Rocketship 7 & Commander Tom

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo


Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting 


Unquestionably the most popular local kids’ show of the 50s and into the 60s, Uncle Mike’s Playhouse on Ch.4 was Mike Mearian’s lasting legacy on Buffalo media.

The 1956 Sylvania TV Award nominations described Uncle Mike this way:

“Mr. Mearian’s genius as a humorist plus the best available children’s cartoons add up to youthful entertainment fun that is always in the best of taste.”

Uncle Mike’s faithful puppet sidekick, Buttons, was a marionette operated by Ellen Knetchel and voiced by Mearian.

By the time Buttons and Uncle Mike left Buffalo for a Big Apple acting career in 1967, Buffalo rug-rats had already found fun new TV shows created just for them over on Ch.7.

Jay Nelson was a disc jockey on WKBW Radio, but is perhaps best remembered as the host of Ch.7’s Jungle Jay Show.

Jungle Jay Nelson, WKBW-TV

He wore a pith helmet and a leopard print jacket while playing old Tarzan clips when kids got home from school.

The shtick was so popular that even after he left Buffalo for his native Canada to work at CHUM Radio in Toronto, he continued calling himself Jungle Jay, and continued wearing the pith helmet.

The show was just as popular north of the border as it was in Western New York, and the nickname stuck with Nelson for decades.

Sheena Queen of the Jungle (actress Irish McCalla) felt right at home on a promotional visit to Jay Nelson’s Ch.7 show.

Depending on your age, you remember him best as the host of Dialing for Dollars or the host of Rocketship 7.

Mr. Beeper, Dave, and Promo

Dave Thomas spent 16 years at WKBW-TV, starting in the newsroom anchoring newscasts and weather reports. The native of Buffalo’s West Side attended Holy Angels grammar school and Bishop Fallon High School.

His 16-year run on Rocketship 7– one of the most beloved programs in the history of Buffalo television–began on September 10, 1962. Eventually Dave would be joined by the Sweetleys, Mr. Beeper and Promo the Robot.

During the show’s run, there were two different Promo costumes and five different men who played him, including Dialing For Dollars accordion player Johnny Banaszak, who spend many years switching between his Promo and “Johnny and Jimmy” identities between shows.

Dave Thomas—real name Dave Boreanaz—left Buffalo for Philadelphia in 1978, where using the air name Dave Roberts, he was a weather man at WPVI for 31 years.

Both in Buffalo and Philadelphia, Dave was involved with the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, rising to National Vice Chairman.

His son is the actor Dave Boreanaz, who has played in the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bones, and SEAL Team.

When Dave Thomas wasn’t palling around with Promo the Robot and Mr. Beeper, he was hosting Dialing for Dollars with Nolan Johannes and Liz Dribben.

Rocketship 7 was a must watch for many Buffalo kids through the 60s and 70s, before Dave Thomas blasted off for that new job in Philadelphia in 1978.

This is the second paint job for the original Promo the Robot. A different costume was used in the mid-70s. John Banaszak played Promo during the part of the show’s run. Each day, he quickly shed the clacking Promo suit to grab his accordion and entertain on Dialing for Dollars.

Dave Thomas and Mr. Beeper

Buffalo’s longest running—and most salubrious– kids’ show starred Ch.7’s All-American weatherman Tom Jolls as Commander Tom– who eventually took to TV wearing the bright red jacket of a Canadian Mountie.

He performed with his puppet pals which early on, were mostly made from his kids’ old stuffed animals. Among them as voiced by the Commander himself, were Matty the Mod– a young, energetic, but slight dimwitted alligator; the sensitive and gentle Cecily Fripple, trying to recapture her glorious past; and trusty, faithful Dustmop– watchdog of Central Command, despite of his old age and failing eyesight.

Commander Tom’s first assignment was with Bat Head, as host of “The Superman Show.” Eventually, Bat Head flew back to his cave and it was just Commander Tom.

The last Ch.2 produced show which captured the imagination of the youngest viewers starred weatherman Bob Lawrence as Captain Bob. He did local cut-ins during a string of wildly different programs.

Not too long after the station signed on, he was the local host of an NBC cartoon called Colonel Bleep. After that show was canceled, he entertained kids during Ch.2’s playback of old 1930s Three Stooges shorts.

