Host hodgepodge had an appeal

“That guy’s beard,” I said to my wife as we were watching a baseball game, “makes him look like Happy the Hobo.”

She looked up from her knitting for half a second and said, “You’re right.”

It’s testimony to our nearly 50 years of marriage that she knew who the heck Happy the Hobo was.

You probably know too if you’re of a certain age or had kids at a certain time in American life.

His TV show aired on channel 55 out of Fort Wayne in an after-school time slot. It featured a live studio audience of kids, some slapstick and corny jokes, and an abundance of cartoons.

In other words, it was the exact opposite of what PBS was offering kids: “Sesame Street,” “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “The Electric Company” and more.

But it had its appeal, and it had its roots in the earliest years of television in America.

While “Happy’s Place” aired on several Fox affiliates back in the day, most of the earliest kids’ shows were limited to a single station.

The formula was pretty simple. Cartoons, the Three Stooges, the Little Rascals, old cowboy movies or old horror movies provided the core. Then you needed a local host, preferably someone willing to dress up in a silly costume, and maybe a live audience of Cub Scouts or Brownies who were prepared to scream with delight on cue.

While my wife moved on with her knitting, a sweater for our oldest grandson, I fell down a rabbit hole and started dredging up musty memories of small-market TV hosts from my youth.

Do you remember:

•Engineer John? He was an avuncular or grandfatherly type who hosted “Cartoon Express” on Fort Wayne TV early in the morning before school. Later in the day, if you were home sick from school, you’d see him without his engineer’s cap and overalls delivering the weather report.

•Uncle Orrie? How about his sidekicks Ferdie Fussbudget and Nosey the Clown? They appeared on WHIO-TV out of Dayton, Ohio, and their antics were framed around old Little Rascals short subjects from a generation earlier. Uncle Orrie always wore a Union Civil War cap and a vest. Nosey’s trademark was falling down; the talent pool was a little limited. Ferdie, as I recall, was just irritating. Also irritating was the show’s tendency to keep the Little Rascals movie running during commercials. That could be a little confusing if you were trying to keep track of hapless Alfalfa’s attempts at romance with the princess-like Darla.

•Cowboy Bob? He popped up on channel 4 out of Indy in the wake of something called “Popeye and Janie.” Janie was nice enough, but even kids who love cartoons grew weary of Popeye’s spinach-fueled plots pretty quickly.

•Harlow Hickenlooper? He was a purveyor of Three Stooges shorts, products of the 1930s that were being pitched to kids in the 1950s and 1960s. Harlow was an after-school host on channel 6 out of Indianapolis and took over from a previous host — a guy called Hoosier Hank — that I preferred.

•Selwin? Late night TV on Fridays and Saturdays was dominated by old horror movies from the Universal Studios collection of cinematic crap. Selwin, I believe, was out of Indy. But every market had its own variation: Ignatz Hammerslob (Nosey the Clown in a different costume and not falling down) out of Dayton and Sammy Terry from channel 4 come to mind.

•Curley Myers? There’s a name I had almost forgotten. He hosted a show featuring old cowboy movies, wore a cowboy hat himself and strummed his guitar now and then.

And then there’s Bob Shreve.

Bob hosted late-late night movies on broadcasts out of Dayton and Cincinnati. I didn’t become a member of his audience until college.

He played the role of a bartender — the sponsor was Schoenling beer — and had a repertoire of bad jokes that he repeated every weekend. “Do you want to see Chickie a little longer?” he would ask as he stretched a rubber chicken.

Shakespeare it was not. “Masterpiece Theatre” it was not. “Sesame Street” it was not.

But in the hours after midnight, it could occasionally be counted as entertainment.