The “Skipper Sam Show” was a locally produced children’s TV show with kids performing musical and dance acts, sometimes to unplanned hilarious results.
WROC-TV (Channel 8) broadcast the show, which was on from the days of the John F. Kennedy presidency to the Gerald Ford administration. The star was Ken Powell, who was decked out as an old sea captain and came on screen, accompanied by music and boat whistles.
The show originally aired live from the WROC studios and later was taped there. News accounts said Skipper Sam was the first local color television show in Rochester.
It was during the live shows that the unexpected occurred. Powell, who had a rich radio voice and plenty of charisma, said he learned not to let any response throw him. These were kids he was dealing with, after all.
“Sometimes, they would break up and wet their pants or start crying like hell,” Powell said in a 1975 Democrat and Chronicle story. Once, the story recounted, “a 33-rpm dance record (was) accidentally turned on at 45-rpm speed and a diligent little dancer plunged in and tried to keep up with it.”