![\"Uncle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790500000_124_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nBecky King comes from a different era in Austin\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was little,\u201d she said, \u201cthere was just one channel of TV.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the \u201950s, KTBC was the only station in Austin. When something aired on TV, everybody saw it. King remembers seeing this kid\u2019s show that she liked. There was a guy who wore a jumpsuit, and a segment dedicated to celebrating birthdays.<\/p>\n
King was pretty sure she was on the show when she was about 6 or 7.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not positive because it’s been so long,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
King thinks it was in the early \u201960s. She remembers sitting on some bleachers, getting a little treat and almost nothing else about the experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s all very vague,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The early days of television<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
KTBC didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey needed somebody to fill that in between time,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cSo that\u2019s where he started becoming the host of this children\u2019s show.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Uncle Jay would give children good advice. His sidekick Packer Jack did not.<\/p>\n
The show began as filler, and fewer things eat more time than children’s birthday parties.<\/p>\n
The program centered around Uncle Jay and his sidekick Packer Jack. Uncle Jay was straight-laced. He\u2019d impart wisdom on the impressionable youth of Austin.<\/p>\n
Packer Jack was the opposite. He always set a terrible example, and kids loved him for it.<\/p>\n
\u201c[He was] the guy who didn’t have good hygiene and didn’t follow rules,\u201d Hansen said. \u201cThey really related to him and that was a funny thing about the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
The entire show \u2013 for more than two decades \u2013 was shot live. A few segments were recorded, including one special episode where they went to the zoo. But the rest is gone.<\/p>\n
Through the looking glass<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
It was the most definitive account of the show\u2019s history I could find, so I tracked down author Catherine Rips to see what she remembered about writing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 49 years ago, Sean,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t remember a lot of it. So sorry I can\u2019t be more helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rips\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
![\"Packer](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790500000_533_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Hodgson family<\/p>\n
Packer Jack tends to his monkey, as Uncle Jay sits nearby. <\/p>\n
\u201cI do know that monkey,\u201d Mary Strickland, former floor manager of the Uncle Jay Show, said. \u201cI remember him vividly. He was around the station quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was Strickland\u2019s job to wrangle families, direct the broadcast and manage chaos. According to her, the monkey belonged to Packer Jack and lived at his house.<\/p>\n
Packer Jack and the monkey got along fine \u2013 until one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe monkey tried to kill Packer Jack,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The monkey bit Packer Jack, hospitalized him for two weeks. He survived, but the monkey was never seen again.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou cannot invite little kids to a show and then have them be attacked,\u201d Strickland said.<\/p>\n
Meet the Hodgson kids<\/p>\n
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\u2019s appearance, it\u2019d be this.<\/p>\n
But Strickland didn\u2019t 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 \u201cjust sitting in a box that someone took home with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
I contacted Jay Hodgson\u2019s four children to see what remained of the show.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a coffee cup,\u201d Denise Hodgson said.<\/p>\n
![\"Jay](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790500001_540_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Courtesy of the Hodgson family<\/p>\n
Jay Hodgson had four children with his wife, Barbara.<\/p>\n
The Hodgson kids had a front row seat to the show, so they saw firsthand how important it became to Austin\u2019s cultural history.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knew who our father was,\u201d Wayne Hodgson said. \u201cSometimes a car would go down the street, and they’d honk honk honk and yell Uncle Jay out the window.\u201d<\/p>\n
They were able to confirm some details, but their memories have faded.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
There are a couple firsthand accounts, a decent chunk of photos, a 700-word article. And a coffee cup.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no way to know what it felt like.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s 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,\u201d Wayne Hodgson said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t understand that at first when he said that,\u201d Wes Hodgson said. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
Here’s Uncle Sean!<\/p>\n
We debuted the Uncle Sean Show live at Bass Concert Hall for our ATXPlained show in the spring.<\/p>\n
We brought out a pony, pied somebody in the face, and question asker Becky King got a chance to sign the birthday book. <\/p>\n
Watch below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Becky King comes from a different era in Austin\u2019s history. \u201cWhen I was little,\u201d she said, \u201cthere was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":449172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,154666,154662,154663,154664,154665],"class_list":["post-449171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-childrens-television","tag-jay-hodgson","tag-ktbc","tag-packer-jack","tag-the-uncle-jays-show"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}