The Commander Tom Show was a children's television series that aired weekday afternoons on Channel 7 WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York, premiering on December 20, 1965.

Commander Tom had replaced The Jungle Jay Nelson Show, a jungle-themed program built around Tarzan films, which had aired in the early 1960s;[2] Nelson was dissatisfied working in television and had used the popularity of his "Jungle Jay" persona in Canada to get work at CHUM, Toronto's preeminent pop music station at the time.

[3] When the show launched, it consisted of interstitial segments with Jolls shown around episodes of the Adventures of Superman, a TV series that ran from 1952 till 1958.

During each shows' respective original run, the two never crossed over, as Jolls and Rocketship 7 host Dave Thomas worked different shifts.

[7] Over time, while Rocketship 7 maintained an explicitly educational Space Age theme meant to promote the virtues of local business Bell Aerospace, Commander Tom eventually evolved into a more comforting, homely presence, akin to other puppet shows such as Mr. Dressup and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.