Published in The Kansas City Kansan on Sept. 20, 1996, this Crum on Film column offering essentially promotes the rebroadcast of a two-hour documentary, produced by Kansas City’s Public Television affiliate, KCPT. Since I am featured in the program, sharing my memories of Commander 9 and Gregory Grave, it was appropriate I would write what is purely a nostalgia piece for KC baby boomers. Sadly, the program has not been rebroadcast for several years. Neither has it ever been available on DVD. But it was once sold via VHS. YouTube has a teaser clip only. 

By Steve Crum

Maybe Crum on Video is more appropriate this week, since we are returning to those thrilling days of yesteryear via video tape and film clips recalled in Whizzo, Ol’ Gus & Me. If you happened to miss it the first time around, the locally produced 120 minute documentary will be rebroadcast in two parts on KCPT-Channel 19 at 8:30 p.m. this Sunday and Monday, Sept. 22 and 23.

Many have already seen it, but will want to tune in again. It taps directly into a Kansas City baby boomer’s memory vault. That is where all the Whizzo-dust and Cousin Ken’s straw hats are carefully stored.

Produced and directed by the extraordinary Teddy Dibble, who geniused last year’s heralded documentary of the Kansas City Monarchs, Whizzo, Ol’ Gus & Me is a fast, fun, and nostalgic album of locally produced children’s show from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. 

Dibble worked overtime to gather this cast and crew together. Vintage clips, including privately shot color and black and white footage, are sandwiched with recent interviews of the original stars. The result is an awesome, polished, and warm-hearted two hours. 

Among the nostalgic local stars and clips featured are Gregory Grave (Shock!), Miss Virginia (Romper Room), Fred Broski, and Marilyn the Witch.

My desired interest in the show is not just that I am fleetingly featured as one of the recalling viewers. Television ws a huge part fo my childhood. Being born in the late 1940s means that I was part of the first generation to experience TV. Whizzo, Ol’ Gus & Me reminded me that the very reason to this day I am a collector, obsessively so, of B-westerns is because of KCMO-TV’s Uncle Ezra on Frontier Theater. How often as a preteen I buckled on my double fostered cap guns after an hour with Uncle Ezra, and rounded up my KCK neighborhood buddies Corky Green, Bobby Sixta, and Don Thompson to reenact The 3 Mesquiteers latest adventure (I was always Stony Brook, the Bob Livingston character) or Johnny Mack Brown shooting it out with the outlaws. 

As recalled on the program, my earliest local TV memory is of KMBC’s Commander 9, starring Robin League and later Nick Houston as the futuristic time explorer in black uniform, cap, and goggles. One thing Dibble cut from the TV show is that after my father built a really super Commander 9 instrument panel just for me, my younger sister Becky was rightfully jealous and hurt. That led to argument, tears, punishment, and more tears. However, the best memory is of all the switches, lights, buzzers, and bells that sounded on the panel.

Of the 40 or so programs chronicled, over half of them are recall-rooted. So revered is Murray Nolte’s Dr. N. Ventor show, featuring the doddering doctor’s inventions and those great black and white cartoons. John Bilyeu’s kids’ shows somehow escape me, but Bilyeu and Channel 9 are inseparable. He was around KMBC for a long time, doing a variety of TV duties, superbly so. It is good to see him recently interviewed. 

Then there is Whizzo, forever it seems, on Channel 9. Frank Wiziarde’s clown persona entertained Kansas City “children of all ages” for 30 years. Like many locals, I saw Whizzo in person numerous times, but never actually got to talk to him. There were several parades I witnessed, some even down Minnesota Avenue, that included the great clown.

What a brilliant acrobat and stream-of-consciousness wit. Cut from Dibble’s documentary is a recording I loaned him of a pre-Whizzo Wiziarde hosting the late 1940s local Luncheon on the Plaza radio show which includes my mother as one of the hat-wearing guests. Hearing the radio show, it is difficult to picture Wiziarde’s voice connected to anyone but his clown character. The quick wit and style were pure Whizzo. 

What a kick to see a recent interview with KCMO’s Ken Motley, and clips of his fun afternoon daily, Cousin Ken’s Carnival. Remember his introduction to a Warner Brothers cartoon with his slide whistle voice sound? Those of you under 40 might not understand. 

By the time Torey and Ol’ Gus took center spotlight, I was in junior high, a little too old to really appreciate their talents. The tape clips featured in the documentary, however, prove that I really missed out by not tuning in more often. 

Clearly, Torey, Ol’ Gus, Whizzo, and a cadre of local talents could have have been appreciated and loved on a national scale.

But they were and are ours, exclusively. Forever.