Ramblin' Rod Primer

Ramblin' Rod was this dude who hosted a cartoon show on KPTV 12 every weekday before school. They played Looney Tunes, Popeye, etc. Kids were invited to come & sit on a bleacher in the studio to watch Ramblin' Rod announce the cartoons & to be on TV, and even as a kid in Corvallis I remember scanning the bleacher and finding people I knew. You would often see groups of Cub Scouts & Brownies in the audience, who had gone up to Portland as a group to be on the show.

Friends of mine who had been on the show said that it wasn't much fun watching cartoons there. They had a really small TV for the kids to watch.

Ramblin' Rod was known mainly for brown sweater, which was covered in buttons & pins. Kids used to bring buttons to give to Rod, and he would act surprised & say something like "oh, you have a button for me? thank you!" and snatch the buttons away quickly. He obviously had many buttons stashed away somewhere, 'cause they couldn't all fit on his sweater.

Every morning he had a smile contest, where the camera would pan the bleacher & most kids would smile, some would look around aimlessly, and a winner was chosen.

In my kid world, Ramblin' Rod was the biggest celebrity there was. Followed closely by Tom Peterson.

More on Ramblin' Rod here: http://home.comcast.net/~kptv/Shows/ramblin80s.htm