From the Ken Wagner collection, Captain Ken's Cartoon Showboat WOC TV 6 Davenport, Iowa.

The above promotional ad provides incredible trivia - this is how The Cartoon Showboat's Calliope The Turtle received his name! Linda Wagner, Captain Ken's daughter who was on The Showboat with her dad explains - I don't remember too many particulars about the contest except we did some shows about how my buddy the turtle didn't have a name and needed help from the kids. Dad already had the idea that he wanted to name him Calliope and waited for the mail to come in and sure enough someone actually sent in the name Calliope so it was legitimate. - Linda


WOC had a long history of children's programming beginning with Ken Wagner's Incredibly popular Comic Cut-Ups which began airing the first full week that WOC started broadcasting. Comic Cut-Ups, geared to both children and adults, was then joined by Walt Reno who played Cowboy Whitey on The Circle 5 Ranch. The Circle 5 Ranch became The Circle 6 Ranch starring Wes Holly as Cowboy Wes.

It was during the time period of Cowboy Wes Holly that WOC purchased the incredibly popular and newly released Popeye cartoon series. The Circle 6 Ranch became The Circle 6 Cartoon Corral overnight. The Cartoon Corral became Captain Ken's Cartoon Showboat in 1958 starring Ken Wagner.

The time slot for the listings of the Circle 6 Cartoon Corral, Popeye Cartoon Corral and Captain Ken was always the same 4:30pm to 5:30pm, preceeded by Cactus Jim from 4pm to 4:30pm.

Circle 6 Cartoon Corral (Wes Holly as Cowboy Wes) - Monday 7/29/57 (last show)

Popeye Cartoon Corral - Tuesday 08/01/57 (still starring Cowboy Wes, first show)

Monday 10/06/58 = Captain Ken

Incredibly, Popeye was so popular that it was shown not only at 4:30pm but then again after the news for a short while in 1957. The listings on 10/25/57 show the news on from 5:30pm to 6pm followed by Popeye from 6pm to 630pm.

Popeye was released to television in September of 1956 and it is also interesting to note that it looks like it took WOC almost a year to purchase the package. Popeye at the time was the hottest and most expensive cartoon package that a station could buy (until The Three Stooges were released in 1959). As a result, most stations that purchased the Popeye package had a Captain host the show and it looks like WOC followed the hot trend. It is really interesting to see how apparently the four Captains of The Cartoon Showboat from 1958 thru 1974; Ken Wagner, Vern Geilow, Don Warren and Ernie Mims became Captains thanks to Popeye! Wagner would have been aware of the reason but Geilow, Warren and Mims most likely did not. By the time Captain Ernie came around, The Showboat had become synonymous with his character and most including Ernie thought that The Showboat was a reference to the nearby Mississippi River which runs through the WOC viewing area. Three cheers for Popeye for without him there would have never been a Cartoon Showboat on WOC!


Popeye's image from Wikipedia may be copyrighted and is used here only as reference according to fair use and is not intended for any other distribution.

Ken Wagner Jr. points out that some of the drawings in the above newspaper clipping were done by his father. "I would recognize his artwork anywhere".

Special thanks to Ken, Linda and Diane Wagner.

Click here to return to Captain Ernie's Showboat!

Special thanks to Jon Book for providing the WOC test pattern!