The Horn and Hardart Children's Hour

The program was sponsored by Horn & Hardart, which owned restaurants, bakeshops and automats in New York City and Philadelphia.

The original New York host was Paul Douglas, followed by Ralph Edwards and finally Ed Herlihy.

Horn and Hardart's slogan was "Less work for mother dear whose gentle hands, lead us so kindly through little folk lands.

A number of performers became quite successful after their work on the Philadelphia TV series, including Ted Arnold (musical director for Glenn Yarbrough and José Feliciano), Frankie Avalon, Rosemary Clooney, Buddy DeFranco, Eddie Fisher, Connie Francis, Joey Heatherton, Kitty Kallen, Rose Marie, Bernadette Peters, Ann Sheridan, Arnold Stang, Ezra Stone (radio's original Henry Aldrich) and Bea Wain.

[2] Fred Rogers worked as a stage manager on the show, which he later described as "terrible" for forcing children to perform.