Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 212

1 WWmiiH I iTn'rW-'-i "if '11111111 The hosts of kids' shows glowed in Golden Era of Twin Cities television If Twin Cities television ever had a Golden Era, it must be the one remembered by former kid viewers who are now adults in their 30s and 40s. Kid shows flourished in the 1950s, and for those who were tuning in at the time, local TV probably never has seemed so creative since. There was no videotape, so most of the shows were live. They were also largely unscripted, except for some of the commercials, and unrehearsed. Paul, and the WTCN-TV studios were in the Calhoun Beach Club.

Both WMIN and WTCN radio pressed some of their announcers and disk jockeys into service as kid-show hosts, and the old Channel 1 1 gang seems to stand out in memory as the biggest and most colorful. Awsumb not only did the Casey show, but got into a kangaroo costume to play Roo Roo the Kangaroo on other people's shows. And he provided a squirrel-puppet character for a show called "Merle and the Squirrel," presided over by Merle Edwards, who Roger Awsumb, who still plays Casey, now calls his show "Breakfast with Casey," and it's no longer live. He arrives at the studio one afternoon a week to tape five shows for the following week. His current sidekick, a character called Charlie Caboose, is played by Jim Barber, a young ventriloquist and magician.

Channel 1 1 was shared by two ownerships in the early days of TV, and was known simultaneously as WMIN-TV and WTCN-TV. The WMIN-TV studios were on the fifth floor of the Hamm Building in downtown St. The audiences have grown up, but what has become of the TV cowboys, captains, clowns and cuddly critters who populated TV's old children's hours? Some of them could be your neighbors. Beginning in 1953, Casey Jones munched down 19 years of kiddie lunches on Channel 1 1 much of it in the company of a sidekick named Roundhouse Rodney, played by the late Lynn Dwyer. Then, after a 10-year absence from the tube, Casey came back and is still chugging away with an early-morning hour on Channel 29..