Jumping With Kenny

Local TV used to be a lot more fun.

Some things get better over time, and some things don't.  I think local TV was a lot better when I was a kid.  They had many more local shows back then.  Not just stuff that's a variation of the Today Show or The View, but entertainment shows.  And the best were local shows designed for children.  The host would introduce cartoons that the station had acquired rights to, usually ancient cartoons that were cheap to get.  But the local talent was live, and best of all, they would often have live audiences, filled with squealing kids,

Probably the most franchised and popular was Bozo the Clown.  Local stations would have their own Bozo (the clown - I can't rule out that there might have been other kinds of Bozos).  I'm pretty sure the Flint, Michigan TV station had one.  Flint was a community about a half hour south of where I lived growing up in Bridgeport.  It's not surprising that Flint had the more famous and higher-production value show.  At the time, GM was riding high, and Flint had about the best per capita income in the country.  For what later happened to Flint, please see Michael Moore's great documentary, Roger & Me.

But it wasn't our favorite, not by a long shot.  That was reserved for the somewhat lower production-valued, but rather unique children's show coming from Channel 5 in Bay City, a community a half hour north of where we lived.  It was not a franchise, but a "one and only" starring THE Kenny Roberts the Jumping Cowboy.  Kenny Roberts brought his own energetic talents to this show, and it was a great little show to tune into, even if the cartoons were not as good as Bozo's.  At least Kenny was real and caring, and he wasn't hiding behind a pile of greasy makeup.  I mean, who really knew who was behind all that Bozo make-up?  It could have been IT from the Stephen King book!

But not good old jumping, yodeling Kenny Roberts.  He was a real country western star, and for five years, he brought his magic to the children of our area.

And best of all, it was a heck of a lot easier to get on the Kenny Roberts show than it was Bozo.

This picture shows some of my classmates from Bridgeport, posing with Kenny.  Kenny often had brownie troops and cub scouts on his show.

Imagine my incredible excitement when my sister's Girl Scout Brownie troop were scheduled to go on the show!  AND I WAS ABLE TO GO TOO!  Woohoo!  Both of the Strait kids on the same show!  Poor Kenny wouldn't know what hit him!

Kenny loved to have games that the kids competed in, with the prize being the incredible Holloway All Day Sucker!  This was a kind of a hard chocolate based sucker, almost a taffy, that was huge.  For a kid, it was the biggest thing in the world, like the size of a tree or something.  Well, it was big, anyways.  And it really would last all day.  If you tried to bite into it, expect a visit from the Tooth fairy that night. So it had to be slowly licked, over hours and hours, almost to the point you you don't know whether you ever want to have another one for the rest of your life.  That is, until weeks later, when you remember the joy of having something that delicious last that long.

My sister was lucky enough to be chosen to play that day's game.  He had set up a kind of mini-golf course around the studio.   Those selected had to use a stick to hit a ball into different locations.  The kid who did it the quickest won that coveted sucker.

My sister hit the course with manic force.  Really, she was like a whirlwind.  She couldn't score to save her life, but she was all over the place, and the camera could barely follow her.  Everyone was laughing and cheering. She would duck behind cameras, race around the bleachers, run circles around the Jumping Cowboy, who practically had to jump to get out of her way.  Seriously, there was hardly ever a performance like it in the history of the show.  And I was jealous as all get out, because even back then, I wanted to be the star, I wanted to be the performer.

When the contest was over, and my sister had lost, they couldn't get her to stop trying.  She kept going and going.  It was impossible to get her to hold still.  Kenny finally corralled her, but she still rocked back and forth as he tried to gently hold her in place.  He awarded her a special prize even though she did not win, because of the level of enthusiasm and energy she showed.  My sister squirmily accepted her Holloway All Day sucker.

Me?  The only camera time I got was at the end, when the crowd of youngsters waved goodbye.  When the camera focused on me, I knew I had to do something to compete with my sister.  So I did the most brilliant thing I could quickly think of.  I stuck my tongue out.  The Cameraman must of went, "Oh, God! Another one of those!"  and quickly switched to another kid.

After the show, I asked my sister how she knew to be such a performer, if she had planned out being such a superstar.  She was surprised I thought that.  She said that what was going on was that she had to pee really, really bad, and she was afraid if she was still, she would wet herself right there on TV.

That taught me a very important acting lesson.  Sometimes, if you need high energy onstage, a full bladder will do the trick.

So, yes Benjamin and other younger kids and teens today.  You got your Cartoon Network and dozens of channels, and your YouTube and other Internet shows.  But trust me, you haven't got anything like Kenny Roberts, the Jumping, Yodeling Cowboy.

And you are that much poorer for it.