Star Tribune from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 6

SundayMay 91993Star Tribune Ski 1 I'Casey Jones' 'A train engineer is a hero to kids' "My feelings were hurt. There was no notice, and our ratings while they had dropped -still were good. But it was the end of an era, I guess. Kids' shows were going off the air all over the country." Roger Awsumb, reflecting on losing his children's television show in the early 1970s Awsumb could have stayed at Channel 1 1 as an announcer, but he had seven children and the salary wouldn't stretch. "I really thought I'd get picked up by some other station." But TV wasn't looking for kids' show hosts, and Awsumb had trouble selling himself as something else.

"People type you," he said. He kept making appearances and doing commercials as Casey. He also ran a pizza shop, sold car-building kits over the phone, led tours for an auto club, worked for a radio news service, ran a bicycle and ski shop and counseled adolescents at a chemical-dependency center. He went back on the air in 1982, doing "Breakfast with Casey" on the new Channel 29. But the revival didn't last.

In August 1983, Awsumb suffered a heart attack. After he recovered, he took the job at KLKS. Casey continued on page 7A our great T-SHIRT SALE Assorted prints, solids and novel ties Including Leon Levin and David Smith. XL. Reg.

$34 to $44. WW' Now $25. Galleria Highland Woodbury 929-3022 690-2 112 7 JS-SJ I I -II Continued from page 1A toddlers, talks now to a largely re-. tired audience. He is more likely to read obituaries on the air than birth-.

day greetings. i i He will be 65 in July. Chances are, 'someone will sing: "Happy, happy birthday, to every girl and boy, Hopt this very special day brings you lotto joy. Hope the birthday presents you get 'from mom and dad, Will make this very special day the 'best you ever had." 'Awsumb grew up in St. Paul and 'studied speech and radio at College, i wanted to be a radio announcer since I was 10 years old," he said.

"I was really a shy kind of guy, though. I had to overcome that." I 'After college and two years in the 'Army, he worked at K.DLM in Detroit Lakes, then at WCCO in He jumped to TV when 1 1 went on the air in 1952. i had been cowboys on TV, and spacemen," he said. "But not a railroad engineer. And a train engineer is a hero to kids." 'He worked with Chris Weddes, his best friend, who was Joe the Cook "Hello sport, whattya want?" and Lynn Dwyer, who played his sidekick.

Roundhouse Rodney. "He was very short 4-foot-12, we used to say but he was a very guy, a comedy skater in the 1 JC apades before he joined me." f- ndhouse played off his height, As I grew up, I didn't." He died t76.) A Jt -4 ears, they did three one-hour i a day, five or six days a week. 1 i loon show started in 1953. Lat- fifey added "Wake Up with Casey i Kounanouse, ana an attemoon "Casey and Roundhouse at struma Lumpit's Boardinghouse." Twin Cities stations carried ,1 i I ids' shows, but Casey claimed if I ggest audience by far. His show ,1 1 1 arried on cable systems to com- ties in five states.

Jt j4ad more than 8,000 shows or about 16,000 peanut butter sandwiches. "I tried to have what the kids would have," he said, including a glass of milk and an apple. He had a dentist on to talk about teeth and a mechanic to explain how cars work. The show described the state flag and explained where honey comes from. Guests included police officers and zoo animals.

Casey read the names of birthday girls and boys on the air until there were too many, and then the names were scrolled over the caboose. And there were skits. "There was the upside-down bit," Awsumb said. "We had the camera turned upside down, and we'd come in the door and fall down, and it looked like we were hanging from the ceiling. "It sounds pretty basic now," he said.

"But you have to remember that TV was new then." Roundhouse did a character named Oswald, using a mask and eyes painted on his chin to turn his head upside down. The camera was flipped to make the face seem "normal," if grotesque. "It was very funny," Awsumb said. "But some of the little kids-were frightened by it." Children adored Casey, including a 9-year-old girl who wrote to tell him why: "The real reason is because you are so friendly but not perfect. I don't mean bad, but it's like you're at home." He took the hero business seriously, visiting "almost every church and school and civic function in Minnesota." It was never just an act, he said, never just a job.

"I always cared about kids." His own children were fans, and son John liked to mimic him. "He has my whole routine down pat," Awsumb said in 1969, when John was 4. "He's a dead ringer for me and just might take over my job some day." In a way, he did. John Awsumb, now 28, is a performer in the Twin Cities; he sings and plays the guitar and harmonica. Casey got him started, teaching him to play the ukulele.

John never resented sharing his father with thousands of children. "I saw him in a much different light from other kids," he said. "They caught him on the tube every day, but it was outstanding having him as my father. I've always been enormously proud of him, and he's always been there for me." In 1960, Channel 1 1 tried to drop Casey to make room for a network show. He was rehired four days later after children and parents sent in 10,000 protest letters.

But 1 2 years later, Casey and Roundhouse were fired again. The station blamed a sharp drop in ratings. "My feelings were hurt," Awsumb said. "There was no notice, and our ratings while they had dropped still were good. "But it was the end of an era, I guess.

Kids' shows were going off the air all over the country." There were efforts to rescue the show again. But the audience was declining at noon because of the growth of school-lunch programs, preschool nurseries and day-care centers. On Casey's last show, the Twins' Harmon Killebrew stopped to say hi, and Minneapolis Mayor Charles Stenvig brought a bag of hamburgers (McDonald's was one of Casey's sponsors). Stenvig told Casey that his son was in tears. Another youngster called the station that last day and asked to speak to his hero.

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