This is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Jewel Huffman, you have been in television longer than sin, right?

41 years almost.

I can tell you old.

You are exactly your No, I've been here, and this has taken me 41 years to get on the network, and I want all my world war two buddies out there to look in.

I'm alive.

He's alive.

For you, they have an umbrella, a jewel said it would if you believe that, you'll believe anything, you're wonderful.

Can you believe 41 years the weather business?

That's a long time to lie.

Hey, let's have a couple of birthdays.

One word, I would say reliability, outgoing, committed performer.

Mr.

Personality, talented, classic, integrity.

My name is Tim ear.

I'm really grateful to have that chance to talk about him, because he was, he was a big part of this place, but he was also big for the whole community.

He touched all aspects of our viewing area.

And he did that, not because he did the Mr.

Cartoon Show and because he did weather and did all those other shows before he did that, because of who he was.

That was his personality.

His personality was to to be that guy who could reach the audience, not just because he was on TV, but because of the way he was, people learning about Mr.

Cartoon now and learning about jewel Hoffman and that legacy now.

It's kind of like me when I started at ws AZ, because I wasn't from you.

It's definitely a story that needs to be told.

And it's so great to see jewel all these years later, long after the show and long after his death, being recognized for what he brought for local television and what that means for television history.

It was a piece of television history that will probably never be created again.

We'll never see a show like that.

It was it.

It's definitely a part of history.

When he came home, he was Joel Huffman.

When he walked out the door to go to work, he was Mr.

Cartoon.

Sometimes, you know, the humor was the same at home, but that he was still being dad.

He had a great sense of humor.

I am Marvin.

Marvin Huffman.

My father was Joe Huffman.

My dad was born in Cincinnati.

He was born in 1924 he and his siblings grew up in the Depression era.

They were poor, very poor.

Jobs were scarce.

His father just farmed, grew their food, did what he could, you know, and they had their home.

He had two older brothers, Clyde and Marvin.

They fought a lot.

And the younger sister, Grace, He was definitely a scrapper when he was young.

I've heard many stories of his, you know, expelled from school, fights and things that he got into because, I think with his older brothers, you know, so he was always kind of wary.

Basically, it was not an easy upgrade.

My father and his siblings were really fortunate that they were able to go to Western Hills High School.

But it was a weird time.

The cloud of what was happening in Europe and Germany hung over everyday life in America when my dad was a junior in high school, America entered World War Two, and that cast a shadow over everything they did.

My uncle Clyde was not able to serve in the military because of a childhood accident and lifelong illness.

My uncle, Marvin, who was also called Chase, enlisted in the Naval Reserve and became a radio operator.

And my father in high school became involved in school activities.

He was a sports guy, and he was always, like, very into that, until he discovered, literally, I could sing, you know, my voice is good.

And then it became a battle between sports and the performing.

And he do I go to football practice, or do I show up for this rehearsal?

He basically gave up all sports except football, because he really.

Really wanted the letter.

And the coach, he was helpful, you know, he knew my dad had talent.

He was trying to push him toward singing because he wasn't that great of an athlete.

And he was like, Well, you're a much better singer than you are a football player, but he wanted that letter.

So they worked out, you know, just show up for the games.

I'll make sure you get your letter.

And he did, and he got his letter, and he was also able to go ahead and begin to perform more of whatever musical that they're doing at Western Hills High School.

At the time, Dad had all the leading roles, and mom and the audience says, you know, I'm going to marry that.

But they didn't see anything until the war.

But after graduation us school, got a job and was quickly drafted by the US Army and assigned to the Air Corps.

And nobody even hesitated.

You know, you just went.

My uncle Marvin was killed off the coast of Tunisia in Northern Africa, and they came to my grandma's seal and told her, Jewel doesn't have to serve because he was in the Air Corps, because you've lost a son, you know, so he doesn't have to go.

And he was already going through boot camp, and he already established bonds, and he refused to, like, bail, is what he how he put it, he's like, I'm not going to turn my back on the guys that I went through basic with, and I'm going to see this through, especially as a tribute to his brother, Marv, who I'm proudly named after.

So that's what drove him in, you know, to continue on and go into the war.

