TV Tots 

Originally published in Goose River Anthology 2023

They met at Toohey’s every afternoon at 5. That’s when it opened. Lee and Mike would quaff a few or three with their friend Dewey, the bartender. He called them his regular regulars.

Lee and Mike were artists. Dewey, with three toddlers at home with his wife, delighted in listening to the outrageous stories the duo told, playing off each other, inventing scenarios that addled Dewey’s brain.

“When did you first start drawing?” Lee asked Mike one afternoon.

“I think I was about 3. Started drawing cartoons. Probably copying stuff I saw in the Sunday paper.”

“Me, too,” Lee replied. “I remember drawing cartoons all the way through…. Heck, I still draw them. Mostly as doodles when my serious painting droops.”

Both Lee and Mike were well known serious artists, at least in their town and in their small social circles. Lee painted portraits, on commission; Mike crafted imaginative landscapes. Neither made much money. Both had wives who worked. Neither raised children, although Mike had a long-estranged teenaged son who lived with his first wife.

 “I have an idea,” Mike said one afternoon as he slipped onto his customary stool at the bar and gripped the pint that sat there waiting for him. “It just came to me, walking in the door just now. Crazy idea.”

He spun it out for his companions: A TV show. For children. By children. Except, Mike and Lee would pose as children in a half-hour play that would lean heavily on drawing. Comics. For children, by children. The artist duo would do the drawing, right on the set, and do all of the dialog themselves. They’d even draw likenesses of their juvenile selves to wear as face coverings.

“So, this seems like a lot of work,” Lee said. “Writing scripts, drawing comic strips, preparations for filming. No way.”

Mike picked up his pint, sipped, then drank. “You got it all wrong, Lee. We’ll do it live. Wing it. How hard can it be to pretend to be a three-year-old, draw like a three-year-old, talk like a…. Well, maybe a five-year-old.”

They wrestled with the idea for several days. Dewey became an enthusiastic booster, imagining how his three under-5 youngsters would react to such a program. As the idea persisted in their conversations, albeit only after the first pint was long gone, Lee and Mike found themselves with a maturing idea. Dewey provided the link:

“My cousin is the program director at WGWZ. I’ll talk to him.”

Two weeks later, “Drawn-Out Adventures” hit TV screens in the town for the first time. At 7 am on a Sunday morning.

News of the upcoming show had spread quickly by word of mouth among the dozen or so close friends of the artists. The station didn’t plan to sample viewership. On Sunday mornings the station came on the air at 6 am with a recorded sermon from the pastor of the First Baptist Church. Presumably a few churchgoers would hang around to watch the debut of DOA.

On Monday, promptly at 5, Lee and Mike grasped their pints and waited for Dewey’s comments. They came quickly, enthusiastically and expansively.

“My kids were over the moon,” Dewey exclaimed. “When you were drawing those faces, they drew right along with you. When you told those crazy stories, they laughed, danced and made up little stories of their own. You’re a hit. At least in my house.”

A short note in the TV section of the local paper promised to advance viewership the next week. And so it went. Despite the early Sunday morning time slot, parents with early-rising young children tuned in, drawing materials at the ready.

Six months later, Drawn-Out Adventures moved to a new time slot, 4 pm weekdays. Five days a week.

Their die was cast for them. Lee and Mike now had regular jobs. Lee proposed they meet mornings to plan each afternoon’s show, and perhaps make preliminary plans for upcoming shows.

“Naw, no way. We wing it,” Mike insisted. And they did.

Sometimes Lee would suggest something a few minutes before airtime, but he soon realized that Mike wasn’t listening. When the director wagged his finger to start the show, Mike would swirl a few lines from a black crayon on a sheet of drawing paper, don the drawing as a mask — and start talking. After a minute or so of scene-setting childish rhetoric describing a madcap adventure featuring two small boys, Lee would pick up the thrust of Mike’s latest and play right along. The action was illustrated with on-the-spot instant drawings.

Their show soon became a booming success. Not only did it capture nearly all of the 3 to 5 year olds in the town, but many older children tuned in as well, revisiting their carefree pasts. And the usually conservative Lee fully embraced Mike’s “wing it” attitude. “It’s really a lot of fun,” he admitted one day. “I’m a kid again. Every afternoon at 4.”

