It’s been 29 years since Jule Huffman last told his studio audience to “Wave like mad and say, ‘Bye, Cartooners,” and now a documentary is looking back on his 26-year legacy as a local children’s television entertainer.
Huffman, who died at age 91 in 2015, was well known to generations across the Tri-State as the host of Mr. Cartoon on WSAZ, filmed in the station’s Huntington studios.
West Virginia Public Television has produced the film, “Hey, Cartooners,” celebrating the life of Huffman, a Cincinnati native and Huntington resident who did double duty as the station’s meteorologist, as well as stints as an announcer and singer for WSAZ’s early days.
Mr. Cartoon aired from 1956-1995 on the station. While Huffman did not originate the role (The show began as Steamboat Bill, portrayed by George Lewis, who interacted with his puppet sidekick, Merlin the Sea Monster, who lived in the Ohio River), he took over as host in 1969.
Huffman recalled that it took a little time to win over Lewis’s audience of children.
“I got letters from children that said, ‘Who are you, you imposter? You’re not Mr. Cartoon!” he said in a 2005 interview with Heath Harrison for Marshall University’s student newspaper, The Parthenon.
He went on to host the show on weekdays through the 1980s, when WSAZ moved it to Saturday to make way for The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Having a locally-produced children’s program was a rarity in broadcasting at that point, even more so when Mr. Cartoon ended its run in 1995 with Huffman’s retirement.
The show, under Huffman, featured a live audience of children for broadcasts and was a regular destination for churches, scout troops and schools.
“That was the beauty of the thing,” Huffman said in the 2005 interview. “They had the trip down there, they had fun and then they had the trip back to talk about it.”
The show centered around its titular cartoons (often from the classic era of MGM and Warner Brothers, ranging from Looney Tunes to Droopy Dog), but was best known for live segments in which children took part in games or tried to answer riddles. The penalty for a wrong guess was the infamous Yucket Bucket, which contained a gruesome concoction Huffman could barely describe.
“Including big, black, bloody spiders,” Huffman recalled.
In the end, once the cameras weren’t rolling, the secret of the “punishment” was revealed to merely be confetti or sprinkle a drop of water, he said.
Huffman continued to make appearances as his signature character for years after the show ended, even pitching a return to children’s television a few times. He said he was always recognized for the role.
He said, unlike most children’s hosts, his aim was not to be overtly educational, but to provide an outlet for fun.
But he said he did realize the importance of his role when he heard from a woman whose son escaped from a house fire and used the stop, drop and roll technique to extinguish his burning clothes.
“The doctor asked him where he learned,” Huffman recalled. “And he said, ‘From Mr. Cartoon.”
Huffman also concluded each show, reminding children to use good manners and be responsible.
“My idea was teaching them essential things, like politeness, and godliness before all,” he said.
The public television documentary consists of interviews with co-workers, family and friends of Huffman, including a few who served in the role of Beeper, Mr. Cartoon’s creature sidekick (created from a repurposed Banana Splits costume the station had in its possession).
The documentary has already aired on West Virginia Public Television and a screening took place this week at the Museum of Radio and Technology in Huntington (where the Mr. Cartoon set is kept in storage).
Now Ohio University Southern is bringing the film to Ironton.
A screening will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday in the Mains Rotunda on campus. The event is free and open to the public.
The film will also screen for the public at Marshall University, hosted the by W. Page Pitt School of Journalism and Mass Communication, at 7 p.m. on Dec. 17. The free showing will feature guest speakers and a question and answer session, and will take place in room 154 of Smith Hall.