Captain Bob also hosted the local presentation of The Mickey Mouse Club afternoons in the late 50s and early 60s.

Although hostess “Miss Joan” made frequent personal appearances at Buffalo-area toy stores, the Romper Room program that was broadcast on WGR-TV in the late 60s was a national version of the show, aired on dozens of stations around the country.

Puppeteer Jim Menke worked on Ch.2’s Captain Bob Show as well as on WNED-TV’s “Mr. Whatnot” and “Barnaby & Co.” programs.

All through the 60s from Thanksgiving to Christmas, Ch.4 created holiday excitement with Bill Peters as Santa, Johnny Eisenberger as Forgetful the Elf, and Warren Jacober as Freezy the Polar Bear.

J. Michael Collins and Vince Saele host a WNED-TV pledge drive in the late 1960s.

Sister Mary Margaretta, Superior of St. Nicholas School, was a regular guest on Ch.4’s “The Bishop Visits Your Home.”


This page is an excerpt from  100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York. 

©2020, 2021 Buffalo Stories LLC, staffannouncer.com, and Steve Cichon

For the Kiddos on Ch.4

       By Steve Cichon
       steve@buffalostories.com
       @stevebuffalo


Excerpt from 100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting 


 In the early days on Ch.4, Woody Magnuson brought his popular “Uncle Ben” character from radio to TV. Here, he helps Shriners reward the boy who won a contest to name the zoo’s new gnu in 1950.

  Ch.4’s Uncle Jerry & pianist Aunt Annie Fadale on “Uncle Jerry’s Club.”

Uncle Jerry’s Club started on Channel 4 in 1955, and ran on Sunday morning through the rest of the decade. Jerry Brick was the floor director of “Meet the Millers” during the week, but on Sunday, he filled the Statler Hotel Ballroom with kids ready to show their talents in exchange for prizes like Parker Brothers board games and tickets to the latest Disney films.

Becoming Uncle Jerry’s next star was easy. “He holds open house every Thursday, at 4 in the WBEN studios in Hotel Statler. Jerry’s booming voice and winning smile —emanating from a 6-2, 243-pound frame—welcome all youngsters, age 6-14.”

From 1958 to 1974, husband and wife puppeteers Bob and Ellen Knechtel brought whimsy and fantasy to Ch.4’s kids shows with marionettes and puppets they’d create and perform with. The sets for shows like “Storybook Land” and “Puppet Carnival” were built and designed by Ch.4’s talented artist Ted Patton, who also built sets for Meet the Millers and the Santa show.

The Knechtels’ most famous creation was Uncle Mike’s sidekick Buttons.

One of WBEN’s most versatile and high-profile talents, Mike Mearian came to the Evening News Stations from WKBW in 1952.

An Army boxing champ and multiple Purple Heart winner during World War II, Mearian was a talented and imaginative writer and actor in both radio and television, and a warm friendly personality on the housewives-focused Luncheon programs he hosted with Virgil Booth on WBEN.

The announcer and program host is best remembered for his role as “Uncle Mike” (and later Captain Mike) on Children’s Theater, which started on Ch. 4 in 1952.

Buttons was Uncle Mike’s constant companion on those shows— the puppet was created by Ch.4’s puppetmasters Bob and Ellen Knechtel specifically for Mearian and the type of show he wanted to produce.

When he left WBEN for acting roles in New York City, some were concerned that kids might get the wrong idea about “Uncle Mike’s” first big acting gig: The spokesman for Tareyton Cigarettes. He had steady work through the 90s, when he was cast several times as a judge on “Law & Order.”

Through the years, the sets—and therefore the names—changed on Mike Mearian’s Children’s Theater. When Popeye cartoons became part of the show, he became “Captain Mike” with “Buttons the Cabin Boy.” The final set for the show before Mearian left Ch.4 was in “Uncle Mike’s attic.”

Before WBEN Program Director Bill Peters would become known to a generation of kids as “the real” Santa Claus on Ch.4, he hosted cartoons as Little Wally on Sunday mornings. Peters also frequently appeared with Van Miller’s radio show as “Norman Oklahoma.”

Like every other member of the WBEN announcer staff, Virgil Booth just about did it all on Ch.4 and the AM and FM radio stations, from disc jockey to TV and radio newscasts from the time he joined the station in 1950.

