Sandy Becker

George Sanford "Sandy" Becker (February 19, 1922 – April 9, 1996) was an American television announcer, actor, and comedian who hosted several popular children's programs in New York City.

Originally a pre-med student at New York University in the 1930s, Becker played the character on the radio for a decade, after having been the show's announcer.

[2] After Dr. Malone, Becker started working for WABD (later WNEW) TV channel 5 in New York City and began hosting a program featuring Bugs Bunny cartoons, The Looney Tunes Show, on weeknights from 1955 to 1958.

[3] In the middle of those activities, Becker found his true calling, spun off in large part from his knack for entertaining his own three children, with his vocal and comic versatility and mimicry.

[4] Becker would also host a weekday afternoon and evening children's wraparound program, The Sandy Becker Show, which had him playing comedic characters, performing puppet skits, engaging his viewers in informational segments and contests, and interviewing guest performers and personalities in-between the reruns of movie and TV cartoons.

His best-known work there was perhaps Mr. Wizard on King Leonardo and His Short Subjects — "Drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome / Time for this one to come home" — who was always indulging, then rescuing Tooter Turtle from his outlandish wishes.

The former character sounded similar to John Wayne, while the latter simply exploded into babbling gibberish whenever he explained his latest idea to stop the coyote adversaries.

[7] On his morning and (later) afternoon children's programs, Becker created such characters as double-talking disc jockey Hambone, the addled, but brilliant Big Professor (who claimed to know the answer to every question in the world), rumpled Hispanic kid's show host K. Lastima, incompetent mad scientist Dr. Gesundheit, and — showing a flair for silent comedy — simple-minded Norton Nork, whose routines of earnest bumbling were joined only by musical accompaniment ("Playtime On Pluto" by Ron Goodwin) and a droll Becker narration that ended, invariably, with, "That's my boy, Norton Nork — you've done it again!"

On November 22, 1963, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Becker went on the air and, quite movingly, attempted to explain to his young viewers what had happened.

[10] After Metromedia cancelled the last of his TV shows in June 1968, Becker joined WNEW-AM as a DJ, hosting the 4:00pm to 8:00pm time slot.