"Commander
Retro"
Willard
Scott as COMMANDER RETRO
with
Luther as Dr. Strangedog
(Courtesy:
Jack Maier)
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Aired
on WRC-TV 4
9/17/66
to 2/24/68
Saturdays
8:30
to 9:30AM
Broadcast
"In Living Color"
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Host:
Willard
Scott as "Commander Retro"
with
his co-star "Dr. Strangedog",
(played
by his own hound, "Lester").
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Pre-taped
and later broadcast from WRC-TV 4
with
studios and transmitter at 4001 Nebraska Avenue, N.W.
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Bonnie
Aikman's "D.C. Studios" column in the 9/11/66
Sunday
Star TV Magazine promotes the show as:
"'Commander
Retro and Dr. Strangedog'... An account of the adventures of a physicist
who's been turned into a talking dog. Willard Scott (remember Bozo?) is
playing the commander, and now we know where the show got that wacky premise...."
Buster
Crabbe as "Flash Gordon"
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John
Bevilacqua writes, "You might mention that
Commander Retro featured the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers movie serials."
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Hear
Willard Scott Describe "Commander Retro"
at
Kidshow
Klips From An Interview With Sean Hall
Courtesy:
Willard Scott & Sean Hall (heard on an edition of WTOP radio's"issues")
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In a
1977 interview with Trisha Katson for "Whatever
Happened To Those Kiddie Show Hosts?", Willard Scott is quoted as saying;
"This was a terrible
show, a real turkey...
but
it was more fun to do than any of them."
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Scott
Marinoff contributes: "The Dr Strangedog plotline
was that he'd been a human German spy, stowed away on the rocket ship.
He ate too many hotdog sausages - exploded - and somehow turned into a
dog! It was really Willard's basset hound, called Lester.
Part
of Commander Retro's rocket ship control panel included mini-cube icetrays
with blinking Christmas lights behind it! Not much to look at in
person, but really nifty for the home viewers. NBC's "Star
Trek" was on the air in first-run at the time and my guess is that it was
a local kidshow tie-in with that show. It makes sense, since WRC
was an NBC owned and operated TV station."
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Ruth
Prickett, who now resides in Indiana, shares a photo:
"This
show aired the Saturday before Christmas 1967. Pictured is Robert Day,
my son... and I treasure it. Carl Day, Robert's father, worked at WRC at
that time. Robert enjoyed very much being on the show and when he went
back to school after the holidays, his classmates asked for his autograph.
Robert lives in California now. Works in computers, and enjoys the outdoors
every chance he gets. This summer he joined in the large group bike riding
from San Francisco to Los Angeles for AIDS benefit."
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Sources:
"Whatever Happened To Those Kiddie Show Hosts?" by Trisha Katson, 1977,
George Mason University's Phoebe Magazine, (provided by John Ahmad &
Jack Maier);
Center
photo from "Willard Scott's The Joy of Living" published in 1982;
Article
from the Sunday Star TV Magazine of 9/11/66, courtesy Jack Maier;
Bottom
photo courtesy of Ruth Prickett. Top photo courtesy of Jack Maier.
Thanks
also to Scott Marinoff, John Bevilacqua and
Skip McCloskey.
Airtimes
confirmed from TV listings in the Evening Star and Washington Post.
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