Jabberwocky (TV series)

Infobox Television
show_name = Jabberwocky


caption = "Jabberwocky" main title
format = Children's
picture_format =
runtime = 30 minutes
executive_producer =
starring = Tucker Smallwood
JoBeth Williams
Robert Prosky
Carl Thoma
Joanne Sopko
Peter Johnson
country = USA
station = Produced at WCVB-TV, Boston
first_aired = 1972-1974
num_episodes =

"Jabberwocky" was a daily children's TV show designed for 5-10 year-olds that eventually went into national syndication. The original series ran Monday through Friday for over two seasons, from 1972 to 1974, on WCVB in Boston; the nationally syndicated version ran weekly and was rerun in the wee hours of Saturday mornings by many TV stations up until the 1990s.

ynopsis & History

Filmed and created by WCVB-TV Channel 5 Boston, "Jabberwocky" featured real actors and puppets and various interstitial cartoons. The "show within a show" concept featured actress JoBeth Williams -- in one of her earliest roles -- and actor Tucker Smallwood as the "lead performer" and "director" respectively of a children's show. The actress and director were played by Joanne Sopko and Carl Thoma in the first season. Harvard professor and psychologist Jerome Kagan was an advisor to the program.

The friendly antagonist in most episodes was puppet character Dirty Frank, who popped up from whatever packing crate was convenient. As a representative alter-ego for children, Dirty Frank's inquisitive nature and his sloppy behavior drove the plot of most episodes.

Another main character was the helpful and venerable Mr. Buchanan (actor Robert Prosky), a human handyman-prop master who concocted various inventions to help children in his backstage workshop. In many episodes, Mr. Buchanan's failed inventions and grandfatherly insights led the characters toward answers to their questions.

The characters were seen in a studio set, but episodes often took them out into the greater Boston area for miniature documentary segments.

Co-creators Fred Schilpp (Executive Producer) and Adam Villone (Head Writer) wrote many of the episodes along with Dewey Bergman and Joe Bailey. Tucker Smallwood was also an occasional segment writer for the show. The animation sequences, and the puppets, were created by Tom and Bob Jurkowski. The original theme music was produced by David Lucas Associates, a commercial music house in New York. Gail Frank was Producer and eventually became Executive Producer. Peter Johnson, the puppeteer, was trained by Caroll Spinney (Big Bird) from "Sesame Street" and Children's Television Workshop.

The value-based program won several major broadcasting awards including a citation from Action for Children's Television, the first ever given to a commercial television program.

WCVB-TV continued to air "Jabberwocky" well after it went out of production, as it became part of the station's past legacy of original local programming (something WCVB was known for doing a lot of). By the mid-to-late 1980s the show could always be seen Saturday mornings at 5am, followed by off-network reruns and later, in the 1990s, by syndicated children's programming that lead up to ABC's Saturday Morning lineup (most notably "Cappelli & Company"). However, 'CVB did venture into original Saturday kids shows once again, when in 1989 they premiered "A Likely Story", an imaginative show that encouraged reading.

By 1999-2000, after a continued airing of more than 25 years, "Jabberwocky" (along with classic airings of another 'CVB '70s original, "The Nature World of Captain Bob") vanished off the station's schedule.

Theme Lyrics

(Boy: "It's just a jabberwocky world, come on and see it with me...")

"Brothers and sisters
"Happy and growing
"Hammers and blisters
"Things you'll be knowing"

(Boy: "I have a feeling in my mind that i've been here before...")

"Flying machines,
"In space and time
"Words and their meanings
"Games, toys, and rhymes"

"Touching and feeling
"Inside and outside
"Hands on the ceiling
"My feet are on my side"

(Children: "All the world is Jabberwocky if you want it to be...")

"Building a sound
"to sing when you're near
"No need to frown,
"your friends are all here"

(Child: "Oh, this is Jabberwocky, hee-hee)"