Call It Macaroni is an American children's television series that premiered on January 24, 1975. [1] It was produced by Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, Inc.) with executive producers Gail Frank and Stephanie Meagher. [2] [3] Prior to its release, Donald McGannon, the chair of Group W, announced the show was a call to action for children to have a specific slot for their television. [4] Intended to be a 12-part series of children's specials to be aired once a month, due to its popularity, another 12 specials were produced. [5] [6]
Its goal was to show 10-12-year-olds different things they could experience in the United States. [7] It follows a different group of children each episode as they go to different places within the country, learning about a culture, city, environment, job, or hobby.
The first season was sold to 100, [5] [8] 103 [9] or 104 [10] [11] stations in syndication. [12] It was well received [5] [10] [13] and won a Peabody Award in 1975. [14] [15]
There are 24 half-hour episodes of Call it Macaroni. [10] Air dates listed below may be later than the first airing. One episode, "Gym Dandys", is viewable on YouTube.
Episode | Air date | Synopsis |
---|---|---|
It's a Long Way Up | January 24, 1975 [16] | Three teens climb Mount Hood in Oregon. [17] |
Give the Circus a Tumble | February 19, 1975 [3] [18] | Three 11-year-olds spend a week with Circus Vargas as it tours and performs in Colorado. [3] |
Fly like a Bird | March 19, 1975 [19] | Two San Franciscans take glider and hang gliding lessons. [19] |
Once Upon a Horse | April 20, 1975 [20] | Two 12-year-olds get horse riding lessons and participate in a riding competition. [21] |
Sail on the Winds of Time | April 24, 1975 [22] | Teens learn aboard a replica of a 19th century schooner. [22] |
Texas Tenderfoot | May 30, 1975 [23] | Three teens from the San Francisco Bay region become wranglers, helping to drive horses from Big Bend National Park in West Texas to a ranch 60 miles (97 km) away. [23] |
Exploring Yesterday | June 6, 1975 [24] | Three children get to experience how the Native Americans of northern Minnesota lived. [25] |
A Seaful of Adventure | July 22, 1975 [26] | Three youngsters from the Boston area take a cruise on the Florida shrimp boat Lady Gin. [26] [27] |
The Boys and Girls of Summer | September 4, 1975 [28] | A boy and a girl from Philadelphia go to the Philadelphia Phillies spring training camp in Florida. [28] |
Path of Papagos | November 16, 1975 [29] | Three youngsters experience the Native American way of life. [29] |
Puppets and Other People [30] | December 6, 1975 [31] | Three children from Boston construct a puppet under the supervision of puppeteer Kermit Love. [31] [32] Kevin Clash, the best known puppeteer to perform as Sesame Street 's Elmo, saw this episode as a teen and asked his mother to help him contact Love; [33] she succeeded, and Love eventually became his mentor. |
Where Do we Sign Up, When Do We Leave? | December 15, 1975 [34] | Three kids from the San Francisco area spend a week on a racing schooner exploring the Channel Islands of California. [35] |
Nashville: Over the Rainbow | April 18, 1976 [36] | In the first episode of the second year, [9] a 13-year-old Dobro guitar player goes to Nashville and gets to perform with Bobby Bare. [37] |
Lights, Camels, Action | May 21, 1976 [38] | Three New Yorkers join a production company working on the film Hawmps! , a comedy about the United States Camel Corps, on location in Arizona and become extras in one scene. [39] |
And That's Jazz | June 11, 1976 [40] | Two budding musicians from New York go to New Orleans and join a jazz session. [41] |
Rogue Runners | July 23, 1976 [42] | Some youngsters go on a five-day rafting trip on the Rogue River. [42] |
Some of My Best Friends are Dolphins | August 20, 1976 [43] | Two children work with dolphins at the Miami Seaquarium. [44] |
It's Really Magic | September 21, 1976 [45] | Two 11-year-olds from New York travel to Hollywood to work with the magician Shimada and perform at the Magic Castle. [45] [46] |
How Do You Make a Moose Smile? | October 1, 1976 [47] | Three New York 11- and 12-year-olds are taught by a professional how to photograph wildlife in the wilderness. [48] |
North of the Arctic | December 4, 1976 [49] | Two youngsters from Portland, Oregon, become acquainted with an Eskimo family in Alaska. [49] [50] |
Dance to the Music | December 5, 1976 [51] | Two teens spend a week at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York. [51] [52] |
When Bold Knights Lanced | January 10, 1977 [53] | A boy and a girl attend the annual Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan. [53] |
Gym Dandys | February 11, 1977 [54] [55] | Two girls from San Francisco receive lessons from gymnasts training for the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. [54] |
Sing, West Virginia, Sing | March 15, 1977 [56] | Two young Philadelphians learn about the music and culture of Appalachia. [56] |
KCPQ is a television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving as the Fox network outlet for the Seattle area. It is owned and operated by the network's Fox Television Stations division alongside MyNetworkTV station KZJO. The two stations share studios on Westlake Avenue in Seattle's Westlake neighborhood; KCPQ's main transmitter is located on Gold Mountain in Bremerton.
