Romper Room was a much beloved children's television show on KTVU from the 1950's up until 1992. The show was originally out of Baltimore, and the Oakland / San Francisco Bay Area had its very own franchised version which was broadcast from KTVU in Oakland for most of the show's run.

"Miss Nancy" Besst became the host of Romper Room in 1958, which was originally broadcast on KGO and then later from KTVU.

"Miss Sharon" was the last Romper Room host in Northern California, who before being hired, was a fourth grade teacher. Sally Claster Bell hired and trained "Miss Sharon" in Pacific Palisades, California. The only African-American hostess of Romper Room, Miss Sharon was featured on the show from 1987-1992, which was filmed at KTVU in the San Francisco Bay Area, and she was the final teacher on the last Romper Room in the United States.

In 2006 "Miss Sharon" posted the following message on IMBb:

"I was the last Romper Room Teacher in Northern California, Miss Sharon. I taped the shows from 1987-1992. I am also the only African American host of the show. I was a teacher at the time and I was the first real classroom teacher to host the show. When I was hired, I taught fourth grade. I also taught preschool and kindergarten. The shows were taped on weekends and later, on Monday evenings. I was trained by Sally Claster Bell in Pacific Palisades, California. My shows were filmed at KTVU in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since this was the last show in the last Romper Room version in the US, many of the tapes were archived at KTVU and I have copies of most of them as well. I always ended my shows with a wink after the magic mirror. I hope that these shows will be released for future generations to enjoy.

Romper Bomper!" 1

History of Romper Room

This TV preschool of sorts was created by Bert & Nancy Claster and begin on WBAL in Baltimore, MD. In 1953 this was only station that Romper Room was seen. This show however got the attention from the folks at CBS who wanted to bring Romper Room on a national level. The Clasters turned down the offer from CBS, but still wanted to bring Romper Room to all of America, but in their own unique way.

They gave local TV stations the option broadcasting the main version out of Baltimore (Chicago in the 70s and back to Baltimore in 1981) via syndication or producing their "own" local version of Romper Room ie Franchising which many TV stations that brought the rights to Romper Room did.

Nancy Claster trained the local hostess herself, and they all had a college education. The training was one week but intensive. Nancy also did the Baltimore version of the show, and was replaced by her daughter Sally Claster in order to focus on training more Romper Room teachers.

Bert and Nancy also provided the much of the props and set design for the local version as well. It may be local, but was their baby.

Regardless of any version, Romper Room was a show in which children could play games, read stories, and learned about those things that children needed to know about. The "Magic Mirror" at the end of the show was a way that the Romper Room teacher could reach out to the kids that were watching from home, and who could forget the show's popular mascot Do-Bee.

This show held it's ground for three decades, by 1981 due to an increasing demand from TV stations that wanted a syndicated version of Romper Room. To remedy this Romper Room was retitled "Romper Room & Friends" in 1981. The main show was hosted by Molly McCloskey (who did a local version in New York before and after taping the syndicated), and three new characters were introduced; Kimble (think of him as an oversized lost cousin of Cookie Monster), Granny Cat, and a clown puppet named Up-Up. The stations that still wanted to produce Romper Room on a local level still had that option, and cut ins with the new characters were produced so that the local stations were able to insert those characters in their local versions.

Sadly during the 1980s many stations began to drop the show and move on to other things. The show officially ended in 1994. This show had its minor faults and could be a pain to local editors and even local hostesses, but this show was a hit with the late Boomers and Generation Xers. It was truly a gem in the world of Children's television. It will be missed. 1

Links & References

  1. Romper Room and Friends IMDb
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