Chicago children's TV pioneer dies at 83

By Eileen O. Daday

Daily Herald correspondent

One of the pioneers of children's television in Chicago, and a longtime Bartlett resident, died last month, leaving behind a legacy of puppets and an original show called "Kiddie A-Go-Go."

Jack Mulqueen passed away Feb. 21. A puppeteer who also wrote and produced children's programming, his career spanned 15 years in television during the golden years of the 1950s and '60s. He also was an enthusiastic collector of movie memorabilia.

But it is the preteen dance and music show he created in 1965, "Mulqueen's Kiddie A-Go-Go," which remains his legacy.

"It was unique unto itself," says Steve Jajkowski, archives director for the Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. "No one's ever done it since then, but it was quite an influence at the time and very popular."

Mulqueen grew up on Chicago's South side and started puppeteering as a child. His career took an unlikely turn, when he was drafted into the Army during the Korean War and found an audience for his puppet shows: the troops.

After the Army, Mulqueen attended Eastern Illinois University where he met his wife, Elaine. Their television careers started in 1962 in the WGN-TV studios, where Elaine did Coca-Cola commercials for "Bozo's Circus" and her husband operated some of the show's puppets.

In short order they started appearing occasionally on the show as a pair of clowns. Jack would don a beat up tuxedo with long white gloves, and play "Mr. Hands."

In 1963, the husband-and-wife team branched out with their own show, "The Mulqueens" on WGN-TV.

"We were drawing 247,000 fans every Saturday morning," Jack Mulqueen said during a 2012 Daily Herald interview, "and all during prime kiddie time when we were battling Saturday morning cartoons."

Two years later, in 1965, they moved to WLS-TV, where they debuted a new format for children called "Mulqueen's Kiddie A-Go-Go."

The show featured live performances by up-and-coming rock bands, with preteens on the set dancing, making it something of an American Bandstand for youngsters. Elaine, as the bubbly clown Pandora, was the host.

"It served a niche for record producers looking to reach a younger audience," Jajkowski added.

Mulqueen himself said the music lent itself naturally to a younger audience, and they went with it.

"At that time, go-go music was very juvenile," Jack Mulqueen said, pointing to such songs as "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Popsicle Song" and "The Hula-Hoop Song."

The show's name was shortened to "Kiddie A-Go-Go" when they jumped to WCIU in 1966, and that version is the most memorable.

"At the time, WCIU was this lowly little UHF station, broadcasting only in black and white, from the Board of Trade building of all places," Jajkowski adds, "but it was one of the station's most popular shows."

Mulqueen included some of his own memoirs when he cowrote the "Golden Age of Chicago's Children's Television" in 2005 with Ted Okuda. It looks back at such classics as "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," "Garfield Goose," Ray Rayner and Friends, and the Mulqueens.

Jack Mulqueen last appeared at the Museum of Broadcast Communications in 2002, when he was invited to the Puppets, Pies and Prizes exhibit.

Elaine Mulqueen passed away in 2012 and the couple had no children. Services have been held.