Local television was a lot more free-flowing back then
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- December 9, 2018
- 1015
Somewhere in that crowded attic of my memory there exists a cluster of cells that is capable of conjuring things I’d forgotten I remembered.
For example Mister Jing-a-Ling.
He was a seasonal fixture on one of the Cleveland TV stations — I’m thinking it was Channel 8 — and every afternoon during the run-up to Christmas, he hosted a show for children.
It was pretty popular.
A kid I knew appeared, and he became a star in his own right, not because of anything he did on TV, but because he was on TV.
Looking back now, I suppose we were all basking in the reflected glow of his 15 seconds of fame because that was as close as we were ever going to get to the big time.
As I recall, he played the accordion, which back in the mid-’60s was kind of anachronistic, that being the era when every boy wanted Santa to bring him an electric guitar, all of us envisioning becoming rock ‘n’ roll stars.
But he played his squeeze box well, adding depth and a certain Eastern European dimension to an otherwise desultory rendering of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
He feigned modesty on the playground in the aftermath of his performance, but he had to be gloating on the inside, perhaps thinking, “You guys made fun of me. How do you like me now?”
And none of us would have blamed him.
After all he’d met Mister Jing-a-Ling.
Cleveland, like most major markets, had a full stable of performers and celebrities, all of whom left indelible impressions on their audience. They seemed more approachable, more real, than the network stars, even as they walked in their footsteps.
Captain Kangaroo was perhaps the biggest of them all and probably entertained more kids than anyone on the tube. With his sidekick, Mister Greenjeans, and his puppets — Bunny Rabbit and Mister Moose — he combined learning with fun, all under the watchful eyes of Grandfather Clock.
On the local scene we had Barnaby, who never really seemed to like kids all that much, but there also was Captain Penny, played by Ron Penfound, who was a natural.
He had a calming presence and was always deferring to our mothers, helping them with aphorisms like “if it’s nap time, it’s name time” and “listen to your mom. She’s pretty nice, and she’s pretty smart.”
You’d see a lot of performers branching out, guys like Don Webster, who we knew as weatherman, who made a big splash when he began hosting “Upbeat,” an after-school dance program.
In the evening he’d be talking about a big snowstorm about to close schools mere hours after introducing the Choir, who would play “It’s Cold Outside” live as kids listened and did the Frug.
He was our Dick Clark.
And there were other doppelgangers out there.
Paul Wilcox was our Lawrence Welk, hosting “Polka Varieties” every weekend, and Gene Carroll was our Ted Mack, he of “The Original Amateur Hour” fame.
And then there was Ghoulardi.
It’s nearly impossible to overstate the importance and influence exerted by Ernie Anderson in his personification of the late-night TV host who preached an adolescent gospel that was equal parts anarchy and angst.
Every Friday after the 11 o’clock news, Ghoulardi commandeered the airwaves and for the next two hours would Pied-Piper his hardcore following of disciplines into a land with no rules, just lots of off-color jokes, off-the-cuff riffing and firecrackers.
“Hey!” he said, grinning maniacally behind his shades, “cool it with the boom-booms.”
Ghoulardi was ostensibly on Friday night TV to introduce scary movies and offer harmless pap and drivel between reels.
But Ernie Anderson had other ideas.
By hooking into the mindset of his followers, he attacked every obstacle, up to and including the elusive Third Wall, which was kind of the sound barrier of live television.
No one had ever broken through it until he came along.
They weren’t even sure it existed.
Ghoulardi was our Chuck Yeager.
It made sense to everyone who watched.
He talked past the camera directly to us.
And we took his message of inane rebellion everywhere.
Local television was a lot more free-flowing back then, not nearly as homogenized and dumbed down as it is now. Of course three or four mega corporations own 90 percent of the affiliates, so it’s a matter of fall in lockstep or get the plug pulled.
Sure, the internet had spawned hundreds of iconoclastic shows, but when an audience can be measured in clicks, it doesn’t make the big leagues. It just exists in a vacuum of idleness and insolence.
I don’t watch much television anymore.
Any free time I have is devoted to the radio, which is easily transported and keeps me from sitting in one place too long.
I am, however, taking advantage of some kind of free trial for Amazon Prime, an arrangement my wife made with unseen power brokers. It’s akin to Netflix, but it has a time limit, which means I’d better binge watch all of Aaron Sorkin’s absolutely amazing “The Newsroom” before Christmas.
Which brings us back to Mister Jing-a-Ling.
If you’re of a certain age and a certain geographical background, it won’t be difficult to identify the show’s primary sponsor.
It was, of course, Halle’s, one of the biggest department stores in Cleveland.
And now, for extra credit, tell me what floor Mister Jing-a-Ling’s workshop occupied.
Let that theme song play in your memory. Listen to it, and just like that, your memory — like mine — produces the correct answer.
Welcome back to the seventh floor.