Remember Skipper Chuck? For Miami kids, he was the biggest star on TV

Peace, love and happiness.

If you watched Skipper Chuck as a kid, you might still be humming that catchy tune.

Chuck Zink hosted his children’s show every morning from the ‘50s through the ‘70s on WTVJ, then Channel 4 in Miami. He had a cast of regulars (remember sailor-hat-wearing Scrubby?) and a grandstand full of visiting schoolchildren, laughing and cheering on all the antics.

The show was taped every afternoon for broadcast the next morning at 7 a.m., before the network’s “Captain Kangaroo” show at 8.

Zink also hosted the local Muscular Dystrophy telethon and was a regular on radio and TV shows.

But if you grew up in Miami as a Baby Boomer, you’ll always remember Zink as Skipper Chuck.

Here is a look back at his life and his show through the Miami Herald archives:

Skipper Chuck through the years

WHERE ARE THE SHOWS?

Published Jan. 23, 2006

Q: I was one of many South Floridians who woke to start my “finger-snapping, hand-clapping” morning by watching the Skipper Chuck Show. I was saddened to learn of Chuck Zink’s recent death. I celebrated many birthday parties with childhood friends on WTVJ’s show. Are any of those shows available for viewing? Having won the “balloon drop” twice, I would love to know whether the film was saved and cataloged. JSM, via e-mail

A: Two complete shows and two “specials” are archived at the Louis Wolfson II Media History Center in the basement of the main Miami-Dade Public Library, 101 W. Flagler St., in downtown Miami. WTVJ, like most TV stations across the land, reused the tape of local variety and children’s shows, including Skipper Chuck’s, and, some time ago, gave the Wolfson the programs it had preserved. “It’s really sad,” said Wolfson manager Lou Kramer. “No one thought it was important to preserve the stuff. We get e-mails from people asking for real specific things, even the songs that were sung on some show.” The complete episodes on file are June 17, 1976, and another simply marked “the early ‘70s.” The others are a Skipper Chuck Memorial Day Special from 1969 (which includes no children), and a “Pooh for President” special from Aug. 10, 1976. In that one, children are on the “convention floor,” serving as “delegates.”

BIGGER THAN BARNEY

Published Jan, 7, 2006

For a whole generation of South Floridians, Chuck Zink, better known by his alter ego Skipper Chuck, was bigger than Barney. To appear on The Skipper Chuck Show defined cool. And now he — and innocence, at that — is gone.

Zink’s death was announced earlier this week by the Boca Raton hospice where he remained after suffering a stroke. He was 80.

His death unleashed many, many fond memories. Here are some of them:

I was just along for the ride with a lucky friend the first time I was invited into the studio audience for Skipper Chuck’s Popeye Playhouse. The second time was long anticipated by the members of my Brownie Troop. I’m just one of hundreds of thousands of South Florida baby boomers (and their parents) who spent every weekday morning during the ‘60s and ‘70s watching Chuck Zink as he introduced cartoons, sang silly songs and hawked Burger King Whoppers. He was a cross between Mr. Rogers and Jerry Lewis — a nurturing father figure passing along words of wisdom while making you smile. I had interviewed some celebrities and politicians by the time I was hired at my third professional job in broadcasting, but I was totally awed by meeting a real star, who was now a co-worker. At WKAT radio, Chuck hosted a talk show, then, after a format change, was a disc jockey for big band music. I provided local news, and soon our on-air banter evolved into a close friendship. Friends and family members at my 1981 wedding were impressed with my celebrity guest. He brought a most traditional gift — a set of towels — and demonstrated that dancing was also among his many talents. We made plans to meet for lunch two years ago. I was going to bring my digital recorder for reminiscing — and to have on file. But he canceled that morning and, though we vowed to reschedule when things got “less hectic,” it didn’t happen. And there’s another lesson Skipper Chuck passed along.

- Rhonda Victor, anchor/reporter, WLRN Miami Herald News

Our careers were intertwined for all the years I’ve been here since 1960. As you grew up in South Florida one of the first people in your life on TV was Skipper. If you were really lucky you got on his show - half a million kids appeared on that show in 27 years. As you got older and realized there were girls and rock ‘n’ roll you came over to my world at WQAM. We were stepping stones for a whole lot of people who were born here and raised here. He was something special and one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in broadcasting. He would probably be appreciative of my saying, “Peace, love and happiness.”

