Shrouded in Mystery
Were There Other OOM-A-GOGs?
In the early days of television, networks only supplied enough programming to fill what we'd now call the "Prime Time" block. Local stations had to fill the rest of the day themselves, and after-school hours were prime real estate for kids' shows. Many stations had shows with robot sidekicks at the time — WKY's 3-D Danny, for example, had one down in OKC. It was the late '50s, and space-age themes were everywhere — every bit as big as the airtime stations needed to fill.
What we do know is that sometime in 1956, Jerry Berry built the first known version of OOM-A-GOG in Kansas City for the Dr. N. Ventor show on WDAF. According to Big Bill Blair in John Wooley's 1989 interview, the Col. Bleep cartoon package KVOO purchased in 1959 included Oom-A-Gog — though exactly who KVOO bought it from (quite possibly WDAF) is lost to time.
While scouring the internet, we came across a couple of brief mentions — mostly in sales ads — of OOM-A-GOG in markets outside Tulsa. This suggests WDAF was farming out the show concept, and at least two other markets picked it up, though Tulsa was clearly where OOM thrived. If you remember OOM-A-GOG from cities far and wide, we'd love to hear about it on our Facebook page.
Evidence From the Archive
