strong to be seen as far west as Scottsbluff, Nebraska. He had the station purchase a station in Grand Island, Nebraska to simulcast channel 10’s programs and then micro-waved the station’s signal to low power translators in the various communities. So, the station was seen in Lincoln, Hastsings, York, Grand Island, Kearney, Norfork, Beatrice, North Platte, Scottsbluff and more of the little communities in-between. Historically, the station had some of the highest news ratings in the country. The one station reached practically across the entire state. KOLN–TV Channel 10 in Lincoln remained the only commercial TV station for 40 years.
At that time, many of the local television markets were fighting to keep Cable TV out of their markets. However, Jim Ebel welcomed the population of Cable TV into Lincoln Nebraska. By offering other stations to be seen from around the country via cable this kept the addition of a competing station to be established in the Lincoln market.
The first franchised Real Estate company was founded by retired Lt Colonel Raymond Gottner. Colonel Gottner had flown B17s, B29s and became the Commander of the 71st Air Refueling Squadron. He also was selected to be the first pilot to land on sea-ice to determine whether an emergency landing of a large aircraft on sea-ice would be safe. After serving in United States AirForce for 21 years, Colonel Gottner retired and became a Realtor.
The Colonel had the vision to take advantage of the coverage of the TV station and created franchised Gateway Realty offices in