It must have been more than a half century since Willie the Worm crossed my mind, but my memory was jogged yesterday as I was walking through the neighborhood with Meade, and we stopped to look at an elaborate yard display that had a sign with the lyric "Whisper words of wisdom" from the Beatles' song "Let It Be." The painted letters were a bit blobby and misshapen, and Meade read it as "Whisper worms of wisdom." My memory whispered the name of that worm of wisdom: "Willie."
I'm so touched to find video of my long-lost childhood friend, the puppet Willie the Worm. But let me acknowledge 2 other Willies the Worm:
1. The cartoon character: "[Charles M. Grothkopf] made history with 'Willie the Worm' (1938) for Max and Dave Fleischer's studio. This was the first animated cartoon to be created for a television broadcast, still an experimental medium at the time. NBC aired it, but at the time few Americans owned a TV set, so barely anybody saw it."
2. The boxer: "Willie 'The Worm' Monroe (June 5, 1946 - June 22, 2019) was a middleweight boxer who competed from 1969 to 1981. He was most notable for defeating Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1976 before Hagler went on an eleven year undefeated streak. Monroe received his nickname 'the Worm' for his slippery fighting style from Yank Durham."
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64 comments:
“Willie the Worm” is what Monica Lewinsky found under the Resolute desk.
The name is a penis joke, Willie and worm together. The show doesn't seem to live up to it. No jokes for adults.
Remembering the Dutch "Cats Band" singing my favorite version of Scarlet Ribbons . . .
Needs a competitive kids' show Biddy the Beaver.
Thanks to the Navy, I was a transcontinental fetus: conceived in Carmel, born in Norfolk. My older brother was, also, but in the other direction. On the long drive, Dad ran out of gas 5 miles from his mother's house, and then an oak tree fell on our house a month before I was born. I blame my all troubles on these.
A co-worker in the 80s had appeared on Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's local kids show in Norfolk before they started Pass The Loot Club. She remembered Tammy had beautiful natural skin and Jim swore at someone, which her mother complained about, despite being married to a sailor.
No on Willie the Worm.
But I do remember lunch with Casey Jones, and his sidekick Roundhouse Rodney.
Who else was a bit bummed to learn that Bozo was the franchised product of a big Eastern syndicate?
Willie the Worm boxed at Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in Tampa a couple of times.
I appeared, briefly, on the local "Bozo the Clown" show in Limestone, ME, in 1962.
Willie the Worm (And His Cadillac Coffin) Stevie Ray Vaughan
Engineer Bill and his red light/green light schtik for milk drinking in SoCal… Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans
That show was too brainy for Philly.
I felt the exact same when I found Gene London and Sally Starr on the internet!
When you pass on, you will perhaps be the last person who saw this creature as he first appeared on TV. There is no one now alive with a living memory of WWI. Transience is relentless.....I have a vague memory of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. I remember Fran was kind of hot. The show was on for a long time, mostly thanks to her. Howdy Dowdy, however, remains the one kiddie show that everyone remembers.
I remember the Willie the Worm show. We were living in NJ and got TV in 1949. Other shows from Philly TV at the time were Ernie Kovacs in the morning and Super Circus on Saturday.
Howdy Doody, dude!
What, no mention of Rooty Kazootie?
John Henry
Say Kids! What Time Is It? is the insider's view of the show, the sex, round-heels Princess Summerfall Winterspring, the randy cast characters, the seething hatred of Buffalo Bob for Bob Keeshan Clarabell. By the son of a producer or something like that. Amusing if you say the (early) show.
Nope on Willie the Worm. As a youngster I lived outside of Cleveland, and the local kid's show was a guy named "Captain Penny." He had a saying that he ended each show with:
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool Mom. She's pretty nice and she's pretty smart. If you do what Mom says you won't go far wrong."
His second wife of three infamously committed suicide by jumping off the 175' high Cuyahoga River bridge of the Ohio Turnpike. We'd go over the long winding bridge on the way to Youngstown to visit family.
Captain Penny was good, but he was no Ray Rayner, the star of a Chicago based morning children's show on WGN-TV. Ray also played the clown Olliver O. Oliver on Bozo's Circus.
You probably can't produce a decent kid-holding kids' show unless the entire cast is sex-crazed behind the scenes.
Ann: you and I are contemporaries. I also grew up on Willie the Worm. And others like Howdy Doody, Berty the Bunyip, and of course Chief Halftown and Sally Starr.
