The “F” Word’s Television Debut!

The “F” Word’s Television Debut!

George Carlin would love this. In March of 1947, nine months before Howdy Doody debuted in December, Bob Emory went on the air with the first hit kid show, live from New York. The show was called ‘The Small Fry Club’. It was an instant hit and New Yorkers fought tooth and nail for tickets for their kids.

Several years earlier, Emory had worked with Bob Smith to create ‘The Triple B Ranch’ for radio, which is the forerunner of the Doody show, so Emory knew what worked. The Small Fry show aired Monday through Friday at 7PM for five years on The Dumont Network.

As we all know now, no live show is without peril…especially kids shows. ‘The Small Fry Club’ had a large set and even though Dumont’s studio was state of the art, the overhead lights were not powerful enough, so cherry lights were added to the front of the camera pedestals. One day in the summer of 1947, the floor manager was listening in his headset for a cue from the control room and with his concentration diverted, backed into one of the cameras set of cherry lights.

First, there was a blood curdling scream, then a very loud and clear “Fu*k” from the floor which Emory tried to cover with an extra big laugh (which wasn’t hard to do). The photo below shows the result of this occasion as from then on, the cherry lights were enclosed in metal boxes.

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