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By Janice Lane Palko
Before there was Nickelodeon and nationally produced network children’s shows, Pittsburgh area television stations created their own children’s programming.
Josie Carie hosted The Children’s Corner from 1953 to 1961. The WQED show was innovative in that it was both educational and entertaining for children. This show was also where Fred Rogers career in children’s television began. Rogers was the program’s composer, organist and puppeteer. It was on The Children’s Corner that beloved characters such as Daniel Striped Tiger, Henrietta Pussycat, X The Owl and King Friday XIII first appeared and would also be featured on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
The show first aired in Canada in 1962 as Misterogers, but Rogers moved back to Pittsburgh, changed the show’s name and began broadcasting in 1968. The show ran until 2001 and became a cultural phenomenon, even inspiring a spoof of the show on Saturday Night Live called “Mr. Robinson’s Neighborhood” that starred Eddie Murphy.
Though other Pittsburgh-produced kids’ shows didn’t achieve the national acclaim of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Paul Shannon’s Adventure Time and Ricki & Copper were nevertheless quite popular with kids in Western Pennsylvania.
Adventure Time aired on WTAE-TV from 1958 to 1979. Shannon would use his “magic sword” to introduce cartoons, saying the phrase “Down goes the curtain and back up again for . . .” and it would precede such classic cartoons as Popeye, Beanie and Cecil, and Rocky and Bullwinkle. Adventure Time also ran many of the Three Stooges episodes. The show had a studio audience, often made up of Girl Scouts, Brownie, Cub Scouts, and Boy Scouts.
Also airing on WTAE-TV was Ricki & Copper, which featured host Ricki Wertz and her dog Copper. The show also had a studio audience, and her catch phrase was “Ala-ka-zaam, Ka-zaam, Ka-zoom!” The show ran from 1959 – 1969, and afterward, Wertz went on to host WTAE’s Junior High Quiz.
Before it became WPXI-TV, the station was known as WIIC, and it featured a show called Cartoon Colorama, whose host was the puppet Willie the Duck and weatherman Don Riggs, who was the voice of the duck. That was Rigg’s second shot at children’s programming in Pittsburgh. In 1960 he came to KDKA-TV where he took the persona as Bwana Don, the host of the TV show, Safari, which featured reruns of Tarzan movies.
While these shows may not have had the production values of today’s shows, kids who grew up in Pittsburgh certainly enjoyed them.