For 22 years, every Sunday, the little residents of Dallas woke up together with The Children’s Hour and its hosts Bill Kelley and Budd Kneisel. Several generations of children grew up on this educational and entertaining program. While watching it, one could spend the weekend with benefits. Read more on dallas-trend.
The appearance of the Dallas children’s program and its hosts
The idea to create a children’s TV program that will be broadcast exclusively on local television belongs to Johnny Hay. The first editions of the program appeared on Dallas television screens in 1970. The program was originally hosted by Johnny Hay and Bill Kelley. However, the main producer decided to deal only with organizational issues. Then, Budd Kneisel took the seat of the second presenter.
Bill Kelley and Budd Kneisel had a pleasant appearance. The eyes of the children were immediately attracted by their sincere and warm smiles. Budd received special attention. He was a religious person guided by the laws of God. Feeling affection among the audience, TV presenters remained the main faces of The Children’s Hour until 1992, as long as the TV show was on the air.
What did the TV program show?
Each new program of The Children’s Hour was released on Sundays at 8 AM. Usually, the release lasted one to one and a half hours. This time was specially chosen so that young viewers did not have time to get exhausted from the new information that was broadcast on TV. Instead of traditional advertising, children were given a few minutes of exercise to funny music.
Bill Kelley usually drew funny cartoons or read the Sunday comic pages of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper. Sometimes, together with his co-host, he played funny skits with the favorite characters of the cartoons of the time.
The TV program received the most views during those episodes when invited guests came to the studio. They were employees of the Dallas Zoo and the Fort Worth Children’s Museum, which later became the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. Every time they surprised their audience with stories about funny incidents during their work and interesting stories about the life of animals. They also talked about history, biology, chemistry and other sciences in an understandable way.
Bill Kelley ended the episodes with a suggestion to watch a cartoon and go to church with the parents or visit the grandparents.
The end of the era of The Children’s Hour
Every small town’s Sunday morning was spent in front of the TV screen until the early 1990s. However, when the American commercial company NBC began broadcasting its Today program at this time, The Children’s Hour was moved to Saturday morning.
Almost immediately, the rating of the children’s TV program, which had been a favorite for decades, fell to unprecedented levels. Thus, the duration of one program was reduced to approximately 30 minutes. The Children’s Hour began to be less useful. They disseminated less information that was interesting to children and invited unusual guests less often.
In addition to all this, Bill Kelley left the broadcast in 1992. He terminated the contract with local television. The Children’s Hour could not exist without him. Therefore, the official end of the program is dated the same year as the dismissal of the main presenter.
It was not possible to organize a project at least slightly similar to The Children’s Hour. Modern Dallas television, unfortunately, cannot boast of any other children’s program that has achieved such a heyday.
