“It’s the Earle Pudney Show.”
If you grew up in New York’s Capital District in the 50’s and 60’s, there was a local show hosted on Channel 6, WRGB, the Earle Pudney Show. At dinner time Monday through Friday for 15 minutes, Earle would tickle the ivories with his backing band, playing easy listening music to charm while you ate your dinner.
I don’t remember much more other than the time of day and when the camera would zoom in with his hands on the keyboard, there was a mirror on the piano reflecting his fingers.
Like most local network affiliates that weren’t public television, throughout the day there would be home grown shows that either stood alone or dovetailed with network shows. I remember in the mornings, “Good Ship Popeye with the Ole Skipper,” played by George Leighton and it’s spin-off, “Good Ship Popeye News with Commander Ralph,” featuring Ralph Vartigan. They led into “Captain Kangaroo.”
Back over on Channel 6, there was “Satellite 6,” a cartoon show hosted by Glendora. She introduced us to “Felix the Cat.” There was also the national franchise, “Romper Room.” In the Capital District, it was hosted “Miss Diane” Weber. I was not really a Romper Room watcher except one day my father appeared as a guest because he was the Fire Commissioner in Wynantskill and back in that time, fire prevention programs were just taking shape. My brother Mike went along. I had to go to school.
Afternoons gave us the “Freddie Freihofer Show,” hosted by Jim Fisk. Freddie Freihofer was the character created by the Charles Freihofer Baking Company. Originally started in Philadelphia, they soon moved to Troy, NY with a tremendous ability to turn out loaves of bread daily along with other scrumptious treats.
On the Freddie Show, kids would appear on their birthdays and receive a personalized cake. Really lucky ones would be picked on the air when Jim would ask, “Who wants to squiggle?” The chosen would go up and make any shapes they wanted on a drawing pad with a marker. Fisk would then make a character out of the ‘squiggle.’
Does anyone remember “Black-Eyed Susans,” “Corn Toasties,” or my favorite, chocolate fudge covered cupcakes? These were deadly chocolate cupcakes with about a half inch of rich chocolate fudge on top. Freihofer also originated chocolate chip cookies, the style which are synonymous with Entenmann’s today. Finally, they had white powdered sugar coated doughnuts and the dozen pack of plain, sugar and cinnamon-sugar coated. Entenmann’s also adopted this style and I buy them still. And to this day, I always only eat one of each flavor at a sitting. The game is, in what order?
