R.I.P. - Uncle Jimmy Weldon - 99

[Monsters For Sale]

                                             Uncle Jimmy Weldon and Webster Webfoot

Born in September, 1923 - he died just 2 months shy of being 100.

He and his ventriloquist puppet hosted a cartoon show five days a week in the Los Angeles broadcast area.  He also provided voice for Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

You have to be really old like me to remember him.  He was active around the time of Paul Winchel.

[Hepcat]

(Jimmy Weldon) began his career in 1946 as a disc jockey at KWCO (Texas/Oklahoma), the radio station which began its operations shortly after he returned home following WWII. He was the first announcer hired at this new radio station.

While there, he developed a character named Webster Webfoot, a little duck who visited him while he was playing record requests from listeners calling in. Often they just wanted to talk to little Webster. They thought Webster was someone other than Weldon, and so he became an important part of Weldon's disc jockey presentations.

In 1948, Weldon (and Webster Webfoot) moved to Duncan, Oklahoma, where they performed on another 250-watt AM station, KRHD, for two more years. The big 50,000-watt radio station WFAA in Dallas, Texas, recruited Webster and Weldon as entertainers, and Webster became a real person on television on April 4, 1950, on The Webster Webfoot Show, produced locally by station WFAA-TV.

They moved to California on September 5, 1952, joining KCOP-TV, Channel 13, in Hollywood and continued their television careers. During an appearance at a middle school in Brentwood, Jeff Chandler and Randolph Scott collected the tickets from the children and parents who came to see the show. These two movie stars made Weldon feel very lucky indeed when they commented, "Our children think more of little Webster than they do OUR movie careers." Also, Ralph Edwards was there, and he later gave Webster and Weldon the positions as co-hosts of a new children's game show titled Funny Boners, a junior version of his famous Truth or Consequences radio and television shows, which aired on ABC.

In 1956, Weldon and Webster moved to Fresno, California, which began a career in the San Joaquin Valley at KFRE-TV, Channel 12. This was interrupted, however, when NBC executives called them to New York to replace Shari Lewis on the Hi, Mom show on NBC flagship station, WRCA-TV, Channel 4.

In 1959, Channel 13 in Hollywood once again became their television home.

In 1961, Weldon and Webster were called back to the San Joaquin Valley. They continued performing their show on KJEO-TV, Channel 47, in Fresno, California, throughout the 1960s. During this time, Weldon and Webster also did TV shows in Salinas and Bakersfield, California, flying their airplane from city to city for those shows.

Wow, stepping in to replace the legendary Shari Lewis!