VIDEO REVIEWS: Return to the 1950s

By BRUCE DANCIS
McClatchy Newspapers

Thomas Wolfe wrote that you can't go home again, but he didn't warn us about returning to the TV shows of our youth.

Being of a certain age and casting caution to the wind, your intrepid critic watched "Hiya, Kids!! A '50s Saturday Morning," a four-disc DVD set (Shout! Factory, $34.99, not rated), out this week. It's a collection of 22 episodes of kids shows foisted on the first generation of television viewers - puppet shows, Westerns, sci-fi adventures, ventriloquism, educational programs, variety shows and more - from the late 1940s through the '50s, before cartoons ruled the kiddie airwaves.

With our goal being understanding rather than nostalgia, here's a sampling of what we found while returning to those thrilling days of yesteryear and channeling the 7-year-old still lurking inside.

"Kukla, Fran and Ollie": Hand puppets Kukla, a little guy with a ball for a nose; Ollie, a one-toothed dragon; and other characters voiced and performed by Burr Tillstrom share the stage with a good-natured human, Fran Allison. Unscripted and unrehearsed, the show works for both kids and grown-ups, with songs about the alphabet mixing with jokes about highbrows and lowbrows, "classifications in the United States' social structure," Life magazine, Brahms, surrealism, Alexander Calder and Gertrude Stein, plus a built-in ad for show sponsor RCA Victor's radio/phonograph console.

"Howdy Doody": Inane from irritating opener - "What time is it, kids? It's Howdy Doody time!" - to thudding end, this Saturday morning hit stars marionettes Howdy (a red-haired, plaid-shirted boy) and the crabby Mr. Bluster, human Buffalo Bob Smith and the sort-of-human Clarabell, a clown who communicates by horn. It's live TV with audience participation from the kids in the "peanut gallery," but what passes for a story (Howdy owes Mr. Bluster 500 marbles a day) is pathetic.

"Lassie": Tommy Rettig stars as 11-year-old Jeff Miller, who gets lessons in life from his widowed mom (Jan Clayton), Gramps (George Cleveland) and his collie Lassie. In this episode, Lassie doesn't have much to do - no little kid falls into a well and needs saving - but she carries wood and lunch bags, aids Jeff, Gramps and a friend in building a tree house and helps teach Jeff about sharing with friends.

"Annie Oakley": Fifties feminism thrives in the form of Gail Davis, an excellent stunt rider/ sharpshooter and a veteran of Gene Autry movies, starring as the blond-braided title character. Annie works closely with Durango's deputy sheriff, Lofty Craig (Brad Johnson), but she's usually telling him what to do ("Check their saddlebags, Lofty, and see what they're packin'"), saving him from riding into ambushes and figuring it all out.

"Flash Gordon": Set in the year 3000, give or take a few centuries, this sci-fi-on-the-cheap show stars the wooden Steve Holland as a not-so-flashy Flash Gordon. Shot in West Berlin (hence the German-accented English of many characters), the episode here features lots of talk about dead planets blowing up, time traveling and nuclear "durinium" bombs - but very little action. A futuristic snoozer.

"Ding Dong School": Aiming at pre-schoolers, Miss Frances (a k a Dr. Frances Horwich of Roosevelt College in Chicago) talks about going to the dentist, spends five Warholian minutes showing how to blow bubbles ("You can't blow bubbles with just plain water," we learn), reads three poems to a group of toy dolls, does an ad for Kix Crispy Corn Puffs, plays with a handkerchief and a bouncy ball, and at the end, talks to parents and guardians about everything she just did with their kids.

"Winky Dink and You": Hosted by Jack Barry (later implicated in fixing the quiz show "Twenty-One"), this is TV's first interactive kids show. Viewers could purchase - for 50 cents! - a kit with a "magic window" (a clear plastic sheet that you put over the TV screen), "magic crayons" and an erasing cloth, and then could draw on the magic window according to Barry's instructions. Winky himself is a static, barely animated cartoon character with a Brooklyn accent, voiced by Mae Questel (of Olive Oyl and Betty Boop fame). The show is primitive, but it deserves credit for getting little couch potatoes off the couch - sort of.

"The Cisco Kid": In the largely segregated world of `50s kids TV, this Western about two Mexican adventurers who go after assorted villains in the old Southwest represents a genuine breakthrough. The series stars Spanish actor Duncan Renaldo as the handsome and dashing Cisco Kid and Leo Carrillo, a Los Angeles-born descendant of early Californios, as his comic-relief sidekick Pancho. Some may object to Pancho's fractured English and mock cowardice (though he's always brave when the chips are down), but it's great to see two Latino heroes outsmarting and outfighting the bad guys.

"Sky King": Kirby Grant stars as Arizona rancher Schuyler "Sky" King who flies around the great expanse in his plane, Songbird, aiding the local sheriff by chasing after those who deserve to be chased. But watching someone fly a plane is about as exciting as watching a writer type.

"The Pinky Lee Show": A former burlesque comedian and variety show host, Pinky Lee became the host of a kids variety show in 1954, kept it clean and gave it a faster pace than anything kids had seen before on TV. A clear influence on Pee Wee Herman, Lee wears a plaid suit and a floppy checkered hat as he sings, tap dances, mugs for the camera, lisps, kibitzes with the live audience, acts in silly skits, gives a puppy to a kid, hands out "Pinky Pops" to the crowd and gets audience members to sing and dance with him - all in a 28-minute show.

But right in the middle of the episode included in "Hiya, Kids!!," a marionette show begins, featuring a cringe-worthy dancing puppet in blackface. (Blackface was a popular form of entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which we now view as offensive, in which white performers - and sometimes blacks, as well - painted their faces with black cork and performed the songs and dances of African Americans.)

Full disclosure: Pinky Lee was married to my second cousin, Bebe Dancis. I met him once, back in the '50s when I was 5 years old and my parents took me to one of his shows. Or so I was told, as I can barely remember it.

But I was always proud of being related to Pinky Lee, no matter how distant that relationship was, and it remains pleasing to see him demonstrating genuine talent in his show. Yet after watching the casual, unthinking display of racism that was also a part of his show, I won't be able to view cousin Pinky in the same way again.

It seems that Thomas Wolfe was right - you really don't want to go home again.