'Chiller Theatre,' 'Magic Garden' and more NY TV shows we loved

They're gone now. 

Long gone.

They remain only as memories, and wisps of ones at that. But once … once, they were our TV everything. 

Admittedly we were young and uncritical. But those wisps of memories do nevertheless recall something — or someone — that was good and reliable. 

Chuck and Sandy and Joe (both of them). A "Million Dollar Movie" and a "Chiller Theatre" and "The Magic Garden." 

These hosts and shows had long runs at New York's independent stations (WWOR/9, WPIX/11 and WNYW/5), low-budget operations that had no sense of posterity but a particularly keen sense of the buck. The stations were indeed cheap, but that parsimony was matched with a willingness to try anything. That's what made their shows and hosts so fun. 

Nevertheless, they left precious little evidence of their efforts, other than a fleeting clip here and there (the YouTube channel, "Old Time Television," and website, TVParty, are excellent stops for those).

So to revive memories — happy ones, hopefully — here are nine classics from New York TV's golden years. This list is far from complete but it is representative. Who could forget any of these? Who would want to? 

SANDY BECKER

Prolific, creative and beloved, Sandy Becker commanded New York's early kids' TV scene like no other. His puppetry directly influenced Chuck McCann (seebelow), and indirectly "Sesame Street." His editorial approach (treat kids with respect) became a template for future hosts, or the better ones at least. 

His many characters — from DJ Hambone to the muddled Old Professor — were icons of that long-ago moment. 

And prolific? In TV terms, Becker invented the word. From 1955 on, he was on the air 18-plus hours a week, six on Sunday when he launched "Wonderama."   "The Sandy Becker Show" aired various times of the day until 1968, when Becker walked away from TV for good.

Explaining his basic style through all those years, he once told an interviewer that kids are "able to distinguish between real humor and trash. They won't be satisfied for long with the clown wearing a beanie." 

Instead, Becker deployed puppets — 13 of them, which he had created and voiced. He had animal "guests"' (his own dog, Schatzi), and a real animal trainer, "Uncle Mike" Grimaldi of the Massapequa Park Zoo. (Mike Grimaldi, who bought Frank Buck's Jungle Camp in the '50s with his father and four brothers — which they then renamed and later sold to a developer in 1965 — also appeared on "The Merry Mailman," according to family member Betty Grimaldi, of Lindenhurst.) 

Raised in Jackson Heights, Becker raised three children of his own in Great Neck then later retired to Remsenburg where he died in 1996 at the age of 74. Whether TV left Becker or vice versa, remains unclear, although he told Newsday in 1987 that "I'm saddened to see what's happened to TV. There's so much killing and violence. I can't imagine how that seeps into the subconscious of these kids."

He had no desire to return. "I don't want to abuse those memories," he said. "I just want to leave them alone." 

OFFICER JOE BOLTON

Officer Joe Bolton is evidence that it's rarely productive to judge the conventions of one age with those of another. In the 1950s, Officer Joe was perfectly reasonable because uniforms conveyed authority and authority was good. Moreover, authority helped sell stuff. Eisenhower-era TV kids' hosts were pitchmen as much as entertainers. 

There is almost nothing left of Officer Joe because WPIX declined to tape anything, or create kinescopes of his shows. But Joe was kind, witty, gentle — never a scold, always reassuring.

Kevin Butler, a kids' TV historian, said Bolton had "an honest and sincere" manner and " a wonderful way of talking to children as individuals. He acted almost like a real cop and taught [kids] to respect authority." 

After a run as a performer on stage and radio in the 1930s and '40s, Bolton helped launch Ch. 11 and performed various on-air jobs too, including weather forecaster. When the station landed the rights to "The Little Rascals," the popular weather forecaster was appointed host. 

"Clubhouse Gang" arrived earlier 1955, with a studio audience (Billy Crystal was a regular) which lasted until 1957, followed by "The Three Stooges Funhouse." Bolton was so closely identified with the Stooges that he made personal appearances with them around he city (and later a cameo in their 1965 movies "The Outlaws Is Coming").

By the early 1960s, he'd gone on to host other stuff, like "The Dick Tracy Show" where he gave himself a promotion (Police Chief Bolton). But the days of adult kids show hosts were ending. In 1975, he left WPIX for California where he died at the age of 75 in 1986.