Baggage Master Virgil Booth

With Mike Mearian, Booth was the announcer on the long-running line of midday shows for housewives that were broadcast live from hotel restaurants and department store tea rooms.

News TV critic J. Don Schlaerth called him “a cheerful broadcaster with a reserved manner.” That, along with his background as an English teacher, made him the perfect man to become the host of “Fun to Learn” and programs with Clayton Freiheit at Buffalo Zoo and Ellsworth Jaeger at the Buffalo Museum of Science starting in 1951.

He had his turn at hosting kids cartoon programs, too, as “the baggage master” on “The Big Mac Show” and “Mischief Makers,” and then in the title role on the afternoon program “Mr. Bumble’s Curiosity Shop.”

Aside from Casper the Friendly Ghost cartoons—which were beckoned by Mr. Bumble’s ringing of an invisible bell, Booth would also narrate old silent-film era Our Gang shorts and other more educational short films as well.

Virgil Booth as Mr. Bumbles

Mr. Bumbles takes about 30 minutes putting on makeup and costume each Saturday afternoon,” reported The Buffalo Evening News in a profile. “He becomes a man in his 70s who uses the language of children to heighten their inquisitiveness during the 5 to 6 PM Saturday program.”

 Virgil Booth was WBEN’s Mr. Science, the soft-spoken and gentle soul who educated children while entertaining them on shows like “Your Museum of Science.”

“Fun to Learn” was an educational show that dated back to the earliest days on Ch.4. Buffalo State’s Dr. Howard Conant was one of the hosts of the show when the focus was art.

Grumbles the Elf, Santa, and the unforgettable Forgetful the Elf.

From 1948 to 1973, the children of Buffalo knew who the one, true Santa was — and it was the guy who read their letters on Ch.4.

During most of the 25 years the show aired, Hengerer’s sponsored the show to run from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve for 15 minutes on weekdays, a little longer on Saturdays. In 1956, the show that delivered approximately 50,000 letters to Santa through its run became Buffalo’s first locally-produced show regularly presented in color.

Ed Dinsmore as Santa, with Grumbles, Freezy, and Mrs. Claus.

Two different men played Santa on Channel 4. Announcer Ed Dinsmore was the first St. Nick from the show’s inception until his death in 1954.

Station program director Bill Peters — who was also known on the Van Miller Show as Norman Oklahoma — played Santa from 1954 until the program ended with his death 19 years later.

Santa, however, was barely the star of the show.

Forgetful the Elf, played memorably by WBEN copy writer and librarian John Eisenberger, was there for the entire run of the show from 1948-73.

Not only was the elf he played forgetful, but he was silly. Most shows revolved around Forgetful trying to paint Santa’s sleigh with polka dots, or trying to convince Santa to get rid of his “old fashioned” red suit for something a bit more modern.

Forgetful helps Santa (being played by Bill Peters) map out his route for Christmas Eve.

Hundreds of times through the show’s quarter century, Forgetful was seen greasing up the reindeer’s antlers, with the hopes of making them go faster.

The show’s theme song was Leroy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride,” which was also frequently used during the Christmas season by WBEN’s legendary morning man Clint Buehlman.

No full episodes or even short clips of this show — which ran for 25 years — are known to exist. The show was usually presented live, and recording was a more costly and difficult endeavor than it is today.

Santa and Forgetful had plenty of helpers through the years, all of whom — just like Peters and Eisenberger — had other jobs around the station.

Grumbles the Elf was played by executive director Gene Brook and then floor manager Bud Hagman. Another director, Warren Jacober, played Freezy the Polar Bear. There were countless other puppets and guest stars, but none rising even close to the popularity of Eisenberger’s Forgetful.

The show ended when Bill Peters died in 1973. Eisenberger died in 1984 at the age of 72.

John Eisenberger was truly a man of many talents. From his time as one of Smilin’ Bob Smith’s “High Hat Trio,” to acting on Broadway, to his time on WBEN playing country music as “Old Saddlebags,” Forgetful was only the tip of the iceberg.


This page is an excerpt from  100 Years of Buffalo Broadcasting by Steve Cichon

The full text of the book is now online.

The original 436-page book is available along with Steve’s other books online at The Buffalo Stories Bookstore and from fine booksellers around Western New York. 

©2020, 2021 Buffalo Stories LLC, staffannouncer.com, and Steve Cichon