The Funny Company

I recall this series airing daily during the Boston edition of 'Bozo the Clown' in the early 60's. As kids, we looked askance at the primitive animation, continuity errors, but most importantly, one character in particular: 'Super Chief'. He was an Indian dressed in headdress and blanket, apparently mute, but when prompted by one of the cast, would bellow out this bizarre train whistle/fog horn type of sound. I recall also that the series made fun of a kid who had some sort of speech impediment, and another who had some sort of cognitive impairment. This series was far from the state of the art, even for the times. Just a time filler perhaps, for when Bozo had to go feed the monkeys, if you know what I mean.

"The Funny Company" was a series of short (5 or 6 minute) films about a bunch of enterprising kids doing chores and deeds for local businesses. A distinguishing thing about this series is that each film contained a short film-within-a-film, which might be an educational piece, a story, a song, a how-to segment, or other item of interest to kids. In a sense, this show could take a place next to "Captain Kangaroo" in showing that a show could be entertaining and educational at the same time.

In a sense, it's a shame this little gem didn't continue longer than it did. The educational segments (most of which were introduced by a gizmo called the Weisenheimer) taught without hitting the viewer over the head, and anyway, why does the value of a cartoon have to depend on how empty-headed it is? It is on record that a six-year-old child saved the life of a 2-year-old by giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which he learned from this show. Know of any other cartoon that can make that claim?

Trivia bit: This show's "educational" segment - later used on shows like "The Big World of Little Adam" and "Tennessee Tuxedo" - was spoofed in the early years of "Saturday Night Live" in a segment called "The Mr Bill Show". Every episode had poor Mr. Bill getting the what-for beaten out of him by Mr. Sluggo and Mr. Hand... and every episode had some "lesson" that usually lasted one line. Example (from the first "Show"):

MR HAND: Look, Mr. Bill, here comes Mr. Sluggo! (Mr. Sluggo, in his car, runs over Mr. Bill) MR BILL: Ooooohh!! MR HAND: You should always look both ways before you cross the street, Mr. Bill.

Trust me, it loses something in the spoofing.