''Blinky's Fun Club'' is a children's television program blending such elements as

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – wikt:inanimate, inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. S ...

, and

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

that first aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

-Affiliated station

KKTV KKTV (channel 11) is a television station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Gray Media, and maintains studios on East Colorado Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs and a transmitter on ...

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is the most populous city in El Paso County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The city had a population of 478,961 at the 2020 census, a 15.02% increase since 2010. Colorado Springs is the second-most populous c ...

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

from 1958 to 1966 and then on

KWGN-TV KWGN-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, serving as the local The CW, CW outlet. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox affiliate KDVR ...

Denver Denver ( ) is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Consolidated city and county, consolidated city and county, the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous city of the U.S. state of ...

, Colorado, from 1966 to 1998. In 1998, William Ross, KWGN's general manager at the time, would cancel the series after a combined 40 year run (nine years on KKTV, and 32 years on KWGN) on Colorado television.

Program synopsis

The star of ''Blinky's Fun Club'' was Blinky the Clown, played by

Russell Scott Russell Scott (June 30, 1921 – August 27, 2012), also known as Blinky the Clown, and simply Clown, was an American clown, television personality and presenter who starred in a Denver, Colorado television program called ''Blinky's Fun Club'' ...

. In the early 1980s additional characters began to appear regularly, including Otis and Zelda, played by husband and wife acting duo Michael Berg and C.J. Prince. Children appeared on each show to celebrate their birthdays and were sung "

Happy Birthday to You "Happy Birthday to You", or simply "Happy Birthday", is a song traditionally sung to celebrate a person's birthday. According to the 1998 ''Guinness World Records'', it is the most recognized song in the English language, followed by "For He' ...

" (sung as Birf-Day) by Blinky. Over 10,000 episodes, taped at KWGN's studios, initially located at Lincoln and Speer in Denver, later in

Greenwood Village The City of Greenwood Village is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15,691 at the 2020 United States census. Greenwood Village is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO ...

, aired during the show's three decades on the air. The station reportedly saved tapes of only 10 shows. KCNC and KUSA reportedly were able to get a few of the episodes out of the trash, and put them in their libraries.

References

Culture of Denver Culture of Colorado Springs, Colorado 1960s American children's comedy television series 1970s American children's comedy television series 1980s American children's comedy television series 1990s American children's comedy television series 1966 American television series debuts 1998 American television series endings American television series with live action and animation American television shows featuring puppetry Local children's television programming in the United States Television shows about clowns {{US-child-tv-prog-stub