Why am I feeling so old?
One of the last children's show host I remember watching as a child passed away.
Marijane Landis, who spent her entire 47 year career at Hearst Television's WGAL-TV In Lancaster,PA, has died at age 87. Ms. Landis is also a TV broadcast pioneer in the area, doing everything from news anchor, talk show hostess, and children's television (specifically Percy Platypus and Friends and later, Sunshine Corners), at the longtime NBC affiliate. She was also a mentor to two women anchors at channel 8: Roxanne Stein, who is now a news anchor at a station in Pensacola, FL and Kim Lemon, who is still a news anchor at Channel 8. Funeral services will be on January 7, 2016 in Lancaster.
I feel for you youngsters, who never got to watch any of the kid show hosts that ruled the airwaves in Philadelphia, Central PA, and Baltimore. You had Ora Traynor Halftown (chief Halftown, who was actually a full-blooded Seneca chief) and Sally Starr, as well as Dick Clark and Larry Ferrari on Channel 6 in Philly, Gene London and Pixanne on Channel 10, Wee Willie Webber on Channel 17, the Rev. W. Carter Mebrier (Capt. Noah and his Ark) who was on almost every channel in Philly (except for maybe channel 12, channel 35, and channel 52), Stu Kerr on Channel 2 in Baltimore (where he spent his entire career as Bozo the Clown, and later, as Perfesser Kool of Perfesser Kool and his fun skool), Rhea Feiken (who's now seen as the host of all those damned begathons on Maryland Public Television), who was the weather girl, along with JP the dragon on channel 11 (goodnight Rolf, which was the sign off for the weather, and returned the closer to anchorman Rolf Hertzgaard), Pete the Pirate on channel 11, Royal Parker on channel 13, and Captain Chesapeake on Channel 45.
26 Dec 2015, 11:42 pm