THE JOE FRANKLIN SHOW

When he died in 2015, Joe Franklin was a New York TV institution by the numbers: 88 years on the planet, 60+ of them on TV and radio, for a total of 300,000 guests (and celebrated his 40th anniversary on the air by interviewing himself). He interviewed everyone — really, everyone — and a guest actually died on his show. (Franklin thought the man had fallen asleep on his couch; the episode never aired.)

 Perched on the edge of night, or morning (1 a.m.), his show announced itself with a piano fortissimo version of "The Twelfth Street Rag," then cued to the "Wizard of Was" himself. (In fact, the first version of his show, "Joe Franklin — Disc Jockey," aired at noon on Ch. 7, becoming the first show to do so at WJZ, as WABC was known back then. It was later called "Joe Franklin's Memory Lane" for a time at Ch.9.)

To be interviewed by Franklin was to be embraced by a warm glow of cordiality, followed by a chaser of nostalgia, or the occasional non-sequitur about golden age Hollywood (and Broadway) trivia. (His knowledge was vast.) Every guest was a "friend," typically a "very good" one. Billy Crystal, clearly a fan himself, immortalized the style with a pitch-perfect "Saturday Night Live" impression. 

After a 42-year run, the Ch. 9 TV show finally wrapped in 1993, while his radio show continued at WOR (Saturdays, midnight to 5 a.m.) and later on Bloomberg Radio Network. Steve Garrin, his radio producer and longtime booker, says Franklin "remembered everything but did all his research so that he knew when he asked the first question and listened, he could predict his next question in the conversation. He didn't have a set list to go through."

The result, he says, was kind of a late night "haimish" — Yiddish for cozy, informal, familiar.

Garrin admits that a lot of famous people who had come on the show when they were first starting out "never came back because it reminded them of their poor days."

As a result, the guest list tended to be eclectic. "There were press agents who pitched him crazy people '' says Garrin, but "he mixed it up. For example, Ronald Reagan was on with the Dancing Dentists, or the guy who played harmonica through the nose. It was really a circus."

CHUCK MCCANN

 Chuck McCann was (and easily) remains the king of New York kids' TV, also the successor to another Queens native, Sandy Becker, who launched McCann's career at Ch. 5. McCann's talents were both protean and well-suited to the vast maw he had to fill when he got to WPIX/11. Like Becker, he was on the air dozens of hours a week, three on Sundays, with "Let's Have Fun," while the other six days were filled with "The Chuck McCann Show."

To fill all those hours, he relied on puppets designed by legendary puppeteer Paul Ashley, who came over to WPIX with him in 1960. Though rarely if ever seen on-screen, Ashley would be McCann's closest collaborator at PIX, or as McCann told the website TV Party in a 2007 interview, "he was everything to me — my closest friend — and we worked together for so many years doing that stuff."

That stuff riveted a generation of fans because besides puppets, McCann did impressions and created his own human characters, too. Some were modeled on popular daily comic characters like Dondi and Little Orphan Annie during the newspaper strike of 1962-63, when he devoted "Let's Have Fun" to reading (and performing) the sidelined comic strips on the air.

When he was doing the WPIX shows, "I lived on 49th street and would get out of bed, walked to [PIX headquarters on] 42nd Street," he told TV Party. "And that's when I created what I was going to do" on any given day. 

After leaving for California in 1973, McCann kept busy. There were countless voice-over roles, commercials (Right Guard, Cocoa Puffs) and a few respected on-screen roles too ("Storyville," "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"). McCann was most closely associated with Laurel & Hardy over this 13-year run at WPIX/11, honoring them by launching the fan club Sons of the Desert.

He would call the years at Ch. 11 as the best of his life. "In those days, we meant well," he told Newsday years later. Marty Appel, a Yankees historian (and longtime Yankees producer for Ch. 11) says McCann "always had a loyalty to PIX" and the station to him. "When we did a 40th anniversary show in 1988, he came back and was the big star." Ch. 11, Appel says, still reveres him. McCann died in 2018. 

CAPTAIN JACK MCCARTHY

 "Four bells and welcome aboard, maties." 

 And with that, Captain Jack introduced Popeye cartoons at WPIX/11 from 1963 to 1972, but his even better known role — so-called "Mister Ireland USA" as host of Ch. 11's coverage of the St. Patrick's Day parade — lasted for over 40 years.   

