Barker Bill's Cartoon Show
A circus ringmaster hosted old black-and-white cartoons.
Barker Bill's Cartoon Show was the first network television weekday cartoon series, airing on CBS from 1953 to 1955. The 15-minute program was broadcast twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays at 5pm Eastern. Some local stations combined both episodes into a single 30-minute show.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Animation
- Country
- United States
- Language
- English
- Runtime
- 15 minutes
- Company
- Terrytoons
- Channel
- CBS
- First aired
- 1953
- Last aired
- 1955
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The host was a portly circus ringmaster named Barker Bill, who had a long black handlebar mustache and wore a traditional costume consisting of a fancy suit with white gloves and a top hat. The show used a stationary picture of Barker Bill, while an off-camera announcer introduced the cartoons. The cartoons were old black and white ones obtained from Terrytoons, mostly from the 1930s, such as Farmer Al Falfa and Kiko the Kangaroo, rather than more current series like Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle.
More in 1950s American Animated Television Series
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