Yeah Michael, the "Alderree, Alderrye" song. Happy Wanderer had such a low budget, the travel films they showed were just soundless home movies taken on trips all over SoCal with Slim and his wife, and I guess a cameraman with a movie camera with Kodak color film but no sound. Places like Calico ghost town near Barstow (which Knott's Berry Farm had taken over to make a tourist draw), Red Rock Canyon, the Palm Springs tramway etc. The audio commentary was supplied in a studio with Slim cackling his odd high pitched laugh, assisted by his wife. The color was good though and it was fun to watch. It was a very highly rated show in L.A. in the mid 1960s because people liked the colorful travelogs on their new color TVs. Decades later, Huell Howser did a retrospective Happy Wanderer show on "California's Gold", where he interviewed Slim's wife and others involved in the show. Slim was long departed. I think you can find it on you tube. I remember Stan Chambers on KTLA covering all the big stories, quakes, fires, riots, children stuck in wells etc. I don't remember City at Night.
I also remember watching the Joe Pyne TV talk show with my family. Pyne, an ex Marine, played the conservative tough guy, taking on an assortment of SoCal "liberal kooks and nuts" as he called them, telling them to "go gargle with razor blades". Sort of a Morton Downey show long before Morton Downey. Even I realized at about 12 it was highly scripted and basically a talk show wrestling match to be laughed at. Pyne also hosted a radio talk show where he told callers he didn't like to gargle with razor blades. My family and I leaned liberal, pro civil rights etc., but found the Pyne radio and TV shows a hoot. The staged wrestling matches on KTLA announced by Dick Lane were also fun, the Destroyer, Gorgeous George etc.
I was born in the early '50s, so my memory fades out for anything before about 1957 or 58. I do clearly remember watching the Mickey Mouse Club Show regularly, Howdy Doody and Sheriff John, and assorted stuff like 3 Stooges and Little Rascals (Our Gang). I actually went to a studio show with the 3 Stooges about 1959, I think at the Channel 13 studios, or maybe channel 9. Larry and Mo were there, no longer in their prime, and Curly was played by someone else. They called him "Curly Joe" to distinguish him from the original Mo Howard brother who had passed on, as had Shemp Howard also. I am still a member in good standing of the 3 Stooges fan club. Woo woo woo!
I also liked watching monster and science fiction films in my pre-10 years. The Godzilla version with Raymond Burr inserted in it to appeal to American audiences, playing a reporter named "Steve Martin" (little did Burr know how big that name would become 25 years later). The film with the giant radioactive mutant ants in the L.A. storm drains and sewers; the original George Pal 1960 version of "The Time Machine" etc. One of my first crushes was Yvette Mimieux (the eloi Weena) in the TM. She passed away recently. Rest in peace Yvette/Weena. In my teens I became an original "trekker"...don't say "trekkie"!
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