Live Television! |
|
Back then most local TV stations had some sort of live kid's show. Dallas-Ft. Worth was no exception. Each city produced an markedly different style of kid's show. From Dallas came WFAA-TVs Mr. Peppermint. This was a happy Capt. Kangaroo type of show where Mr. Peppermint (played by Jerry Haynes) dressed in a red and white striped suit with a matching hat and cane.
His companions in mirth and music were Muffin (a rodent of some sort who spoke like he had permanent nasal congestion) and Mr. Wiggly Worm (a latexed finger who would emerge from his worm hole to check his little mailbox and otherwise interact with Mr. Peppermint).
|
From Ft. Worth came KTVT-TVs Slam Bang Theater which starred Icky Twerp (Bill Camfield). It was the virtual opposite of Mr. Peppermint both in style and content. Icky along with his ape-faced pals Ajax & Delphinum, brought a Vaudvillian style of slapstick comedy to our morning TV sets. Live action comedy sketches, cartoons, and the Three Stooges made up most of Slam Bang Theatres's format.
|
Land of the Giants |
|
|
An Irwin Allen classic, Land of the Giants centers around the Earth ship Spindrift that is sucked into a time/space vortex only to return back to the Earth...a GIANT EARTH! The series which ran from 1968 to 1970, was mainly about how the ships' valiant crew and passengers dealt with a world of giant tormentors...the most perfect and believable story premise for a kid! In the series, the characters had to deal with a hostile, authoritarian world and survive to find their way back home. Similiarly in a world of adults, kids could imagine how THEY would react to the small, powerless, and insignificant. Characters included Capt. Steve Burton (Gary Conway), First Officer Dan Erickson (Don Marshall), and the alluring Flight Attendant Valerie Scott (Deanna Lund). |
|
The Mighty Hercules |
|
Hercules was always getting bored with life on Mt. Olympus, so he would "jump" all the way down to the Earth to mess with the mortals. This jump from Olympus must have been a sight for the Greeks below since he usually only wore
a skimpy tunic! With the aid of his centaur pals, Newton and Toot, Herc would use his magic ring to defeat the powers of evil and to ensure the hegemony of the polythestic regime of Zeus.
 |
|
Clutch Cargo |
|
|
The beating of the jungle drums was the signal for kids to get in front of the TV for another Clutch Cargo adventure! Clutch, and his pals Spinner and Paddlefoot, were always traveling to the edges of human understanding to deal with some trivial matter. They always had access to the coolest "Space Age" equipment and vehicles leading me to believe they must have had a DoD size budget! The most memorable feature of this cartoon were the mouths of the characters. Human-like lips were strangely superimposed onto the cartoon to create mouth movements, which ironically, we still see on current late night comedy sketchs. |
|
The Time Tunnel |
|
|
An Irwin Allen time travel thriller! Two scientists get trapped in a top-secret time travel experiment and are thrown all over the space-time continuum. Just when our heros would get the historical situation under control the folks back at the lab would monkey around with the controls and shoot them off into another time and place. Many kids played Time Tunnel by pretending to fly around through the ozone and come crashing down into another time/dimension. |
|
Batman |
|
|
Forget the later movie version, Adam West was the real thing and he didn't need a body sculpted bat suit either...just polyester. It seems he had a tool for every kind of job...the Bob Vila of comic book crimefighters! The show had a visual style that I've not appreciated until today (note the slanted camera angle when the bad guys come on the screen). While the TV show was great, the first Batman movie was better! Kids were literally rioting outside the Texas Theater in downtown Sherman, Texas trying to get in! Batman movie posters, which were plastered all over the front of the theater, were ripped off one by one with each showing prompting even more excitement! |
|
Popeye the Sailor |
|
Simply put, Popeye was the man! Not only was he able to survive life visually imparied, but he was able to dominate the forces of evil given the infusion of a a few Vitiamans! While his debut in the comics was in 1929, Popeye first appeared on the big screen in 1933 with the help of Max and Dave Fleischer.
The series reached its technical zenith by the 1950's, and by the 1960's production was taken over by a new producer, Al Brodax. The simplier, and cheaper animation may not have the same technical
appeal, but it created a memorable and unassuming "Patio" style cartoon remembered by many.
 |
|
Our Gang/Little Rascals |
|
|
This Hal Roach classic was produced from the 1920s through the 1940s and is another example of how television saved old movie theater shorts. Evolving from the Little Rascals of the 1920s, Our Gang's cast of characters is best know from the 1940s when it featured Spanky, Alfalfa, Darla, Mickey, Froggy, Buckwheat and Butch. It was made into a full length feature movie recently which fortunatly preserved the spirit of a more innocent time.  |
|
The Monkees |
|
Television's answer to the Beatles. The "Pre-Fab Four" cruised around in the customized jalopy looking for adventure and hijinks. The rather light plot lines would be interspersed with live music concert footage. As goofy as this show seems today, I can remember when
KDSX-AM radio (Sherman-Denison, TX) was inundated with calls from eager pre-teen Monkees fans to play their latest hit. On a Saturday it wouldn't be uncommon for the old kitchen wall radio to play "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone" and "I'm a Believer" several times each hour!
|
|
Felix The Cat |
|
|
I can hear it still... Felix the Cat, The wonderful, wonderful cat. You'll laugh so much your sides will ache, Your heart'll go piddy-pat, All for Felix, the wonderful cat. 
Felix was a pretty laid back kind of cat, that is until his neighbors the Professor and Rock Bottom started scheming. Sometimes the Master Cylinder (who lived on Mars) would get into the action as well. No problem for Felix. He would just reach into his yellow bag of tricks and viola--what ever
was needed to take care of the bad guys was there! He also had help from the Eskimo named Vavoom who could harness tremendous power through the use of his loud voice. Listen:
|
|
Leave it to Beaver |
|
The ideal post-war Patio Family! Ward, June, Wally and Theodore (Beaver) Cleaver showed the rest of America how to Patio. Leave It To Beaver was on my "A-list" of afternoon TV viewing and for 30 minutes you could watch a kid who got into more trouble than you did! |
|
Star Trek |
|
The one that started it all. James T. Kirk didn't worry much about Political Correctness...he had a job to do. Actually I didn't get to see much of the original Star Trek during it's prime time network run (remember dads controlled
the TV so it was usually Bonanza for us). I picked it up later during syndication like most people. There were two distinct popular culture genres for boys in the 1950's and 1960's. The 50's tended to focus on the past (cowboys and indians, Davy Crockett, etc.), and the 60's focused more on the future with science fiction. I'm sure the space program and various technological advances were a major
inspiration for that. There's plenty more Star Trek incarnations to watch...ahead warp factor two.
 |
Enhanced computer graphics clip from "The Doomsday Machine" the way we WISHED it had looked like! |
NEW! Downloadable Retro Classics from Amazon.com
Can't wait to see a classic retro show? Then download it directly to your computer!
Instant gratification brought to you by the Patio generation that perfected it!
|
Recommend Patio Culture to a friend! |
The Patio | Patio Store | Kid Stuff | TV! | Abject Cruelty To Insects
| Exotica! | A Treatise on Suburbia
Slam Bang Theatre | Cold War | Hot Links | Suburban Cuisine | Home