My granddaughters are more partial to X-Pop Demon Hunters.
I pray for them.
You can't fool all of the people all of the time but if you can do it just once, it lasts for four years. - Roger Price of Doodles fame.
Before my time, but I do remember Sally Starr, Pixanne, and Wee Willie Webber with Hercules and Astroboy.
The community center was having a Christmas get-together, so I got a lift from the director. He was originally from South Jersey too, so we reminisced about all this on the drive over. Pennsauken Mart and Roger Wilco liquors, etc.
Althouse said...
I'm so touched to find video of my long-lost childhood friend, the puppet Willie the Worm.
"You should forget it. You're living in the past, man. You're hung up on some worm from the 50s, man! "
How about the Soupbone, kids?
https://themoderatevoice.com/pie-throwing-tv-comedian-soupy-sales-dies-83-an-appreciation-of-his-art/
I vaguely remember Romper Room and Mister Rogers as a small child- I have more firm memories after about age 5 of Mr. Cartoon that ran in the afternoons on a channel out of Huntington, WV.
This brings to mind an early SNL bit where Gilda Radner plays Debbie Doodie, Howdy Doodie's widow, trying to date again.
If you grew up in LA during the same time it was Sheriff John with Crusader Rabbit cartoons, and a bit later Engineer Bill (“On the green light you go, and on the red light you stop, because no engineer would ever run a red light”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQWqiJyNgFg&pp=ygUVY3J1c2FkZXIgcmFiYml0IGludHJv
Eee sa sa sassaway
Chief Halftown kids will know exactly what I’m talking about.
Yancey Ward - yes, Romper Room! I did not know that it was a national show. It would not be aired these days. I remember "snack" time. "God is good, God is great, let us thank him for our food. Amen" I think my mom would hand me a graham cracker so I wouldn't be "left out." At least I think that was Romper Room.
I also remember Howdy Doody, Capt. Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, Soupy Sales. Then I graduated to all the Saturday morning western half hours. Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, The Adventures of Rin-Tin-Tin, Fury, etc. I included Sky King even though horses weren't included very often. Oh, and Wild Bill Hickock. "Wait for me, Wild Bill!"
Money Manger said...
"But I do remember lunch with Casey Jones, and his sidekick Roundhouse Rodney."
***********
"Head for the roundhouse, Rodney---they can't corner us there!!!"
baddabish
You may also recall: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie; Pip the Piper; Sally Starr with Clutch Cargo animation; Pinky Lee; and Shari Lewis
Just looking at him I thought he should sound like Levi Stubbs in Little Shop of Horrors.
My earliest memory of TV was the Cartoon ," Crusader Rabbit".
It was part of Chuck Bills "Serial Theater." on channel seven in Chicago.
Of the names that have been mentioned, Sally Starr was by far the most important to me. I cannot convey how much I loved the Popeye cartoons. I imagined myself to be Popeye's biggest fan. And there was no getting to Popeye without "our gal Sal."
I must say, I never saw Pinky Lee on TV. Heard his name among the northern New Jersey friends I had in high school. I suspect he was on NY tv but not Philadelphia TV.
Gene London was beloved among my Delaware friends.
And I enjoyed being reminded of Pixanne. Hadn't thought of Pixanne in probably longer than I hadn't thought of Willlie the Worm.
Willie looks like a real hep cat stud. But Popeye is my favorite. His immortal quote sustains me, “I am’sk what I am’sk, and that’s all that I am’sk.”
Pepé Le Pew, mostly because it was funny to say.
Curious George: Ray Rayner was the man! Cubs and the Sox, Cubs and the Sox....CC, JSM
I guess everyone's forgotten about Tom Terrific, a cartoon character featured on "Captain Kangaroo".
“ Pepé Le Pew”,
“Be gentle, this is my first affair “
“I am the corned beef to you, and you are the cabbage to me!”
My missing childhood friend is Fireball XL5.
"john mosby said...
Curious George: Ray Rayner was the man! Cubs and the Sox, Cubs and the Sox....CC, JSM"
Yeah, I loved the morning scores. He had all those note cards pinned to his overalls to remind himself what was next...."Cartoons!" Chelveston the Duck. Cuddly Dudley the dog.
