''Blinky's Fun Club'' is a children's television program blending such elements as

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic compositio ...

puppetry Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Such a performan ...

, and animation that first aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

-Affiliated station

KKTV KKTV (channel 11) is a television station in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, affiliated with CBS. The station is owned by Gray Television, and maintains studios on East Colorado Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs and a transmitte ...

Colorado Springs Colorado Springs is a home rule municipality in, and the county seat of, El Paso County, Colorado, United States. It is the largest city in El Paso County, with a population of 478,961 at the 2020 United States Census, a 15.02% increase since ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

from 1958 to 1966 and then on

KWGN-TV KWGN-TV (channel 2) is a television station in Denver, Colorado, United States, airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate KDVR, channel 31 (and its Fort Collins ...

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United ...

, Colorado, from 1966 to 1998. In 1998, William Ross, KWGN's general manager at the time, would cancel the series after a combined 40 year run (nine years on KKTV, and 32 years on KWGN) on Colorado television.

Program synopsis

The star of ''Blinky's Fun Club'' was Blinky the Clown, played by

Russell Scott Blinky the Clown (June 30, 1921 – August 27, 2012), also known as Russell Scott, and simply Clown, was an American clown, television personality and presenter who starred in a Denver, Colorado television program called ''Blinky's Fun Club' ...

. In the early 1980s additional characters began to appear regularly, including Otis and Zelda, played by husband and wife acting duo Michael Berg and C.J. Prince. Children appeared on each show to celebrate their birthdays and were sung "

Happy Birthday to You "Happy Birthday to You", also known as "Happy Birthday", is a song traditionally sung to celebrate a person's birthday. According to the 1998 '' Guinness World Records'', it is the most recognised song in the English language, followed by "F ...

," (sung as Birf-Day) by Blinky. Over 10,000 episodes, taped at KWGN's studios, initially located at Lincoln and Speer in Denver, later in

Greenwood Village The City of Greenwood Village is a home rule municipality located in Arapahoe County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 15,691 at the 2020 United States Census. Greenwood Village is a part of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Met ...

, aired during the show's three decades on the air. The station reportedly saved tapes of only 10 shows. KCNC and KUSA reportedly were able to get a few of the episodes out of the trash, and put them in their libraries.

References

Culture of Denver Culture of Colorado Springs, Colorado 1960s American children's comedy television series 1970s American children's comedy television series 1980s American children's comedy television series 1990s American children's comedy television series 1966 American television series debuts 1998 American television series endings American television series with live action and animation American television shows featuring puppetry Local children's television programming in the United States Television shows about clowns {{US-child-tv-prog-stub