Becky King comes from a different era in Austin’s history.
“When I was little,” she said, “there was just one channel of TV.”
In the ’50s, KTBC was the only station in Austin. When something aired on TV, everybody saw it. King remembers seeing this kid’s show that she liked. There was a guy who wore a jumpsuit, and a segment dedicated to celebrating birthdays.
King was pretty sure she was on the show when she was about 6 or 7.
“I’m not positive because it’s been so long,” she said.
King thinks it was in the early ’60s. She remembers sitting on some bleachers, getting a little treat and almost nothing else about the experience.
“It’s all very vague,” she said.
The early days of television
The program was called The Uncle Jay Show. It ran locally from 1953 to 1977, and was hosted by UT journalism graduate Jay Hodgson. It debuted more than a decade before Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, in an era where just around half of American households had TVs.
KTBC didn’t always have enough cartoons to fill the time block, according to Elizabeth Hansen, managing director at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image. So it called up Hodgson.
“They needed somebody to fill that in between time,” Hansen said. “So that’s where he started becoming the host of this children’s show.”
Uncle Jay would give children good advice. His sidekick Packer Jack did not.
The show began as filler, and fewer things eat more time than children’s birthday parties.
The program centered around Uncle Jay and his sidekick Packer Jack. Uncle Jay was straight-laced. He’d impart wisdom on the impressionable youth of Austin.
Packer Jack was the opposite. He always set a terrible example, and kids loved him for it.
“[He was] the guy who didn’t have good hygiene and didn’t follow rules,” Hansen said. “They really related to him and that was a funny thing about the show.”
The entire show – for more than two decades – was shot live. A few segments were recorded, including one special episode where they went to the zoo. But the rest is gone.
Through the looking glass
The odds of finding a tape with little Becky getting a treat on her birthday were low, so I went over to the Austin History Center. There, I uncovered the Rosetta Stone: an article published in 1977, the year the show went off the air.
It was the most definitive account of the show’s history I could find, so I tracked down author Catherine Rips to see what she remembered about writing it.
“It was 49 years ago, Sean,” she said. “I don’t remember a lot of it. So sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
Rips’ article revealed a lot about how the show worked, like how Uncle Jay used puppets. There were four that would get regular airtime: a donkey, a one-eyed duck named Theopolous P. Duck, an alien named Zarkie and Silas the Goat.Uncle Jay also had a chihuahua named Princess who made regular appearances for 14 years.
Because everything was live, things would sometimes spiral out of control. Uncle Jay once brought out a monkey, and while he was explaining the segment, the monkey started swinging around and peed on him.
Courtesy of the Hodgson family
Packer Jack tends to his monkey, as Uncle Jay sits nearby.
“I do know that monkey,” Mary Strickland, former floor manager of the Uncle Jay Show, said. “I remember him vividly. He was around the station quite a bit.”
It was Strickland’s job to wrangle families, direct the broadcast and manage chaos. According to her, the monkey belonged to Packer Jack and lived at his house.
Packer Jack and the monkey got along fine – until one day.
“The monkey tried to kill Packer Jack,” she said.
The monkey bit Packer Jack, hospitalized him for two weeks. He survived, but the monkey was never seen again.
“You cannot invite little kids to a show and then have them be attacked,” Strickland said.
Meet the Hodgson kids
Uncle Jay would often bring out his birthday book, which contained a collection of photos and birth dates that were mailed into the station. If there was anything confirming Becky King’s appearance, it’d be this.
But Strickland didn’t remember a birthday book ever existing, and detailed record-keeping was nonexistent at KTBC in this era. She said any records that existed were probably “just sitting in a box that someone took home with them.”
I contacted Jay Hodgson’s four children to see what remained of the show.
“We have a coffee cup,” Denise Hodgson said.
Courtesy of the Hodgson family
Jay Hodgson had four children with his wife, Barbara.
The Hodgson kids had a front row seat to the show, so they saw firsthand how important it became to Austin’s cultural history.
“Everybody knew who our father was,” Wayne Hodgson said. “Sometimes a car would go down the street, and they’d honk honk honk and yell Uncle Jay out the window.”
They were able to confirm some details, but their memories have faded.
The Uncle Jay Show now exists only in fragments. It was on the air for almost a quarter century, and only about half an hour of actual footage remains.
There are a couple firsthand accounts, a decent chunk of photos, a 700-word article. And a coffee cup.
Countless Austin kids got to be on TV for their most exciting day of the year, and if you were born in Austin today, you might even know The Uncle Jay Show existed.
But there’s no way to know what it felt like.
“That’s a section of your life that you put up on the shelf over here, and you go by every couple years and look at it or think about it,” Wayne Hodgson said.
Jay Hodgson passed away in 2007 and near the end of his life, he started telling his kids there would always be an Uncle Jay.
“I didn’t understand that at first when he said that,” Wes Hodgson said. “But now as an adult, I realize what he’s saying and that’s the truth. He lives in the memories of the children in that era.”
I couldn’t verify whether or not Becky was on the Uncle Jay Show, which is why for our live show in the spring, we did our best to recreate the past.
Here’s Uncle Sean!
We debuted the Uncle Sean Show live at Bass Concert Hall for our ATXPlained show in the spring.
We brought out a pony, pied somebody in the face, and question asker Becky King got a chance to sign the birthday book.
Watch below.