Locally, there was Big Brother Bob Emery in Boston, who would do a toast to the president of the United States with a glass of milk every day. I remember Crusader Rabbit and Raggs the Tiger, Tom Terrific and his Mighty Wonderdog Mannfred and his arch enemy Crabby Appleton ("He's rotten to the core.") Also Rex Trailer and Boomtown, and Ring-a-Ding the Clown in NH.
I can still sing all the songs.
We had "Garfield Goose and Friends" out of Chicago. The puppets didn't talk but Frazier Thomas "translated" what they "said". "Bozo's Circus" also originated in Chicago on WGN but was also distributed nationally on its superstation feed.
My father and I had tickets to that Monroe/Hagler fight. Couldn't get there cause a massive snowstorm hit the area.
"TobyTucker said...
We had "Garfield Goose and Friends" out of Chicago. The puppets didn't talk but Frazier Thomas "translated" what they "said"."
The reason the puppets didn't talk (they would move the mouths but not speak) was that the newly formed TV unions required union scale for all speaking roles.
In his profile pic on the book cover Willie looks a lot like a proto-Pepe.
Ah, how many vague memories this prompts . . . The character that is still most vivid to me is Farfel (thanks, spellcheck) who sang--
N-E-S-T-L-E-S
Nestles makes the very best
Choc-late.
The demand for Bozo's Circus studio-audience tickets was so high, the waiting list was years long. My mom sent in the request shortly after my birth, and we actually went when I was around 5.
She also made reservations at the Sheraton Commander for graduation week the day she took me to Harvard. CC, JSM
Captain Kangaroo, Rex Trailer's Boomtown, Bozo's Circus. We didn't have Willie the Worm, but we had Willie Whistle, a guy dressed as a clown a-la happy version of Emmet Kelley, who talked like he had swallowed a police whistle, and could now form words with it. Weird !. Plus of course, Popeye, Speed Racer, Felix the Cat, Astro Boy, Johnny Quest, the Three Stooges, Little Rascals / Our Gang, Bugs, etc etc.
I was born in 1964 in the suburbs just north of Philly, and recall Gene London fondly. My father was employed by the station that carried the show, and was able to get my school classroom as the show's audience twice. Did wonders for my popularity in elementary school. Also Capt. Kangaroo.
Romper, stomper, bomper boo. Tell me, tell me tell me do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play? I see Althouse, and Meade, and Curious George, and Bumble Bee, and Mosby, and Assistant Village Idiot, and ...
There was also "Herman the German Moose" and Froggy and his magic twanger.
There was Circus Boy, played by Mickey Braddock, who later became Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees.
“ My father and I had tickets to that Monroe/Hagler fight. Couldn't get there”
My God, if a spy needs to show he is from New Jersey, that is the line to memorize.
“ I guess everyone's forgotten about Tom Terrific, a cartoon character featured on "Captain Kangaroo".
Didnt you have to draw a picture on your TV screen with your magic crayon to save Tom from danger. Like a rope or ladder or something.
Just checked with ChatGPT. The show I was thinking of was Winky Dink and You.
I remember one thing about Romper Room - the hostess would tell us she “saw” people whose names she read. One day she “saw” 5 year old Mongo. I was so freaked out that I ran and hid behind the sofa.
In the 1970s we had to get older to get younger. We listened to Billy was a mountain, Willie was a worm poking out of his shoulder. Zappa enabled.
In the beginning, TV and Radio had an awkward, homemade quality. Hosts even felt it was necessary to thank viewers for letting them "into their homes." As time went on TV became more sophisticated and came to be more at home in our houses than we did, and nobody thanks us or apologizes to us anymore.
Mickey Mouse Club was also a big deal back then. And Captain Kangaroo, who looked a lot like Walter Cronkite. The meme now is that, in contrast to today's children who are fixated on their screens, 60s/70s kids were out playing until mom called us in for dinner. But we spent an awful lot of time in front of the only screen we had back then.
A little late to the party, but I want to put a word in for Clubhouse 22 on WKEF Channel 22 in Dayton. It was hosted by Joe Smith, a puppet named Stan the Man, Duffy the Dog (guy in a white sheep dog suit), and Dr. Creep.
Dr. Creep did double duty, hosting Shock Theater on Saturday nights, and the kids show on weekday afternoons.
My bad, Malcolm MacLeod host Clubhouse 22 first.
https://malcolm-tv.com/Page_2.html
"Wee Willie Webber" was the Philadelphia TV personality for young me in the 70s.
Alas, I never heard of Willie the Worm. "Sally Starr" was as far back as I know of.
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