Like so many other kids' TV announcers at WPIX, McCarthy came with no special qualifications other than an ability to ad-lib and an endlessly congenial manner.   He got the "Captain Jack" gig after his predecessor, Allen Swift, clashed with station management over on-air advisories when a 4-year-old had been killed after copying a Popeye stunt.

James Glynn, a WPIX historian and TV producer who often visited the station as a teenager, recalls McCarthy as "a very nice person who spoke to the audience the same way he spoke to his own children. 'Don't disobey your parents. Don't take candy from strangers.' That sort of thing. It was from the exact same mold as the other hosts there."

Even after McCarthy left WPIX for a job at OTB, he continued to host the parade until 1989 (he died in 1996). As MC, he spent four hours on the air talking about Ireland, Irish culture, food, art and music, then closed with a couple of lines from some Irish drinking toast: "May you be in heaven a half-hour before the devil finds out your dead … ''

With that, McCarthy would then join the parade, as another voice from the booth announced, "there goes Mister Ireland USA, Jack McCarthy! May his shadow never grow less …"

THE MAGIC GARDEN

While coming later than some of the other New York TV kids classics, a warm glow of nostalgia still bonds fans to this classic. There are reasons for that. Airing just 52 episodes starting March 6, 1972 — then repeated continuously until 1984 — there was the magic tree, and magic giggling flowers, and the magic talking squirrel, Sherlock. Then, there were those human stars, Carole Demas and Paula Janis.

New York City schoolteachers and childhood friends who had re-connected at NYU when hired by Ch. 11 to develop this new series, their "Garden" played to their strengths. Demas was appearing on Broadway in "Grease," while Janis played guitar. Music was a big element (recall the opening song's famous refrain — "open up the window! listen to the wind blow!") while Janis and Demas composed their own songs, for the most part.

Paula's daughter, Monica Janis, a TV producer and manager of their TV affairs — explains that the show "ran on repeat for twelve years which is why people really remember them — because they saw each episode four times a year."

"The Magic Garden'' also had perfect timing. WPIX essentially ordered the show under duress from a newly activist Federal Communications Commission which was poised to force a new childrens' TV policy on stations. TV's so-called "special obligation" to children, per the FCC, meant more "quality" and fewer hosts shilling products to kids. 

 To this day, "The Magic Garden" has a considerable fan base. Janis and Demas still perform concerts occasionally on Long Island (the duo was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2010). A pair of Emmy-winning writers from "Sesame Street" — Christine Ferraro and Carol-Lynn Parente — are developing an animated reboot and a documentary on the show is also under development.

"WPIX never imagined it would become this massive success but then no one did," says Monica Janis. "Carole and Paula can't believe that they touched hundreds of thousands of kids' lives. But there was such an intimacy in the garden and that carries through after all these years." 

THE MERRY MAILMAN

Ray Heatherton of Rockville Centre? Where to begin? Vocalist for big band leader Paul Whiteman's radio show in the late '20s. Broadway musical star in the '30s. Big solo singing career in the '40s.

Then, finally, most incongruously, the Merry Mailman, starting in 1950 at WOR/9; Heatherton borrowed the name from a minor hit of his years earlier, while the persona naturally followed.

"The Merry Mailman" was the earliest of the early New York TV kids shows and, until Sandy Becker came along in 1955, Heatherton had the turf pretty much to himself, other than "Howdy Doody." He created a gentle space, filled with advice, craft making, games and (of course) songs. (He later got a letter carrier assistant, played by Milt Moss, who performed various characters on the show.)

And yes, "The Merry Mailman" had something rare for kids TV of the time — a studio audience. Ch. 9 actually spent money on this, and shows that followed years later, notably "Captain Kangaroo" (1955), found much to emulate.

After wrapping in 1956, Heatherton later (briefly) reprised "The Merry Mailman" for Ch. 11, but otherwise spent the rest of his career on Long Island. Dave Heatherton, his great nephew, recalls that "he was pretty much master of ceremony for every parade on Long Island. Everybody requested his presence and he showed up for everything."

Heatherton became so closely tied to LI that then-Sen. Robert Kennedy anointed him "Mayor of Long Island '' in 1965, per Dave Heatherton. "He loved Long Island, the people of Long Island and wanted to be there to help the Island grow," he recalls.

