February 1953 Clellan rejoins WCCO Radio, and he soon begins as the host of Pop the Question, Card’s Corral, and Spinner Sanctum. This time around, however, he only hosts Spinner Sanctum on Saturday nights. 4 April 1953 Clellan begins as the announcer of the Whoopee John Polka Party on WCCO Radio every Saturday night from […]
Axel launched on August 5, 1954 on WCCO. The photo above is from this very first show. On August 4, the following blurb appeared in the Minneapolis paper. Here is one of the earliest ads to mention the show, from August 12, 1954. And he was soon joined by Mary Davies as Carmen the Nurse […]
Crossroads Center in St. Cloud opened in April 1966. It was a big event for Minnesota and the grand opening featured appearances by all the popular Minnesota kids TV shows hosts. Casey and Roundhouse, Miss Betty from Romper Room, Clancy and Carmen, and Dave Lee with Pete the Penguin. Here are a few news articles […]
These postcards were apparently given out at a special Easter event at Dayton’s department store. I don’t have details, but two cards refer to “Bunny Breakfast” and the third mentions “Bunny Parties.” I believe that is Mary Davies dressed as Bunny, along with Allan Lotsberg as The Magician. Of course, Allan also played Willie Ketchem […]
And here is another classic Christmas bit, performed by Clellan Card as Axel. This is an audio recording of classic Christmas poem that Axel would read on the air every year. It also features Mary Davies as Carmen the Nurse. Unfortunately no actual video survives. This recording was sold for many years on a 45 […]
Here are some wonderful clips posted by the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting. I believe these date to 1974 or 75. Bob Keeshan, known to kids everywhere as Captain Kangaroo, was in the Twin Cities, probably on a promotional tour. He spent some time at the CBS affiliate, WCCO and filmed some promos for the morning […]
It was hard to grow up in Minnesota and not know Carmen the Nurse. As Carmen, Mary Davies was costar to Clellan Card’s Axel from 1954 until Card passed away in 1966. After that, Mary Davies hosted her own program, Carmen’s Cottage which was paired up with Clancy and Willie on weekday mornings until 1977. […]
Here’s an old kinescope from our friends at the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting. Mary Davies sings Sleigh Ride from the 1954 program Country Holiday. Mary would go on to play Carmen the Nurse on WCCO with Axel and Clancy and Willie MARY DAVIES “SLEIGH RIDE” 1954 from Pavek Museum on Vimeo.
In 1964, WCCO-TV issued a seven-inch record that featured Axel’s famous version of “The Night Before Christmas” on one side, and “Close Call for Santa” starring Clancy the Cop and Willie Ketchem on the other. Both sides were produced by Allan Lotsberg (Willie Ketchem), who also wrote the Clancy & Willie story. Clellan Card […]