''Happy's Party'' was a children's TV program originating at WDTV in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

and broadcast for one season on the

DuMont Television Network The DuMont Television Network (also the DuMont Network, DuMont Television, DuMont/Du Mont, or (incorrectly) Dumont ) was one of America's pioneer commercial television networks, rivaling NBC and CBS for the distinction of being first overall in ...

. The show debuted locally on March 1, 1951, and appears to have had its last telecast on August 13, 1955 (by which time WDTV had been purchased by Westinghouse and become KDKA-TV). It was aired by the DuMont network from September 6, 1952 to May 9, 1953, with a 30 minutes segment on the network and an additional 30 minutes broadcast to the local Pittsburgh market. It also appears to have aired on WQED in Pittsburgh in 1959. Happy was a

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

puppet A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or Legendary creature, mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. Puppetry is an ancient form of theatre which dates back to the 5th century BC in anci ...

which interacted with host Ida Mae Maher, who also made public-service appearances at elementary school classrooms in the Pittsburgh area. She used a puppet named, "Happy Tooth", to encourage young children to practice good dental hygiene.

Series premise

Ida Mae Maher, the chief dental hygienist for the Pittsburgh Board of Education, came up with the idea of a using a puppet dog on a television series to teach children the importance of good dental health in an entertaining way. The puppet Happy was a "champion of good health, good manners, and good citizenship". In addition to Maher's interaction with Happy there was a panel of four children who answered questioned asked by adult visitors, and playlets written by viewers were presented.

Episode status

No episodes were believed to have survived. In 2015, however, Clarke Ingram, creator of the DuMont historical website, announced he had located a partial show.Ingram Facebook post
This fragment, which aired on February 5, 1955 (just six days after WDTV changed to KDKA-TV), is the only known existing footage of the program. In 2019, this footage was digitized and uploaded to YouTube

The original film now resides at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network This is a list of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network, which operated in the United States from 1942 to 1956. All regularly scheduled programs which were aired on the DuMont network are listed below, regardless of whether they origi ...

List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts The DuMont Television Network was launched in 1946 and ceased broadcasting in 1956. Allen DuMont, who created the network, preserved most of what it produced in kinescope format. By 1958, however, much of the library had been destroyed to recov ...

* List of local children's television series'' Ida and Happy

*'' All About Baby'' (1953–55), originating from

WGN-TV WGN-TV (channel 9) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, serving as the local outlet for The CW. It is owned and operated by the network's majority owner, Nexstar Media Group, and is sister station, sister to the company ...

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

*'' Kids and Company'' (1951–52) *'' The Most Important People'' (1950–51), sponsored by Gerber's Baby Food

References

Bibliography

*David Weinstein, ''The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television'' (Philadelphia:

Temple University Press Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...

, 2004) *Alex McNeil, ''Total Television'', Fourth edition (New York:

Penguin Books Penguin Books Limited is a Germany, German-owned English publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers the Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the ...

, 1980) *Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, ''The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows'', Third edition (New York:

Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. Ballantine was acquired by Random House in ...

, 1964)

External links

''Happy's Party'' at IMDBDuMont historical website
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220215180817/https://www.dumonthistory.com/ , date=2022-02-15
Partial 1955 episode of ''Happy's Party''
DuMont Television Network original programming 1952 American television series debuts 1953 American television series endings 1950s American children's television series American television shows featuring puppetry Black-and-white American television shows

Series premise

Episode status

See also

References

Bibliography

External links