A dog you thought was your best friend can turn on you and bite, cats only think about being fed and killing you in your sleep, but television...ah, television truly is a boys best friend.
Growing up in Chicago in the 1970s was a blessing, television-wise. There still existed something called "local programming," shows, other than the local news that are produced in whatever city or town you happen to be watching television in. And nothing said "local programming" like kids shows, and nothing said "kids show" like "Ray Rayner and Friends."
Rayner was a middle-age guy who wore a jump suit with notes about what cartoons he was going to show attached to it. It was a morning show that I watched religiously before going to my Lutheran grammar school to learn about a religion that wasn't tv. If I remember correctly he did weather and traffic so one's parents could at least have a vague idea of what was going on in the world, and he did school closings. (The apartment we lived in and the school I attended were on the same street, named Le Moyne, pronounced with a distinct "oy" in the middle, but Ray always misprounced it as "Le Moan." Perhaps he thought that sounded more French.) For the most part though, Ray showed a lot of Warner Brothers cartoons, which is how I came to love Bugs Bunny.
The "friends" in "Ray Rayner and Friends" consisted mostly of Cuddly Duddly, a large stuffed dog who helped Ray read the letters children wrote to him, and Chulveston the duck. This was a real, live, large white duck who didn't seem to like people and would go after Ray, nipping at his jumpsuit pant legs. Even when trying to play nice with him, Ray seemed mildly terrified of Chulveston, odd for a World War II vet who survived imprisonment in the POW camp pictured in the Steve McQueen movie "The Great Escape."
Turtle races. I also remember turtle races. Turtles don't race so much as they directionlessly amble. It was fun to watch nonetheless.
At Christmas it was tradition for Ray to show a short piece of animation that people my age and older will remember until our final days. "Hardrock, Coco and Joe-The Three Little Dwarfs" is, I guess, by today's standards, a fairly primitive and cheesy piece of stop-action animation. It is also charming and cute and warm-hearted and set to a song that will weave it's way into your brain cells and take up residence.
I'll always remember Ray and Chulveston and Hardrock, Coco and Joe.
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