- Rick Shaw, veteran South Florida radio personality

In my small world, Skipper Chuck was a superstar. Every morning at 7, the Skipper and his goofy sidekick, Scrubby, kept me company as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, combed the cowlicks from my hair and pulled on my polyester-mix ensemble. During my elementary school years of the late ‘60s to mid-’70s, Skipper Chuck was all I knew. He was the morning routine. And then, one day, my world changed. I was going on Skipper Chuck’s show. My mom took some time off work to take me to the old WTVJ studio on North Miami Avenue to be on Skipper Chuck. Yet something was strange. We were going after school, late afternoon. What happened to 7 a.m.? From TV land to reality TV, I quickly learned that the show was taped the afternoon before airing. So that’s how the kids in the audience didn’t miss school. This wasn’t the same place I knew from TV. It wasn’t black and white and gray. The bleachers were red, the backdrop a soft blue. Even Skipper Chuck’s face was rosy. Scrubby warmed up the crowd. The Skipper came bursting through the door and the kids went crazy. He was our Jim Morrison, our Johnny Carson, our Beatles. Then out came the famous cake, the one that burned with candles each day to recognize everyone who had a birthday. My mouth started to water. But the Skipper didn’t let us eat cake. No wonder. It was concrete. Soon I outgrew the good Skipper. I discovered Jane Pauley on the Today show. To my own two children, Skipper Chuck is long-ago history. They have lots of choices if they watch TV. But for me, the choice was clear: Skipper Chuck’s peace, love and happiness.

- Jeff Kleinman, Miami Herald

The Skipper Chuck Show, viewed from the safety of the living room floor in the 1960s, may have seemed all sweetness and light. On the set, it was something else for some of us wide-eyed young Miamians — an educational show in ways that grown-ups did not fathom. Don’t worry, there was nothing dark about Skipper or his show. In person, Chuck Zink was exactly the good guy he seemed to be on TV. But in small ways, getting on Skipper Chuck for a day provided the first revealing peek behind the magic screen. Television was still pretty new and kiddie shows portrayed grown-ups as kind and wise and caring — a concept, or pretense, long ago abandoned by Nick and Disney show writers. It was, for example, a surprise that loveable goofball Scrubby, Skipper’s Gilliganesque sidekick and my favorite character, slinked off to smoke during commercial breaks. I was on the show only once — invited as part of a birthday party around 1969 or ‘70, I’d guess — and age and time have clearly claimed details and maybe my mind made this up over the years. If so, sorry, Scrubs. But I swear the only time I saw him smile off camera — a thin smirk sliding across his sullen face between drags — was during the frenzied violence of the balloon drop. The contest — a chase for some forgotten big prize hidden inside one balloon — always seemed a gleeful frolic on TV. In person, it was a half minute of mayhem as the kids, many of them strangers, poured down off the bleachers, throwing elbows and knees, in the full fury of childish greed. I recall taking out some big fat kid who pushed down a little girl in our party with a well-placed shoulder to his butt as he bent over grasping for a balloon. On the way out, we all got neat parting gifts, even those of us who bombed out on the balloon drop. Tickets to the now-defunct Wometco movies, I think, and some trinkets. Plus, a whole gallon of Sealtest ice cream. By the time we got home from the studio, I am pretty certain mine was so melted Mom had to throw it out. Still, one of the coolest days ever up to that point. Thanks, Skipper, for the memories.

- Curtis Morgan, Miami Herald

Herald staffer Robert Steinback spoke to Richard Andrews, the man behind Scrubby, Skipper Chuck’s longtime sidekick. “We never talked down to [the kids.] We would do jokes they would have to think about.” He recalled one: A tale about how few people knew that the legendary archer William Tell was also a skilled bowler whom everyone wanted on their team. Which team would William Tell choose? “The town waited anxiously to find out for whom the Tell bowls. If the kids didn’t get it, too bad. Maybe they’d get it later. “We had a wonderful run. It’s one thing I can look back on and remember as a wonderful time of my life.”

- Richard Andrews (Scrubby), retired, Space Coast Memories

AN HONOR, WITHOUT THE MEMORIES

Published Dec. 19, 2003

On Thursday evening Zink, the erstwhile Skipper Chuck, accepted an honorary degree — Doctor of Humane Letters — for his 50 years in radio and broadcasting.

From 1956 to 1979, he baby-sat young viewers of The Skipper Chuck Show, by introducing Popeye cartoons and hobnobbing with comedic sidekick Scrubby. But those personalities would have little meaning to the audience of more than 200 graduates — most of whom weren’t even born when The Skipper Chuck Show aired on the old WTVJ.

Donning a black graduation gown, Zink quipped, “I’d be best to thank everyone backstage and go home.” When asked if he had ever heard of Skipper Chuck, Xavier Diaz, 24, replied, “Sounds like a fisherman.”

Diaz, who plans to graduate in March with a computer animation degree, said he was there to cheer on his graduating friends.

