TFTP's Monochrome March: "Winky Dink and You" from CBS (mid-1950s)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Mark Mentzer'
Length - 28:33

College basketball has March Madness. TFTP: Television from the Past has Monochrome March! 

For the entire month of March, TFTP brings you posts featuring monochrome programs and clips in glorious black-and-white!

"Winky Dink and You" is one of the most interesting programs in television history, and it's not clear that there has ever been another program like it. It has been heralded (both when it was on the air and since) as TV's first "interactive" program. Host Jack Barry (of later quiz show scandal--and "Joker's Wild"--fame) and animated sprite Winky Dink led child viewers on a quirky journey involving drawing on their television screen.

Unless the child was especially mischievous, this drawing was done on a clear plastic sheet (referred to as a "magic window") and a special set of crayons that could be ordered through the show (the kit is advertised several times in this episode). The sheet was spread out over the TV screen, staying in place via static cling, and Barry and Winky presented several different images per episode that kids could complete with their crayons. In the episode above, these images include members of Winky's family from his "family album" and an automobile that then goes on a drive against a moving background.

"Winky Dink and You" aired on Saturday mornings on CBS from 1953 to 1957. It was revived in syndication for a few years circa 1970 and was even distributed in home video form in the 1990s--complete with drawing kit.