Mommy, Uncle Ben on TV sez to ask you to buy me sugar and cardboard. pleeeeeze!

Ridiculus as it sounds, the two biggest items Madison Avenue pushed on kidvid shows were sugary treats (passed off as food) and cardboard icons of their TV faves, such as the Tobor mask, not to forget those plastic trinkets a toddler could choke on.

Dan Akroyd used these early TV age ads to fashion his satire on SNL. (remember his biggest seller, the bag of broken glass>) And the sketches were not far from the truth. Art Linkletter, the "Kids Say The Darndest Things" House Party guru of the 50's made a spot (soon to be added to out vollection here at OTV) in which he peddles. RC Cola to kids operating a Lemonade stand. Howdy Doody sold those problematic '45 "victrolas" which had shock hazards whilw Winky Dink pushed plastic sheets placed over a TV screen to form a dangerous high voltage coloring book. A local Nebraska kid show hawked anklets for little princesses, problem was the beads were paperboard and the band was (you guessed it) a rubber band. Nothing like constricting blood flow.

Bugs Bunny, as you can see in our "TV Commercials You Loved To Hate" section, pushed the new Kool-Aid drink mix with sugar added so "you can make it by yoursekf without mommy." ('Suzie, did you see where the pound bag of sugar went?') Any kid could swallow the Captain Cody decoder ring or the Captain Video ranger badge, ditto the free whistle in Captain Jack's cocoa cereal.

Two children's show hosts stood up against Madison Avenue. Bob Keeshan, to CBS' dismay, would allow no products harmful or misleading to children on and Fred Rogers moved his neighborhood over to public television while Fearless Fosdick blurbed candy cigarettes. Chocolate Cancer training, anyone?

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