J
John-Summers
Guest
bossjock 56 said:Percy Platypus was on of my earliest memories of WGAL-TV. Marijane Landis was host. What was that phrase they used to intoduce cartoons......"letter flicker"?
As I child I could never figure out what that meant, "letter flicker." I knew what a letter was and guessed that a flicker was a movie, but together??? I finally figured out that it was "let 'er flicker." All the kids in the studio audience would yell it at the top of their lungs so that Pokey Dingo, the puppet who ran the cartoon, would know when to start the projector. Imagine a local TV station doing a "live" show for kids on Saturday morning with a studio audience, week in and week out for something close to 20 years. And then later in the day was "Channel 8 Dance Party," another "live" show that lasted close to a decade.
WGAL's Studio A is where these shows originated. Sometimes I walk through and can almost hear the voices, music and laughter echoing back through the many years. Marijane Landis is in her 80s now and I'm told is doing well. I met her once and we had a delightful conversation about the show and her place in Baby Boomer history. I'm happy to say she is as charming in person as she was hosting "Percy Platypus and his Friends."
People often ask if there are any films or videotapes of the show. Unfortunately not. It was a "live" show, was broadcast once and that was it. Tape was prohibitively expensive back then and the idea of filming never occurred to anyone. There are a number of photographs, though.
There was a lot of "local" TV back in those early days, some good, some not so good, but now they're all just dusty photographs and memories.