It's the Ramblin' Rod Show!

My post of Howdy Doody below prompted Ken to reminisce about his childhood TV icon Sheriff John. That, in turn, brings up fond memories of my own electronic childhood. (Why my generation felt so much more at home in front of a screen than in the real world is a matter for another time.)

I didn't grow up in Portland, but my hometown of Goldendale (motto: "Moo!") was a hundred miles or so upriver, so all our TV was cabled in from Portland. And the great reward of getting up and ready for school early enough was to kick off the day with Ramblin' Rod Anders. Alas, he wasn't as durable as Sheriff John, and Ramblin' Rod went to that great studio in the sky in 2002. His obituary at the Willamette Week has some good points to make about local children's television:

Locally produced kid shows have gone the way of dodo birds and Yugo cars in the years leading up to and following Rod Anders' departure from the airwaves... Meanwhile, kids are relegated to ubiquitous cable TV, with no homegrown options left. What do today's kids dream of for their 15 minutes of fame? Their own Web log? A spot goofing on America's Funniest Home Videos? My guess is that they're lost without a Ramblin' Rod on whom to project their visions of fame. He was missed before he even died.

Someone was good enough to post a clip from Ramblin' Rod during the years I and my friends watched him. Here we gooooo....