Hello everybody, and welcome to this very special program. I’m Paul Gates. If you grew up in the Baton Rouge area anytime from 1955 to 1990, you probably–well, you almost certainly watched two local children’s television shows starring Buckskin Bill Black. Every weekday for almost 35 years, thousands and thousands of girls and boys within range of the WAFB Channel 9 TV signal, watched Storyland in the morning and The Buckskin Bill Show in the afternoon–both broadcast live from this very studio.
Storyland was created for preschoolers with educational concepts, many of them created by Buckskin Bill Black. The kids learned their ABCs, days of the week, learned how to tell time, things like that. Now, in the afternoon The Buckskin Bill Show was a place where the children, maybe a little older, could actually come here to the studio and show off their own talents, right here on local television.
But, the highlight of that morning program, Storyland, was everyone’s favorite. It was a Monday morning activity called, The Monday Morning March…
Wow! This is cool, but will be of little interest to anyone who didn’t grow up in the vicinity of Baton Rouge, Louisisana in the 60s, 70s, or 80s. If you did, however, you know Buckskin Bill Black, at least by watching him on WAFB-TV, CBS, Channel 9. And, if you the same fond memories of Buckskin Bill that I have, then read on…
I’ve been taking some time this holiday season to organize music and video in iTunes, and I came across a file I thought I’d lost…
I’m not quite sure how I originally came across this information, but back in early 2005, I learned that WAFB had aired a series of special programs celebrating their 50th Anniversary. One of those special programs was a 30 minute special celebrating local celebrity and children’s television pioneer “Buckskin” Bill Black and the two shows that he created. The program was entitled Growing up with Buckskin Bill: The Storyland Legacy.
Well, I searched the WAFB-TV website and learned that the program had aired a couple years earlier, on January 29, 2003, and couldn’t find any information relating to a re-airing. I was heartbroken. In a fit of desperation, I tried contacting the few friends I still have in the Baton Rouge area in hopes that someone as geeky as me might have videotaped it, but alas, no luck. So, I sent an email to the General Sales Manager–not knowing who else to contact–to inquire as to whether I could purchase a copy of the program. I figured I’d eventually get an email back saying that they don’t do that, or that the price of having someone pull the program from the archives and transfer it would be prohibitively expensive, or something to that effect. However, a few days later, I got an email telling me that if I’d send them my address they’d send me a copy of the program on DVD. Well… that’s what I came across this morning!
This 30 minutes program is awesome! Not life-changing or anything, but a truly wonderful trip down memory lane.
Monday Morning March? You bet your ass I did the Monday Morning March in my living room. I had a special cowboy hat that I wore and always had something to serve as a baton, whether it was a stick or one of my mom’s big cooking spoons–whatever. What about Señor Puppet? Remember him? What about the penny drive for the elephant? Yep, my friends and I went up and down our street collecting money and my mom drove us to the studio so we could give our couple dollars of pennies to Buckskin Bill. That was awesome! Did Buckskin Bill help you learn to count? Me too. “Hully gully!” “How many?” And, of course, you can’t forget the cartoons and Little Rascals in the afternoon…
You can see why I’m so happy about this: I thought I’d lost it, and, when searching the WAFB website this morning, I can no longer find any references to the program. Of course, that doesn’t mean that someone couldn’t contact the station and get a copy… Oh, and if you’re interested, I did see that they have a short program (5:30 minutes) available for viewing online called History of Buckskin Bill and the WAFB Elephant Walk. You should check it out.
Anyway, just wanted to throw this out there, out into the aether. I don’t imagine that anyone who reads this blog will also happen to have grown up near Baton Rouge, but hey, it’s my blog damnit!
3 Comments
We have a web-site on facebook of members who grew up watching Buckskin Bill. We would really like to find some old opisodes of Buckskin Bill. I know I was on the show once with my Brownie Troop. Check out the members on Facebook.
What a great read…. I grew up in Alexandria and we picked up the BUckskin Bill show too. I remember it fondly as a child. Thanks for the trip down memory lane….
I was also one of the old faithful watcher and I remembered it being called funtime playhouse. What I would like to know is if the sign language interpeters name was Diane Deaton of wafb tv. Does anyone know if this is accurate?