As such, Heatherton never ventured far. After TV, he worked as a Franklin National Bank (later European/American Bank) vice president "for a good twelve years," says Dave Heatherton, and continued to host various celebrity interview radio shows, like "Luncheon at Sardi's." (The best known of those was "Breakfast Club," which Heatherton hosted for years from various locations around the Island including the Sky Club of the EAB Bank building at Roosevelt Field, and Adelphi's WBAU, where the last one aired in 1993.)

"I love talking about him," says Heatherton of his great-uncle, who died in 1997. "He was always there for us as much as he was there for Long Island."

 MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE

Launched on WOR/9 in 1954, "MDM '' was a brash upstart that revolutionized the TV industry before its cancellation in 1966. It was revived a few years later, but "The Morton Downey Jr. Show" shoved it for good in 1987. But over those runs, few theme songs ("Tara's," from "Gone with the Wind'') or opening credits (the Manhattan skyline) were more emblematic of New York TV than this.

The history is complicated but here's the bubble gum wrapper version: In 1948, Howard Hughes bought RKO, the once-great, then fast-waning studio but had no idea how to turn it around. Conceding defeat, he sold RKO's movie catalog to General Tire & Rubber — which by that time had launched "MDM" on the station it owned in New York. WOR/9 desperately needed "product" but the major Hollywood studios had no intention of helping the nascent TV business.    

That's why the record breaking $25 million RKO deal instantly changed everything. With those movies, Ch. 9 quickly became the third highest rated station in New York. "MDM'' just as quickly became the monster that took over Ch. 9's schedule ("King Kong" was an especially popular offering). One title (the RKO catalog had 740 movies) aired sixteen times a week, twice on Saturdays. There was no escaping "Million Dollar" movie and Tara. (The hype and intensive airplay would eventually go away, when Ch. 9 got down to just one airing per night, at 7:30.) 

Soon, the rest of Hollywood started selling their catalogs and by the end of the decade, 3,700 old movies were airing on TV stations everywhere (WABC/7 had a popular 4:30 franchise for years.) Missing from this old movie crush, however, was "Gone with the Wind" — the one title Hollywood refused to part with. Perhaps as an incentive to get it to change its mind (alas, the historic record is unclear), Ch. 9 aired the theme countless times instead. 

JOHN ZACHERLE AND "CHILLER THEATER"
John Zacherle easily transcended TV and the various monster TV franchises he was associated with, most famously "Chiller Theatre" (recall the six-fingered hand arising out of the muck before the opening credits). 

No one was like "The Zach" and no one possibly could have been although many did try (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark?). Dick Clark — then host of a Philadelphia- based show called "Bandstand" — dubbed Zacherle, host of a late night monster feature, "the Cool Ghoul." The name stuck and cult status soon followed, along with a novelty song ("Dinner with Drac'') that got national radio airplay. Soon, the Cool Ghoul left for WABC/7 (1958), then WOR (1960) and finally WPIX (1963). By then he was a big enough star to have appeared on "What's My Line?" (without makeup for once) and with the Grateful Dead (at Fillmore East, in 1970).   

A tall, patrician World War II vet, Zacherle (who would later add a "y" at the end of his name so fans knew how to pronounce his name) was an unlikely TV ghoul.   In the late '50s, parents were concerned about the effect horror movies would have on their kids, so to defuse the concern, Zach made fun of them. A mock Nosferatu, he wore dark shadow makeup to look like a cadaver and black flowing cape because that's what everyone assumed vampires were supposed to wear. During breaks in the movie leading into commercials, he'd chat with his coffin-bound vampire wife, "My Dear," and son Gasport (poor Gasport was just a sack of potatoes hung from the studio ceiling).

His famous "co-star" was Thelma the amoeba (a large slab of Jell-O tied up in cheesecloth, which frequently leaked).

His kicker after every invariably dreadful movie: "Goodnight, whatever you are …"

He bounced around the different stations and at WPIX — after he'd run through their stock of oldies and baddies, he hosted cartoons, then later "The Three Stooges." There was a brief stopover in New Jersey as host of a dance show ("Disc-O-Teen"), then he fell into a whole new career on radio — as the long-running morning host on WNEW-FM, then late night DJ for WPLJ-FM.

But Zach — who died in 2016 at the age of 98 — never abandoned the Cool Ghoul. Late in his career, he launched a YouTube channel, "The Zacherley Archives'' where he showed old clips and mused about the good old days ("remember when Channel 9 did Three-D?! Hahahahaha …") and closed with that immortal line, "Goodnight, whatever you are …"