photo courtesy special collections, university of memphis libraries
Happy Hal and Trent Wood were the big stars of children's TV in Memphis, but I certainly hope you also remember Capn’ Bill Killebrew.
He was never the “captain” of anything; he just liked the way it sounded. Killebrew was born in 1911. In the 1940s, he worked as a draftsman for Memphis Light, Gas and Water, and one day the new WMC-TV station hired Killebrew to create on-screen pictures for a music show called Spinning Images. About this time, after he became the advertising manager for Hart’s Bakery, Channel 5 let him host a children’s show called Hartoon Time.
This was the beginning of a long career on television featuring half a dozen different shows that basically followed the same format: a “peanut gallery” of children that he would interview and draw, interspersed with movies and cartoons. Then came Scatter’s World, which Killebrew “co-hosted” with a mischievous chimpanzee that he claimed “was smarter than some of the people I know.” (If I'm not mistaken, Scatter was later purchased by a fellow by the name of Elvis Presley.)
Killebrew was so popular that he set up a booth at Libertyland and the Mid-South Fair and told reporters that he drew more than 5,000 caricatures one year alone. He even visited nursing homes and drew pictures for the residents. He was quite a guy. Cap’n Bill passed away on January 14, 1987, at the age of 75 and was laid to rest in his hometown of Dresden, Tennessee.
Plenty of other stories like this can be found here: memphismagaazine.com/ask-vance
