HoHo!HaHa!HeeHee!HaHa!...

As a 51 year old native Phoenician, you bet I was a Wallace Watcher!!!

Gosh, I loved that show!!!

Every afternoon at 4 o'clock I'd be watching the Wallace & Ladmo show. I was watching it before Pat McMahon joined & brought Gerald & his whole cast of characters with him. I'm talking when the show was still in black & white, before there were Ladmo Bags when the kids would select a toy from the Toy Cottage (on 7th Ave a few blocks north of Indian School). Or going to see their stage show at Legend City or the Palm Theater or at the State Fair. Or bugging my parents to take me to get a burger or hot dog at the Wallace & Ladmo drive-in at 16th St & Bethany Home. I joined the Ladmo Fan Club & yes, I finally got my own Ladmo Bag (I still have it). I was one of the 10s of thousands at Encanto Park for their 35th Anniversary show. And of course, I watched their final show on 29 Dec 1989. I even watched the show while my wife was in labor!

I could blabber on enthusiastically about this show for a very long time because it did & still does mean a lot to me, but you're right, cajunscot, it's impossible to explain to those who never saw & experienced it. Besides being one of the longest running programs in television history & winner of numerous awards, it was just a huge phenomenon... but only in Arizona.

The best way I can describe it - it was kind of a kids-of-all-ages Saturday Night Live with great cartoons, but that doesn't even begin to do it justice.

If you're ever in town, be sure to go visit the Wallace & Ladmo exhibit at the Arizona Historical Society Museum in Tempe. They also sell stuff like t-shirts, posters, DVDs, CDs, but unfortunately the excellent book about the show is long out-of-print.

stand by for Captain Super...
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