Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Chatter's World (1960)

10 comments:

Mike Doran said...

OK, Kliph ... where -
- and even more importantly, how -
- did you dig this one up?

I was 9-10 years old in 1960, when WBKB-channel 7, the ABC ststion in Chicago, ran this on Saturday mornings.
This film was one of a series of shorts that ran two per show.
The rest of the show was done live.
Ronny Born, who did funny voices on ch7's kid shows, would stand at a mike off-camera and adlib, while Chatter would be turned loose on some kind of set; Ronny had to keep more or less to the set-up while following whatever Chatter was doing. Murray Hill was the on-camera straight man, pretty much at the shared mercy of Chatter and Ronny.
I'm guessing that the live stuff is all lost, but I'm a little jolted to see that at least some of the film has survived.
And, after all these years, I'm abashed to realize ...
... I still remember the song.
All of it.

God help me for remembering ...
... and God help you for making me remember!

thirteen said...

The great Sandy Becker ran these Chatter's World shorts, one per day, on his WNEW-TV Channel 5 show in New York. I remember thinking they were terrible, and I was only six or seven years old. The theme song was catchy, though -- an earworm that has lasted for half a century and (still!) counting.

Stu Cook said...

Here in Connecticut, CHATTER'S WORLD was aired on WNHC-TV Channel 8 back in the 1960's. It was run on the hosted cartoon programs, "Admiral Jack" and "The Friends of Mr. Goober". I somehow remember these.....yup!

Anonymous said...

Finallly thought I imagined this about a monkey doing stuff on TV while a human voice did an over dub.......CHATTER came to me last nite in middle of nite in bed, ran on WNEW TV with Sandy Becker each day................thought it was stupid back then but now has layers and funky theme ..............CHATTER...whatttsa matter with you??????????

Unknown said...

For years I would ask people Do you remember this tv show witj a monkey named Chatter and part of the theme song (the only part I could remember) said "Chatter! What's the matter with you?" People would look at me like I had 3 heads. This would have been late 50's maybe 1960. We lived in Michigan outside of Detroit. Thank you for the internet, proving I'm not crazy!

Unknown said...

I had the pleasure of working, as a senior producer, with Sam Ventura and Ronnie Born (VEBO Productions) in the mid-1980's. We made several corporate training videos together and I always enjoyed working with these two professionals. When I was a little kid growing up near Chicago...I used to watch Chatter's World every Saturday am. Little did I know that 25 years in the future, I'd be creating videos with the two guys who did Chatter's World! It was great hearing stories about Chatter's escapades through the city! Love seeing these old clips!

Corey Cather
Carlsbad, California

Rusty ones said...

I remember that! But does anyone remember chatter with a guy Named Skipper? So Skip and Chatter?

Anonymous said...

I’m almost 70 years old and I remember Chatt what’s the matter with you and brought back memories

Theosimone said...

Thank you for posting this as I was beginning to think that I had imagined the only line of the theme song I could remember - "Chatter! What's the matter with you?". I don't recall the show at all, although I must have watched it on Sandy Becker as I grew up in New York. Over the years, I have confused it with "The Hathaways" but in researching that show I found that there were three chimps and none was named Chatter. Finally, this afternoon you have solved a decades old mystery and I thank you very much.

Anonymous said...

If anyone has anymore of these clips of either Chatter's World or Cobby's Hobbies, I am the granddaughter of Murray Hill, the man who owned Chatter and Cobby, and we have been trying to track down more clips from the shows.