Then he was deployed to the South Pacific.

All I know is it was an aircraft carrier in the middle of the South Pacific, and he was trained to be a riveter and low level maintenance tech for aircraft, helicopters and planes on the carrier.

He found ways to sing, you know, if the USO came over, he would find a way to worm his way in there.

And I could sing, you know, maybe get to do a song or something, you know, you know, because that was, you know, it was all about the GI.

So if someone came over from with the USO, they were going to be like, Oh, you could sing.

We'll let you sing, you know, because it was all about making them happy while they were dealing with such stress and, you know, brutality.

And mom wrote to dad all the time.

Dad said, you know, that woman, I don't want to take that woman.

And when the war was over, dad came home, and they started dating and and he said, I like this woman.

And dad looked at mom, and he said, I think I'm falling and in love.

My mother has a beautiful voice and a very talented pianist and organist.

And that relationship unbelievable.

I mean, that's the love that was love of his life and his rock.

And after he met her, I think, is when everything just started turning him into the man he became, and that was what led him to the Conservatory of Music, because my mom was getting the same training, taking the same classes.

At that point, he realized that his voice was going to be his career, I think he wasn't ready for two things when he went to the conservatory of music in Cincinnati.

One was that there were going to be a hell of a lot of talented people.

You know, competition was going to be tough, and he's never shied away from that.

That wasn't that was something he was going to handle with no problem.

The other thing was, the still had to take the other classes.

He just wasn't a prize student.

I think he thought he was just going to sing.

You know, that was going to be what he went to school for.

Was just singing.

But there was a lot more to it.

And he made improvements is, if you look at the grades, I think he probably would have finished okay.

But then again, there were all those days, there were all sorts of talent shows and all sorts of auditions to go and meet some people in the business to have his voice heard, what got him in the door.

Four in radio was a couple of army buddies that you know, worked at the TV stations or the radio stations that he ended up getting connected with that was important to him too, having been through a heavy decision in his life of what he was going to do with his future when he started having a family, and he was determining which faith to bring the kids up in.

Dad was still Jewish and, and mom was Christian.

You know, instead of Judaism, he chose Christianity.

Then they got married, and, and and then dad said, well, let's wait a while.

And I popped out, not intentionally.

It's all connected to that early childhood and that upbringing to where he his determination to have a successful, happy, loving family.

I do know he went from Cincinnati to Ashland when my sister was the only child, because it was his first chance to be the primary singer.

He didn't care what kind of music it was, he'd sing and have fun and appreciate it.

That led him to channel three, because saz opened a door that had a long hallway of potential behind it, where he could see that there was going to be more, you know, and that he had a chance to get more money and raise the family better, you know, buy a house, settle in and really start living.

And I think saz showed him an opportunity to where he was going to be able to get to that a little quicker.

My Sister Cindy came along right about the right after he had started working at channel three, and that's why he jumped all over that because he was hired as a singer.

He wanted to be a singer all h..

He wanted to be a professional singer, but he also was drawn to television, he told me, and at first, you just did anything that they asked you to do.

Jewel Huffman was hired on, I think, what was that?

1953 I believe, was the date that he first started as, you know, a voice talent at ws AZ, when I was a young teenager working at channel three television in Huntington, when jewel came along as a singer and a morning coffee time morning show.

At that time, we had a program called Coffee time nine to 10 every weekday, and had a band, had a five and six piece band with brownie Benson was the band director, and we had a girl singer, Sue chambers, very good singer, professor in our program, we have her sing four or five songs every say, That's too many.

We need a man singer back then, most of the performers, your vocal talents, they got paid by the job.

In other words, if he sang on the Saturday night Jamboree, he got paid for that time.

If he was on coffee time as the emcee or singing talent, or whatever he got paid for that time, $30 a show for coffee time.

Coffee time was a program.

It was produced and directed by a gentleman named Bert Shemp.

Bert probably hired jewel to be a voice over.

He was already there singing, being a background person.

He came in an audition, an.. okay, what do you want to sing?

And Jules pull out a stack of music an inch thick of all the kind of something.

He just laid him on a piano.

And he said, which one do you want?

And the Brandy said, which one do you know?

