- Small Fry Club
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The Small Fry Club, also known as Movies for Small Fry, is one of the earliest TV series made for children. Aired from 11 March 1947 to 15 June 1951 on the DuMont Television Network, it was hosted by "Big Brother Bob Emery".
Contents
Broadcast history
This weekday series was one of the few successful series on DuMont, and aired in the evenings for more than four seasons before it was cancelled.[1] After cancellation, Bob Emery returned to Boston and continued to do versions of the show on WBZ-TV until his retirement in January 1968.
The Small Fry Club originally aired weekly, but soon expanded to five days a week. According to television historians Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, it was possibly the first television series to air five days per week.[2]
Before it was on television, the show got its start on radio, in Boston, Massachusetts. Bob Emery (real name Clair Robert Emery) was a talented performer who became best known for his work as a children's show host, first at radio station 1XE/WGI Medford Hillside MA in early 1924, and then, when WGI was undergoing financial difficulties, he took the show to a new Boston station, WEEI, owned by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. He did his show there from late September 1924 till the early 1930s, at which time he took a radio job in New York City, first working for NBC and then working at several local stations in New York.
Big Brother Bob Emery had already been a singer and announcer on WGI before he began doing his children's show. When he first put the show on the air, it was known as the "Big Brother Club." In 1924, nearly every radio station had a man or woman who told bed-time stories to the kids, and Boston radio had several. Bob Emery would become the best known, going on to a career in both radio and TV that lasted from the early 20s till he retired in the late 60s.
"Big Brother" --long before this term connoted something from George Orwell, it referred to being a mentor—did much more than read bed-time stories. He created a show that was both entertaining and educational, with segments about current events, literature, travel, music, and ethics (good manners, being respectful to others, etc). Emery sang and played the ukelele or the banjo. He also had guest performers, as well as interesting speakers who were doing things kids would find exciting. The Big Brother Club had membership cards and an official button (in the shape of a WEEI microphone). Bob Emery also wrote a newspaper column about club activities. WEEI would also sponsor events that Big Brother Club members could attend, including a day at the zoo or a picnic. And while the show had sponsors, Big Brother was known for caring about kids and not doing an excessive amount of hype. (By the way, it is a total urban legend that Big Brother or Uncle Don or any other children's show host ever said "that ought to hold the little bastards..." Perhaps such myths circulated because doing a children's show could be very tiresome and demanding, and it sounded like something an exasperated host MIGHT have said.)
Big Brother Bob Emery had several theme songs, one of which was a 1924 hit song called "The Grass is Always Greener in the Other Fellow's Yard" about being satisfied with what you have and not being envious. He opened his show with this, as well as with a singing jingle about WEEI. His closing song was "So Long Small Fry" ("small fry" was a slang expression for 'children') and ultimately, when he took his former radio show to television, that is how it came to be known as the Small Fry Club.
See also
- List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network
- List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
References
- ^ Alex McNeil, Total Television. Fourth edition. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-024916-8
- ^ Brooks, Tim & Marsh, Earle (1964). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows (3rd ed.). New York: Ballantine. p. xiv. ISBN 0-345-31864-1.
Bibliography
- David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2004) ISBN 1-59213-245-6
- Alex McNeil, Total Television, Fourth edition (New York: Penguin Books, 1980) ISBN 0-14-024916-8
- Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network TV Shows, Third edition (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964) ISBN 0-345-31864-1
External links
Categories:- DuMont Television Network shows
- 1947 television series debuts
- 1951 television series endings
- American children's television series
- 1940s American television series
- 1950s American television series
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