vintage television – Lee Duigon

“Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!” Did any of us ever know what that was supposed to mean?

This is extremely rare color footage of the great Andy Devine hosting the vintage 1950s kid TV show, Andy’s Gang–co-starring his wicked little sidekick, Froggy the Gremlin.

I was crazy about Froggy when I was seven or eight years old. I even had a squeezable replica of Froggy, although it didn’t talk. Which was just as well, because when Froggy talked, other people got in trouble. A great little mischief-maker was our Froggy!

Oh, how I wish–oh, how I wish that Froggy would moderate presidential debates! Now that would really be worth watching.

A lot of you are gonna say “Huh? What’s he talking about?” And some might even get a little cheesed off. But it isn’t everyone whose career extends over six decades; and Zacherley, “the Cool Ghoul”–horror movie host, disc jockey, presidential candidate–had the hottest show on TV when I was ten years old. And here he is at 94, still working. How I love to hear that trademark wacky laugh of his!

Come on down a little-traveled stretch of Memory Lane. No one ever came close to matching Zacherley, when it came to spoofing Grade-D horror movies: often imitated, never duplicated. Great singing voice, too. I still find myself, at odd and unexpected intervals, singing one of his ditties. “When a mummy meets a mummy, floating down the Nile/ Should a mummy greet a mummy with a nasty smile?”

It was all in fun, just a lot of innocent horsing around on TV, and my friends and I all loved it.

I wonder if it’s too late to get a copy of Zacherley’s short story anthology, Zacherley’s Vulture Stew.