Dan Klimkiewicz, 67, a graduate’s father, said he tunes in to Zink’s current show as a disc jockey at WJNA-AM 640 in Boca Raton, where he spins oldies. “He’s always been very interesting. He tells little stories about [Frank] Sinatra,” Klimkiewicz said. “He’s a fatherly-type individual.”

Before introducing Zink, Art Institute President William Kalaboke told graduating class of 2003 that generations separated them.

“Most of you were born around 1985 and don’t recall [Ronald] Reagan. Some of may not know he was shot. Most of you have never owned a record player or played Pac-Man, or owned a television with only 13 channels,” Kalaboke told them.

A majority had never heard of Skipper Chuck, now a spry 78. That is partly because of their age, but also because of South Florida’s constantly moving population, said Steven Schwab, dean of education for the Institute. Schwab suggested his childhood television friend receive the honorary degree.

“I must have been 6 years old when I used to watch the show,” Schwab said. “I always wanted to be in the show, and I never got to be on the show. He’s a great person to honor and a prominent media figure.”

In his show, Zink invited children to sit together at the bleachers regardless of race. It was a progressive policy for a Southern TV station in the late 1950s. The decision earned Zink national praise.

To this diverse group of graduates, that must have seemed like ancient history.

I’ve had my run,” Zink told them after accepting his doctorate. “And some you may want to run right now.” Laughter followed.

‘THE COOLEST THING’

Published March 21, 1999

When she was 5 years old, Susan Smith Boracci knew there was one thing that would make her young life complete: to be on WTVJ’s Skipper Chuck Show.

“I didn’t like Captain Kangaroo, but I loved Skipper Chuck. It was the coolest thing to be on his show,” says Boracci, who, 34 years after getting on the show, now lives in Deerfield Beach and has an infant son, Nicholas.

Boracci is like tens of thousands of kids who grew up from 1956 to 1979 watching the Skipper Chuck Show, one of the most endearing and successful programs from the early days of South Florida television.

Hosted by Chuck Zink — better known now for his TV commercials hawking retirement condos — the show was a weekday fixture for children. Zink, 74, says he can’t venture far from his Boca Raton office without people saying they grew up watching him.

“I’m amazed at the number of people who remember and say it was such a part of their childhood,” says Zink, who has been married for five decades but has no children of his own. “I first met Chris Evert at a charity event and she told me she grew up with the show and was a fan.”

The show started out as Skipper Chuck’s Popeye’s Playhouse after WTVJ bought the rights to the then-new animation series, and in between cartoons Zink performed alongside his comedic sidekick Scrubby, played by Richard Andrews. As many as 50 children sat on bleachers in a WTVJ studio and would participate in games, cheer and chat with Skipper Chuck. Thousands more tuned in from home weekdays from 7 to 8 a.m. At one point, there was a two-year waiting list for tickets.

The show also had a social conscience — children of all races were welcome in Skipper Chuck’s bleachers, an unprecedented policy for a southern TV station in the late 1950s. Zink says he told station owner Mitchell Wolfson that it was “the right thing to do,” and Wolfson agreed. The decision earned Zink national praise.

Zink, who also was emcee for WTVJ’s late-night movies and was an announcer for the Miss USA pageant, says he didn’t think of Skipper Chuck as a “kiddie show.”

“I was always averse to calling it a kiddie show, because I think that was a little bit of a put-down. I saw it as a variety show that appealed to children. I didn’t talk down to the kids, the kids had to come up to my level.” Zink almost didn’t become Skipper Chuck. In 1956, game show producer Mark Goodson spotted Zink while on vacation in Miami, and asked Zink to audition for a new network game show. Goodson told Zink it went well, but in the end the advertisers wanted to go with a young singer named Merv Griffin. Skipper Chuck flourished in an era when television stations wanted to establish a local connection with youngsters — their future prime-time audience — before the national appeal and advertising might of shows like Power Rangers, Rugrats and Blues Clues swept aside programs like Zink’s.

By the 1980s, the last of the local kids shows in South Florida, WSVN-Channel 7’s Sunday Funnies and WPLG-Channel 10’s Kidsbeat, were gone. Only recently has one station — locally oriented WAMI-Channel 69 — tried to revive the genre. Its weekday afternoon Wami on Miami show is one of the station’s early successes — though no other station plans anything similar.

Zink believes TV is poorer for abandoning local entertainment programming.

“There’s no personality to stations these days. I have no great interest in watching TV anymore,” says Zink, who now does an AM radio program in Boca Raton and works on shows for public broadcasting’s WXEL-Channel 42.

Boracci also thinks it’s a shame that her son likely won’t have a Skipper Chuck TV character in his childhood. “I would love for him to have that kind of experience,” she says.