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Sandy Becker
George Sanford "Sandy" Becker (February 19, 1922 – April 9, 1996) was an American television announcer, actor, and comedian who hosted several popular children's programs in New York City. The best known of these was The Sandy Becker Show, which ran from 1955 to 1968 on WABD-TV and WNEW-TV, channel 5.
Sandy Becker was born and raised in New York City. He held local radio announcing jobs before first reaching public attention in 1947 on radio as the title character of the series Young Doctor Malone. Originally a pre-med student at New York University in the 1930s, Becker played the character on the radio for a decade, after having been the show's announcer. Becker was invited to take the role to television in 1958, but declined, in order to pursue his own television projects.
After Dr. Malone, Becker started working for WABD (later WNEW) TV channel 5 in New York City and began hosting a program featuring Bugs Bunny cartoons, The Looney Tunes Show, on weeknights from 1955 to 1958. A second Friday night program called Bugs Bunny Theater ran from 1956 to 1957. Becker also did also announcing, such as for Wildroot Cream-Oil ads in the television series The Adventures of Robin Hood. He also did radio spots for Crisco.
In the middle of those activities, Becker found his true calling, spun off in large part from his knack for entertaining his own three children, with his vocal and comic versatility and mimicry. This led him to his morning show, beginning in 1955. This also included cartoons, but with a novel addition: a live guest child would be “tuned in” on a large fake cardboard television, and then Sandy would bring them into the studio for a short chat. He soon added a noontime program, Sandy Becker's Funhouse, briefly in 1955. He also hosted the first year of the syndicated children's Sunday TV show Wonderama, from its six-hour premiere in September 1955, until 1956.
Becker would also host a weekday afternoon and evening children's wraparound program, The Sandy Becker Show, which had him playing comedic characters, performing puppet skits, engaging his viewers in informational segments and contests, and interviewing guest performers and personalities in-between the reruns of movie and TV cartoons. The show was seen weekday afternoons and evenings from Monday, March 30, 1961, to Friday, February 16, 1968. It also ran on Saturday evenings, from March 27, 1961, to September 4, 1965.
Becker's propensity for doing comic voices brought him much work in animation. His best-known work there was perhaps Mr. Wizard on King Leonardo and His Short Subjects — "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome / Time for this one to come home" — who was always indulging, then rescuing Tooter Turtle from his outlandish wishes. Becker also provided the voices for Sergeant Okie Homa and Ruffled Feathers on Go Go Gophers. The former character sounded similar to John Wayne, while the latter simply exploded into babbling gibberish whenever he explained his latest idea to stop the coyote adversaries.
On his morning and (later) afternoon children's programs, Becker created such characters as double-talking disc jockey Hambone, the addled, but brilliant Big Professor (who claimed to know the answer to every question in the world), rumpled Hispanic kid's show host K. Lastima, incompetent mad scientist Dr. Gesundheit, and — showing a flair for silent comedy — simple-minded Norton Nork, whose routines of earnest bumbling were joined only by musical accompaniment ("Playtime On Pluto" by Ron Goodwin) and a droll Becker narration that ended, invariably, with, "That's my boy, Norton Nork — you've done it again!" He also had a real bird in a cage called "Chipper".
Another aspect of Becker's humor was derived from his interaction with his (often ethnically stereotyped) hand puppets, which included; "Marvin Mouse", "Googie", the German-accented "Geeba Geeba", the English "Sir Clive Clyde", "Wowee the Indian", the space creature "Sputnik", the Latino "K. Lastima" (the name taken from the Spanish phrase "¡Qué lástima!" {"What a pity"}), and the Irish "Danny Moran".
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Sandy Becker
George Sanford "Sandy" Becker (February 19, 1922 – April 9, 1996) was an American television announcer, actor, and comedian who hosted several popular children's programs in New York City. The best known of these was The Sandy Becker Show, which ran from 1955 to 1968 on WABD-TV and WNEW-TV, channel 5.
Sandy Becker was born and raised in New York City. He held local radio announcing jobs before first reaching public attention in 1947 on radio as the title character of the series Young Doctor Malone. Originally a pre-med student at New York University in the 1930s, Becker played the character on the radio for a decade, after having been the show's announcer. Becker was invited to take the role to television in 1958, but declined, in order to pursue his own television projects.
After Dr. Malone, Becker started working for WABD (later WNEW) TV channel 5 in New York City and began hosting a program featuring Bugs Bunny cartoons, The Looney Tunes Show, on weeknights from 1955 to 1958. A second Friday night program called Bugs Bunny Theater ran from 1956 to 1957. Becker also did also announcing, such as for Wildroot Cream-Oil ads in the television series The Adventures of Robin Hood. He also did radio spots for Crisco.
In the middle of those activities, Becker found his true calling, spun off in large part from his knack for entertaining his own three children, with his vocal and comic versatility and mimicry. This led him to his morning show, beginning in 1955. This also included cartoons, but with a novel addition: a live guest child would be “tuned in” on a large fake cardboard television, and then Sandy would bring them into the studio for a short chat. He soon added a noontime program, Sandy Becker's Funhouse, briefly in 1955. He also hosted the first year of the syndicated children's Sunday TV show Wonderama, from its six-hour premiere in September 1955, until 1956.
Becker would also host a weekday afternoon and evening children's wraparound program, The Sandy Becker Show, which had him playing comedic characters, performing puppet skits, engaging his viewers in informational segments and contests, and interviewing guest performers and personalities in-between the reruns of movie and TV cartoons. The show was seen weekday afternoons and evenings from Monday, March 30, 1961, to Friday, February 16, 1968. It also ran on Saturday evenings, from March 27, 1961, to September 4, 1965.
Becker's propensity for doing comic voices brought him much work in animation. His best-known work there was perhaps Mr. Wizard on King Leonardo and His Short Subjects — "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome / Time for this one to come home" — who was always indulging, then rescuing Tooter Turtle from his outlandish wishes. Becker also provided the voices for Sergeant Okie Homa and Ruffled Feathers on Go Go Gophers. The former character sounded similar to John Wayne, while the latter simply exploded into babbling gibberish whenever he explained his latest idea to stop the coyote adversaries.
On his morning and (later) afternoon children's programs, Becker created such characters as double-talking disc jockey Hambone, the addled, but brilliant Big Professor (who claimed to know the answer to every question in the world), rumpled Hispanic kid's show host K. Lastima, incompetent mad scientist Dr. Gesundheit, and — showing a flair for silent comedy — simple-minded Norton Nork, whose routines of earnest bumbling were joined only by musical accompaniment ("Playtime On Pluto" by Ron Goodwin) and a droll Becker narration that ended, invariably, with, "That's my boy, Norton Nork — you've done it again!" He also had a real bird in a cage called "Chipper".
Another aspect of Becker's humor was derived from his interaction with his (often ethnically stereotyped) hand puppets, which included; "Marvin Mouse", "Googie", the German-accented "Geeba Geeba", the English "Sir Clive Clyde", "Wowee the Indian", the space creature "Sputnik", the Latino "K. Lastima" (the name taken from the Spanish phrase "¡Qué lástima!" {"What a pity"}), and the Irish "Danny Moran".