Picture Pages

Overview

"Picture Pages" is an educational television segment aimed at preschool children, teaching lessons on basic arithmetic, geometry, and drawing through a series of interactive lessons that used a workbook that viewers would follow along with the lesson. "Picture Pages" started on a local Pittsburgh children's show in 1974 with the "Picture Pages" puzzle booklets given away at a supermarket chain. It debuted as a national segment of the Captain Kangaroo show in 1978, in which Captain Kangaroo would do the lessons on his "magic drawing board". Later, the segments were taken over by Bill Cosby and the lessons were used with his marker named "Mortimer Ichabod Marker". When the Captain Kangaroo show left CBS in 1984, the segment was adopted as part of Nickelodeon's Pinwheel program until that show was canceled in 1989. The segment was also used as an interstitial program into the early 1990s. The show also aired on Canada's YTV cable network.