The Overmyer Network, later the United Network, was a short lived television network. It was intended to be a fourth national commercial network in the United States, competing with the Big Three television networks. The network was founded by self-made millionaire Daniel H. Overmyer, who started WDHO-TV, in his birthplace, Toledo, Ohio, which had signed on the air on May 3, 1966. Overmyer had construction permits for several other UHF stations that were intended to be owned-and-operated stations of the new network. Before going on the air, the majority interest in those stations was sold to AVC Corporation in March 1967. A social conservative, Overmyer had decided to create a nationwide hookup, enticing existing stations with a 50-50 profit split with potential affiliates. Under the leadership of former ABC television president Oliver Treyz, the ON was scheduled to debut in the fall of 1967 with anywhere from 75 to 125 affiliates with an 8 hour broadcasting day.
WLVI is a television station licensed to Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, serving the Boston area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Sunbeam Television alongside WHDH, an independent station. WLVI and WHDH share studios at Bulfinch Place in downtown Boston; through a channel sharing agreement, the two stations transmit using WHDH's spectrum from the WHDH-TV tower in Newton, Massachusetts.
WREG-TV is a television station in Memphis, Tennessee, United States, affiliated with CBS and owned by Nexstar Media Group. The station's studios are located on Channel 3 Drive near the Mississippi River on the west side of Memphis, and its transmitter is located near Bartlett, Tennessee.
Field Communications was an American broadcast media company and a wholly owned division of Field Enterprises, which owned the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Daily News. Based in Chicago, Illinois, the company had owned UHF independent television stations in the United States, with WFLD-TV in Chicago as its flagship and largest-market station.
WCCT-TV, branded on-air as CW 20, is a television station licensed to Waterbury, Connecticut, United States, serving the Hartford–New Haven market as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by Tegna Inc. alongside Hartford-licensed Fox affiliate WTIC-TV. Both stations share studios on Broad Street in downtown Hartford, while WCCT-TV's transmitter is located on Rattlesnake Mountain in Farmington, Connecticut.
WHME-TV is a religious television station in South Bend, Indiana, United States, serving as the flagship station of World Harvest Television. The station is owned by locally based Family Broadcasting Corporation, an organization founded by Assembly of God minister Lester Sumrall, whose sons are still active with the ministry. WHME's studios are located on Ironwood Road on the south side of South Bend, and its transmitter is located in Mishawaka.
WGNT is a television station licensed to Portsmouth, Virginia, United States, serving the Hampton Roads area as an affiliate of The CW. It is owned by the E. W. Scripps Company alongside Norfolk-licensed CBS affiliate WTKR. Both stations share studios on Boush Street in downtown Norfolk, while WGNT's transmitter is located in Suffolk, Virginia.
The Kaiser Broadcasting Corp. was an American broadcast media company that owned and operated television and radio stations in the United States from 1957 to 1977.
Robert Wesley Addy was an American actor of stage, television, and film.
Charla Doherty was an American film and television actress who appeared on the first season of the long-running soap opera Days of Our Lives.
The Salem News is an American daily newspaper serving southern Essex County, Massachusetts. Although the paper is named for the city of Salem, its offices are now in nearby Danvers, Massachusetts. The newspaper is published Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings by Eagle-Tribune Publishing Company, a subsidiary of CNHI.
The Daily News of Newburyport is an American daily newspaper covering northeastern Essex County, Massachusetts, USA. The newspaper is published Monday through Saturday mornings by North of Boston Media Group, a subsidiary of Community Newspaper Holdings Inc.
The Daily News Tribune was an afternoon daily newspaper in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States, covering that city and the neighboring city of Newton.
This TV is an American free-to-air television network owned by Allen Media Broadcast Networks, LLC, part of the Allen Media Group division of Entertainment Studios. Originally formed in 2008 as a joint venture between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weigel Broadcasting, the network maintains a large programming emphasis on films, but also airs other limited general entertainment content in the form of classic television series and children's programming.
Kaye Elhardt was an American actress with dozens of television appearances in a career spanning from 1956 to 1977. She was known for her many roles in Warner Brothers (WB) television series, including 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, Surfside 6, Maverick, Bourbon Street Beat, Colt .45, and Bronco, but also did multiple episodes of Perry Mason and My Three Sons.
Super Bowl television ratings have traditionally been high. One of the most watched annual sporting events in the world, the NFL's championship game is broadcast in over 130 countries in more than 30 languages. However, viewership is predominantly North American; the Super Bowl is the most watched television broadcast in the United States every year.
Patricia Huston was an American stage, film, and television actress. She had an explosive early career from 1958 to 1968, went through a twenty-year period with no acting work, and resumed her career with several recurring roles on popular shows during the last ten years of her life.
American Inventory was a thirty-minute weekly filmed educational series that first aired as a summer replacement Sunday nights during 1951 on NBC. It was funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with NBC donating the broadcast time and facilities. The series incorporated panel discussions, lectures from experts, film of activities and events taking place out of the studio, and occasional in-studio dramatic scenes. It was an ambitious project, the first educational series produced and broadcast by a network.
John Bryant was a prolific American actor active from 1944 through 1969. He performed in the famous G.I. version of Hamlet, both in the Central Pacific Theater during World War II and later on Broadway. He also acted in films, but was most prevalent on television, playing many lead and character parts including a five-year recurring role as Dr. Carl Spalding on The Virginian.