''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'' was a television program for children and was generally broadcast around the
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
area. The series aired from 1967 to 1994. It was filmed and produced at the
WPVI-TV
WPVI-TV (channel 6), branded on-air as 6 ABC, is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the stati ...
, Channel 6 (then called WFIL when the program began) studios in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
,
Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...
.
''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'', was created by W. Carter Merbreier, an ordained
Lutheran
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...
minister and former Philadelphia police chaplain, and produced by the Philadelphia Council of Churches. The show initially aired as a religious program beginning in 1967 before switching to a children's program in 1970. The show starred Merbreier as Captain Noah and his real life wife, Patricia Merbreier, as Mrs. Noah.
At its height, ''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'' was syndicated to 22
television station
A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the eart ...
s in markets throughout the United States. During the early 1970s, ''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'' attracted a larger local audience in the Philadelphia region than ''
Sesame Street
''Sesame Street'' is an American educational children's television series that combines live-action, sketch comedy, animation and puppetry. It is produced by Sesame Workshop (known as the Children's Television Workshop until June 2000) ...
'' and ''
Captain Kangaroo
''Captain Kangaroo'' is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television progra ...
'' combined.
Background
Started as a religious-oriented program, ''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'' became a daily children's program in 1970. The show aired from 7:00 a.m. to 9 a.m. on weekdays and for 30 minutes on Sunday morning leading out of ABC Sunday-morning cartoons and into the '' Al Alberts Show''. The show also featured four cartoon shorts per day during the week. These included
Gumby
''Gumby'' is an American clay animation franchise, centered on the titular green clay humanoid character created and modeled by Art Clokey. Gumby stars in two television series, the feature-length '' Gumby: The Movie'', and other media. He im ...
,
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by Elzie Crisler Segar.Porky Pig (pre-1940 and post-1947 episodes), and
Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny is an animated cartoon character created in the late 1930s by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Leon Schlesinger Productions (later Warner Bros. Cartoons) and Voice acting, voiced originally by Mel Blanc. Bugs is best known for his starring role ...
(post-1948 episodes).
In 1975, when ABC began their morning show '' Good Morning America'', WPVI-TV opted to preempt that in favor of ''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark.'' Starting in September 1976, WPVI began running the 7:00 a.m. hour of ''Good Morning America'' and scaled ''Captain Noah'' back to the 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. slot. The format remained the same.
While Captain Noah, a former Lutheran minister, was the main "host" of the show, Mrs. Noah was the puppeteer and a trained singer. Famous Philadelphian entertainer Larry Ferrari provided the music. Favorite puppets included Maurice the Mouse, Mumwup the Monster, and Wally the Walrus.
In 1978, when the Popeye cartoons moved to WTAF-29 (now WTXF, Fox-29) and the Warner Brothers cartoons moved to Channel 17
WPHL-TV
WPHL-TV (channel 17) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, affiliated with MyNetworkTV. The station is owned by Nexstar Media Group and has studios in the Wynnefield section of West Philadelphia; it maintains ...
(later to 48 WKBS and then back to WPHL), WPVI dropped the weekday edition of ''Captain Noah'' and began running ''Good Morning America'' in its entirety. ''Captain Noah'' continued as a weekend program. It would run an hour on Saturday mornings and on that showing often contained the 8 AM cartoon (when it was a half-hour offering) offered by ABC within the show. On Sunday mornings, it now ran for 30 minutes before ''
Kids Are People Too
''Kids Are People Too'' is an American television series that ran on Sunday mornings from 1978 to 1982 on ABC. The series was a variety/news magazine show oriented towards kids with the intention of recognizing them as people. During its four-ye ...
''. For a while a 15-minute edition was inserted into the showing of ''Kids Are People Too''. In 1983, ''Captain Noah'' was scaled back to 30 minutes on Saturday mornings and ran this way until 1994 with no cartoons inserted. The staples of the show were the puppets, cartoons and songs.
The theme song was, "I Can Sing a Rainbow" sung by Andy Williams. Another notable song that was played every episode was "Send Your Pictures to Dear Old Captain Noah". Celebrity guests on the show included
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
,
Charles Barkley
Charles Wade Barkley (born February 20, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player who is a television analyst on NBA on TNT, TNT. Nicknamed "Sir Charles", "Chuck", and "the Round Mound of Rebound", Barkley played 16 seasons ...
Jim Henson
James Maury Henson (September 24, 1936 – May 16, 1990) was an American puppeteer, animator, cartoonist, actor, inventor, and filmmaker who achieved worldwide notice as the creator of The Muppets and '' Fraggle Rock'' (1983–1987) and ...
Frank Perdue
Franklin Parsons Perdue (May 9, 1920 – March 31, 2005), born in Salisbury, Maryland, was for many years the president and CEO of Perdue Farms, now one of the largest chicken-producing companies in the United States.
Background
Frank was ...
. The Phillie Phanatic, mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies, debuted to the public on the show in 1978.
Carter and Pat Merbreier jointly decided to retire and end the show in 1994. Captain and Mrs. Noah were both inducted into the Philadelphia Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame in 2001. They were also honored that year by the same organization as their Persons of the Year. A 35th anniversary show was aired in 2005 on WPVI from the
Please Touch Museum
The Please Touch Museum is a children's museum located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The museum focuses on teaching children through interactive exhibits and special events, mostly aimed at children seven years ...
.
The set of the show has been preserved at the
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
's
Please Touch Museum
The Please Touch Museum is a children's museum located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The museum focuses on teaching children through interactive exhibits and special events, mostly aimed at children seven years ...
's new home at Memorial Hall in Fairmount Park, which opened on October 18, 2008.
The show is now repeated every Saturday at 8:30 am on one of Channel 6's (WPVI) digital feeds. The reruns generally consist of the last few seasons the show aired (1993 or 1994). Captain Noah was grand marshal of the "Night In Venice" boat parade in Ocean City, NJ, on Saturday July 24, 2010. Patricia Merbreier died at age 86 on June 23, 2011 in Philadelphia. W. Carter Merbrier died at age 90 on August 9, 2016, following a short illness. He was living in Audubon, PA at the time of his death."PHILADELPHIA TV PIONEER CAPTAIN NOAH DIES AT AGE 90" /ref>
Personal
Carter Merbreier, a.k.a. Captain Noah, and Patricia Merbreier had one daughter, Pamela.
In October 2014, Carter Merbreier published the book ''Captain Noah and His Magical Ark'', detailing his experiences as a children's television show host on WPVI-ABCTV for over 30 years.