Uncle Bill Reads the Funnies

How it feels

A local children's television show from the mid-20th century. A host with an avuncular persona introduced cartoons and entertained a live studio audience of kids.

whimsicalnostalgicbreezyplayfulhomespungently-pacedlighthearted

What happens

The following is a list of local children's television shows in the United States. These were locally produced commercial television programs intended for the child audience with unique hosts and themes. This type of programming began in the late 1940s and continued into the late 1970s; some shows continued into the 1990s. Author Tim Hollis documented about 1,400 local children's shows in a 2002 book, Hi There, Boys and Girls! The television programs typically aired in the weekday mornings before school or afternoons after school, as well as on weekends (to a lesser degree). There were different formats. Almost all shows had a stereotypical, colorful host who assumed a persona, such as a cowboy/cowgirl, captain/skipper/commodore/admiral, jungle explorer, astronaut, king/queen, prince/princess, clown, sheriff/deputy/trooper, police/cop, firefighter, hobo/tramp, railroad engineer, magician, "cousin", "grandpa" (or "grandma") or "uncle" (or "aunt"), whose role was not only to be the "DJ" (confused for a person who work on music) for syndicated material (typically cartoons, although Westerns were more popular earlier on) but also to entertain, often with a live television studio audience of kids, during breaks. Early airing fare included copyright programming, along animation such as Koko the Clown, Tom and Jerry (now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery), Looney Tunes (now owned by Warner Bros. Discovery), Crusader Rabbit, Dick Tracy, Popeye, Rocky and Bullwinkle (now owned by NBCUniversal), Casper the Friendly Ghost (now owned by NBCUniversal), Mighty Mouse (now owned by Paramount), Deputy Dawg, Hergé's Adventures of Tintin (now owned by Corus), Mel-O-Toons, Woody Woodpecker (now owned by NBCUniversal), The Funny Company, Mr. Magoo (now owned by NBCUniversal), Space Angel and Clutch Cargo, as well as short films, such as Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang/The Little Rascals and The Three Stooges (now owned by Sony Pictures), as well as animated versions of Laurel and Hardy, Abbott and Costello and The Three Stooges, and live-action shorts, such as Diver Dan. Some included educational segments such as wildlife in Nature's Window. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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