Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Does Anyone Remember Speedy, Beanie, Cecil

It was dejavu all over again this past week on TV with the revival of little Speedy in the Alka Seltzer commercials and TV Pioneers showcased “Time for Beanie”. Does anyone remember these 50s icons?
A lad of 12 I was watching with Dad and sis every weeknight at 6:30pm on KHQ-6 Beanie, Cecil and Tear Along the Dotted Lion. Watching a clip from the show last night on the PBS TV Pioneer show brought back many fond memories of a cheesy kids show that even adults could enjoy thanks to Stan Freeberg’s sly humor (the oy ga vault). Beanie was a kinescope from Los Angeles, where it was hugely popular. Living in the Spokane TV market we missed Soupy Sales, Bozo the Clown and WCCO’s “Axel” or anything of that caliber. We had to settle for the “Salty” show on KXLY early evenings sponsored by Hillyard Furniture. Salty was a low rent puppet show, but what else was there to watch in the 50s?
Seattle’s KOMO had “The Captain Puget Show” in which I played a small part as a public relations assistant in 1962, ushering brats into the peanut gallery to watch the Captain pitch products and show cartoons. I remember one little snot who made a big deal about his father who was an executive at KAYO Radio, one of several Top 40 stations in Seattle. The Captain was a boring, cranky character and a far cry from the antics of WGN’s Bozo or most other kids shows. I believe that KTNT in Tacoma had Brakeman Bill.
The animated character Speedy in the Alka Seltzer commercials was also quite compelling as was cute Willie the Penguin who promised us kids that Kools were really the best smokes. So Speedy is back in HD but I am afraid Willie is but a foggy memory.

4 comments:

Gene Johnson said...

Another tidbit of Dave Zarkin's past life revealed! You couldn't have been much older than the delightful kiddies going to see the show?? I Googled "Beanie, Cecil and Tear Along the Dotted Lion" - 5 minutes of non-stop bad puns. And to top it all off, after catching Tear-along the Dotted Lion, they steal a vitamin tree from his island! Shame, shame! Here's a link to view the whole cartoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soG1GaBMqbI

Dave Zarkin said...

It was marvelously bad TV but that's all we had except for a few old movies from Republic, Monogram and PRC. More dejavu -- the Glee commercial for Chevy -- see the USA in your ..."

Frank Lee MeiDere said...

I was just doing a search for Tear-along, the Dotted Lion and ran across this. The reason I was looking for it was to find out if that was the cartoon which had a character (a skunk, I think) who spoke like Ronald Coleman.

Wonderful reminiscence. As Bob Hope might say, thanks for the memories.

Anonymous said...

http://eekshop.com

an.Wrap Steering Wheel Lock: This car surprise is the fact red and has an all in one four-star rating. This kind of great shock covers going to be the vehicles steering exhaustion and thus that going to be the airbags not only can they hardly be stolen. This steering exhaustion has an all in one dual function considering the fact that a resource box works as an all in one car distress and an all in one steering low energy lock These are practically as well as the everywhere over the one or more a simple matter package. This is the reason one of the reasons this car impact has a an income rating. The buyers relating to this service or product much loved its results.