The Children's Hour

Overview

The Children’s Hour was a local children’s television series produced in the mid-1960s by WIHS-TV channel 38 in Boston, Massachusetts. Despite the show’s title, the program ran 45 minutes. It was hosted by Paula Dolan, and ran late weekday afternoons. Unlike many local children’s programming, there were no children on-stage. In fact, Dolan was the only on-screen person on the program, which was produced in a very small studio. The format was simple and never changed. At the beginning of the program, Dolan would introduce Wilbur the Wise Weather Rabbit, a hand puppet she controlled. Each day, Wilbur would make a prediction about whether tomorrow would be sunny, rainy, cloudy, or snowy. After she put Wilbur away, Dolan would then bring out a calendar, and tell the viewers she was secretly keeping track of Wilbur’s predictions. She would mark on the calendar what Wilbur’s prediction for tomorrow was, and make note of how accurate he was for today’s weather. The remainder of the program consisted of an episode of the cartoon series Bucky and Pepito, and an episode of one of the Flash Gordon serials starring Buster Crabbe. Unfortunately, the serial episodes were not always shown in the proper order. Each program ended with Dolan doing a dance routine as the credits rolled.