Produced by NBC, the show followed a newsreel format with several minutes of government film about the war effort, interspersed with Forrest in the studio explaining the latest developments with the use of maps on an easel.
A veteran radio broadcaster, Forrest created a TV series that encouraged children to explore many places of interest, to read books, and showed them how to care for animals and become involved in local activities.
[citation needed] The program debuted on WNBT on September 21, 1949, as "a weekly series of silent movie comedies and cartoons".
If Forrest is better remembered among older New York television viewers for the acclaimed educational program Children's Theater, which he produced and hosted for WNBC-TV from 1949 to 1960, there is a reason his earlier work has been virtually forgotten.
In the earliest days, wearing a tuxedo to intone the formal sign-on when WNBT went on the air each evening, Forrest announced every station break and every program.
He interviewed men and women on the street, introduced dramatic productions, was a quiz show announcer and variety show host and even became the network's first full-time news presenter after Lowell Thomas, whose radio news had been simulcast on television, decided to do his broadcasts from his upstate home.
[citation needed] Other notable location broadcasts with Forrest included a series of pre-taped shows from the now defunct Freedomland U.S.A. amusement park in the Bronx.