 Their success in attracting viewers also attracted top ratings and favorable mentions in newspapers throughout the region. Others noticed as well.

The station director asked them to come in for a meeting on Saturday morning. “Some guys from network headquarters in New York will be visiting and they asked to meet with you.”

Lee was nervous, unsuccessfully trying to learn why the meeting was scheduled, what would be discussed, what questions might be asked.

Mike’s reaction: “Hey, it’s not until after noon. We’ll both be awake by then. We’ll dazzle them with our fancy footwork.”

Neither they, nor the station director who was seated in neutral territory at the head of the table could have anticipated what was to follow. Three executives from the network, each wearing double-breasted blue suits, vests and flamboyant neckties, sat across a conference room table from the casually-clad Lee and Mike. The three executives, stony-faced, spoke seriously and rapidly:

“Your afternoon show is getting rave reviews,” one said. “It’s the top-rated daytime program in this area.”

Lee beamed; Mike sat dead-panned, not responding. Suspicious. Saw “The Suits” as a threat.

“And that is why,” the leader of The Suits proclaimed, “we are taking this show national. Prime spot on the network. Putting it at the top of the heap, as it were, for our daytime programming. Internal polling shows that we should always try to attract children at an early age to make them become enduring viewers. And that is why….”

Mike was no longer listening. He was certain he could foretell what was about to come. Lee continued to smile broadly, nodding in agreement as the leader of The Suits went on.

“Naturally, as a network, we can’t continue with the spontaneity of the program as currently constituted. We will film each program in advance. In fact, we have already filmed 15 episodes and are hard at work on more.”

Lee’s smile began to fade. “But I haven’t….” he began before the Lead Suit interrupted him.

“We also think it unwise to have adult males pose as children, so we have cast a number of small children to pose as artists and others to tell stories, although an adult, a woman, a school-teacher sort, is leading the stories.

“We liked the pilot and the next two episodes so much we’ve given the green light to the entire series. It airs starting Monday at 4.”

Lee cleared his throat. “So, what about us? I mean, it’s our show, right?”

Mike smiled knowingly, said nothing.

“Well, technically it’s not your show,” Lead Suit said quietly. “Our station director here quite responsibly signed you to a contract that spelled out in clear legal terms….”

 On Monday afternoon at 5 o’clock the WGWZ switchboard lit up and the Call Forwarding recording worked overtime. The callers were angry.

At Toohey’s, Dewey arrived a few minutes early, stood perched behind the bar, waiting. Even before drawing pints for his friends, he erupted angrily. “What in god’s name have you done? Your show isn’t worth (exclamation deleted). Two of my kids walked away almost immediately and the little one began crying.”

By week’s end, the station, overwhelmed, stopped answering the phones. At the network, executives ignored the feedback, awaiting viewership numbers and ratings.

Numbers and ratings dropped through the floor.

The Suits persisted and the show, which had been renamed “Tot Drawers,” continued for another six weeks. While The Suits ignored the results, someone was watching. Someone from the network’s board of directors. A memorandum came hurtling down on The Suits:

“Bring back the original show, ‘Drawn-Out Adventures.’ Bring back the original stars, Mitch, Lou, whatever their names are. Get them back on the air. Now.”

Dewey pushed two pints across the bar as his friends eased onto their stools. “So, what’s the plan? You going back on the air? Gonna be TV stars again.”

Lee looked at his stein while Mike took a long slug. “Nope, not a chance,” Mike said. “They stole our idea, (exclamation deleted) it up and there’s no way I’m gonna rescue them.”

Dewey placed both hands on the bar, fingers spread. “My kids are so disappointed. They really miss the show. I’ll betcha that’s a universal feeling across kid-dom.”

There was a long silence while the artists sipped. Dewey poured one for himself.

“I have an idea,” Mike said. The others turned to face him, listening carefully.

“We’ll do it live,” he said in a quiet voice. “Just for the neighborhood. Probably can book the elementary school auditorium. Do the show for two hours, live, with an audience of kids. Let the little ones roam the place, come up on stage and help us draw. Invent stories with us. Keep it small.”

Lee laughed. “And in our control. Completely. Without a contract.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Dewey said, raised a hand and the three friends clapped their hands together cheerfully.