W-I-C-U-TV. Those letters are greeting me as I walk into work. I can truthfully say that when I enter this building and walk the halls, I think about the history of this place and the legendary people who came before me. One of those legends was called Pappy.

Remember Pappy? He was the host of a popular children's show on WICU. He had a long beard, black glasses, a floppy hat, overalls and a checkered shirt. His two puppet sidekicks were always nearby. Everyone who does remember Pappy, like myself, are now up there in years. The Pappy Show was broadcast live from the WICU studios in the late 1950s and early to mid-1960s. If you were a kid in Erie back then, you wanted to be a live audience member for one of the shows. Al Kunz was one of those kids.

"Every once in awhile, as an adult, you're talking to somebody and it's said, 'Have you ever been on The Pappy Show? It's amazing how many people said they were,” says Al with a laugh.

Al appeared on The Pappy Show when he was 8 years old. He says it was a big deal for a kid from Erie to be in the audience for the program. This was a daily live Erie TV phenomenon. There were no reruns back then and no watching later on the internet.

"I can remember when we were going to be on the show, my brother and I,” says Al. “My mother was calling everybody she knew to tell people that we were going to be on."

Ed Swonder appeared six times on The Pappy Show, not as an audience member, but as a performer. Pappy invited many local children to perform on the show.  Ed was a student at Long's School of Dance. He remembers the excitement when his dance troupe took the stage.

"To be on television and there's hundreds, maybe thousands of people watching. It was like Wow! This is really great,” recalls Ed.

I'm sure most kids have happy memories of their appearance on The Pappy Show. Ed remembers the first time his dance group performed. It's not a fond memory. Every dancer was confused by the television monitors in the studio.

"I'm looking at the monitor. When I go right, I'm going left. When I go left, I'm going right on the monitor,” remembers Ed. “So, our timing and our sense of direction, it was a hot mess."

Pappy to the rescue! The next time Ed's troupe appeared on the show, the host covered the monitors during their performance.

Neither Al nor Ed remember the exact format for The Pappy Show. They remember Pappy interviewing a few members of the audience, introducing the entertainment, and then showing a few cartoons. If you have a memory of The Pappy Show, please send it along in the Comments Section for this story. I will enjoy reading about those Erie television memories from long ago.