7.6 /10 1 Votes
6.4/10 TV Country of origin United States First episode date 1955 | 8.6/10 IMDb Presented by various (see below) No. of seasons 26 Theme song Kids are People Too | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Running time 1955–1977: Sunday version: 3 hours ?–1970: weekday version: 1 hour1977: 2 hours1980–1983, 2016–present: 1 hour Original release January 1, 1955 (1955-01-01) – December 25, 1977 (1977-12-25),1980 (1980)–1983 (1984),December 25, 2016 (2016-12-25) – present Similar Kids Are People Too, The Magic Garden, Captain Kangaroo, Game show, TV Party | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wonderama
Wonderama is a children's television program that originally appeared on the Metromedia-owned stations from 1955 to 1977. The show was revived from 1980 to 1983, and again in 2016.
Contents
- Wonderama
- Wonderama intro 1973
- Hosts
- Original series
- The Sonny Fox years
- The Bob McAllister years
- Features
- Parting gifts
- Guests
- 1980 revival
- 2016 revival
- References
Wonderama intro 1973
Hosts
Original series
Wonderama aired on its originating station, WNEW-TV in New York City, as well as in five other markets in which Metromedia owned television stations: WTTG in Washington D.C., KMBC-TV in Kansas City, KTTV in Los Angeles, WXIX-TV in Cincinnati, and WTCN-TV in Minneapolis – Saint Paul. The show was three hours long for most of its run on Sunday mornings.
In the 1960s, Wonderama aired in a one-hour weekday version in addition to the three-hour Sunday show. The one-hour program lasted until 1970.
The show scaled back to two hours in 1977 before WNEW canceled it in December of that year. The last produced show was taped December 21 before airing on December 25. In an interview on WNEW's local talk show Midday with Bill Boggs on the day of Wonderama's cancellation, host Bob McAllister claimed to have no idea why the show ended. However, in a 1990s interview with the Southern California interview show Remember When, McAllister stated that an advertisement that he bought in The New York Times telling viewers to stop watching Wonderama might have led to the program's cancellation. McAllister bought the Times ad after he became upset when an ad for the 1972 Charles Bronson movie The Mechanic aired during the show.
After its cancellation, Wonderama continued in two-hour Sunday morning reruns from January 1978 to June 1980. McAllister reportedly was unhappy with edits to the reruns, which usually eliminated celebrity performances in order to avoid having to pay royalties.
The Sonny Fox years
Independent television network Metromedia (born from the former DuMont Network) hired Fox to host Wonderama on its New York flagship station, WABD (soon to become WNEW-TV), succeeding the team of Bill Britten and Doris Faye. Hiring Fox ended what some called the "musical-hosts syndrome" that Wonderama had for its first few years. The show had been created as well as originally hosted by actor-comedian Sandy Becker, who became a New York children's program star in his own right. Fox became Wonderama's sole host for eight years, until August 1967.
Suave, witty, and congenial, Fox juggled the slapstick and the serious, turning the marathon Wonderama (during Fox's tenure the show ran four hours Sunday mornings) into a weekly academy at which anything could happen and often did; whether Shakespearean dramatizations, guest celebrities, magic demonstrations (customarily by legendary magician James "The Amazing" Randi), art instruction, spelling bees, learning games, or other elements.
Fox was deft at turning a potential haphazard hodgepodge into a seamless whole, and he was consistent in never talking down to his young guests or viewers, treating them with legitimate respect and tolerance. The result was that Wonderama was rarely if ever known to have bored either the children who appeared on the show (the segments showing the weekly 25 or 30 children waving cross-armed, leading in and out of commercial breaks, were as much a signature as Fox himself) or those who watched it.
For a few years it seemed Fox owned children's weekend television in the New York metropolitan area. In the same year he joined Wonderama, he reached back to the "color war" team competitions he knew as a child in summer camp to create and host Just For Fun, a two-and-a-half hour Saturday morning show involving two teams of kids in blue and gold jumpsuits to compete in contests ranging from the mildly athletic to the wildly bizarre. One mainstay was the Treasure Chest competition where one contestant from each team would be placed in front of a locked chest and 1,000 keys. When the winner found the key to open his or her chest, a siren would sound, and whatever was happening at the time (be it cartoon, commercial, skit, or whatever else) was interrupted. The winner would stand with arms outstretched and a towering pile of board games and toys would be placed in his or her arms.
A year later, Fox hosted ABC's first original Saturday morning program, On Your Mark, a game show in which children ages 9 through 13 answered questions about various professions. On Your Mark lasted one season, but the lively Just For Fun lasted until 1965.
Fox has since become an Emmy award-winning producer of his Broadway Songwriters Series, has his own website, and has a "Wonderama with Sonny Fox" Facebook group hosted by Randy Bucknoff, who is both administrator of the group and of Fox's website.
Fox (at 90 years of age) recently met with President Obama in Washington D.C. at an event in the Israeli Embassy.
The Bob McAllister years
Following the frequent turnover of hosts throughout the 1950s, Wonderama experienced its greatest viewership by way of one-time Baltimore kids' show host Bob McAllister, who replaced Sonny Fox as host in 1967 and remained in that role until 1977. Each show's taping included (but was not necessarily limited to) education, music, audience participation, games, interviews, and cartoon shorts.
The program aired for three hours, including several breaks to allow for cartoon insertions. On most of Metromedia's stations, these would be Warner Bros. cartoons from the 1940s and 1950s. On KMBC in Kansas City, an ABC affiliate, the show only ran two hours without the cartoon inserts (since this station did not own broadcast rights to cartoon shorts).
The program's closing theme song, sung by McAllister, was called "Kids Are People Too", which was later adapted as the show's title when ABC picked it up as a Sunday morning kids show. The song was also featured on an album of music from Wonderama by McAllister called Oh, Gee, it's Great to be a Kid.
Features
Popular features of Wonderama during the McAllister years included the following:
Parting gifts
Each week, audience members received a package of parting gifts as detailed on the show, containing varying items, including the following:
Guests
Top stars from all genres of entertainment (music, movies, television, etc.) made appearances on New York-based Wonderama, including the following:
1980 revival
Beginning in 1980, a documentary magazine show for children, hosted by teens, ran on Sunday mornings on WNEW-TV. While this show retained the Wonderama title, it bore no resemblance to the original. This hour-long incarnation ran until 1983; reruns edited to 30 minutes aired from 1984 to 1986 on WNEW-TV/WNYW on Saturday mornings. Hosts included Pam Potillo and J.D. Roth. Guests included Rick Schroeder and the Sugarhill Gang.
2016 revival
A new version of Wonderama, hosted by David Osmond (son of Alan Osmond and nephew of Donny and Marie Osmond), debuted on WPIX-TV in New York with a special on December 25, 2016, followed by a national rollout on Tribune Broadcasting stations on January 7, 2017.