He said, I know them all.

And Brandon said, Okay, I think we got us a singer now, and that's how they hired him in the first place.

He was already directing shows and doing other technical work and learning his way and with his voice.

He was already doing the announcing, you know, on air tags and stuff, which they did live like, Okay, you're on, you know?

And he would just read the tag, and then they'd go on with the show.

And then they got to the point where they pre recorded tags and, you know, but he was the voice him and Bud daily, Joel would be doing the weather at that point, in other words, giving you the weather forecast and stuff, what tomorrow was going to be, what happened during the day, whether he did some news at times, we had Nick bass at that time and Bos Johnson, were our news people, but he would fill in some time with the weather.

Her, you know, at noon time.

He also did that weather in the noon time when he started getting into it, DJ was already doing weather, and I believe it was split, you know, day, and she was doing the six and 11, and he was doing the midday.

And when he started doing weather $5 per weather cast, that would have to have been probably close to when I was born, like late 50s.

He wasn't a meteorologist, per se, but understood enough to be able to deliver a forecast of what was going on during the day, what's going to happen tonight, and then what's going to happen for the rest of the rest of the week.

It wasn't Doppler radar and all that stuff now, it was just a map, and I'm standing here with a number also, guess what it's doing outside that kind of weather?

Jewel took the weather very seriously back then, people who did the weather cast on television tended to be announcers and performers, not meteorologists, but jewel made a point of going over those national weather maps and the regional weather information, such as we had it in those days, not nearly as big and fancy as We have it today.

You got all that from the airport, you know.

That's where he'd get his weather casts.

He would talk to them, you know.

And he learned, he learned a lot from them.

He got books from the people you know, at the weather service at the tri state airport.

And he would study that, and it helped him become a better weather man.

And he made a point of really memorizing exactly how the weather should go.

One of my fun things as the anchorman of the show was to try and throw him a little bit with the intro.

So I would always say something like, so how are the kids today?

Jewel, or something along the lines of say, that's a snazzy tie you have.

But jewel had it memorized so well that whenever the camera would go to him, he would immediately say, on the national scene, he absolutely did not respond to the my attempts to add an air of jollity to the weather, he'd do anything that you could do.

Tell him to do.

He could do it good.

Seeing an amps MC, he was very good.

He loved getting in the crowd and, you know, and doing things about but I have no desire to do something like that, me.

But he did.

He would do it good.

I think his career goal initially was to be, in essence, a host.

And he had a couple other shots where he Chicago and California.

He turned Chicago down because of family.

He didn't want to move.

My sister had gotten ill, and she was sick, she had a brain hemorrhage, and he didn't want to move the family or anything, so he turned down the Chicago job.

And you know, he was from Cincinnati, and there are a lot of great television entertainers from Cincinnati, including Paul Dixon and Bob Braun, who took their shows national.

Bob Braun was a well known host of a Daily Live Show in Cincinnati, and he he envied Bob Braun, but he often made reference to the fact that a sickness, a major illness that took one of his daughters to a serious situation made it impossible for him to pursue that part of his career.

So he always felt a little bit of regret.

I don't know that he had regret about that, but he did often talk about what could have been, because he thought he was going to be Bob brought, if he wanted to, like, establish more of a base of your, you know, fan base and your personality here, and also the opportunity to make some more money from the station.

It was probably a good next step for him, if he was going to stay here at channel three, if you look at the programming going on on saz at that time, you had the news, and that's geared towards adults.

They wanted to capture the younger crowd, the children, the teenagers and stuff.

So through children's TV show on education, and then they'd switch to the cartoon show.

Started out a steamboat Bill George Lewis had that character while jewel was doing announcing jewel Huffman.

I was with, you know, the program, and he was actually Merlin, the sea monster, which was a pretty terrifying costume, actually, if you probably, if you were a, you know, under the age of 10, you know, because it was the big horn and and it was gigantic, and made him like over six foot tall when he wore the costume, Merlin was more covered up.

You had to be careful who you had for size wise that could fit into the outfit.

The upper echelons were saying you're scaring the kids.

You're scaring the children and Jewel.

And George Lewis said, give him a chance.

The kids are going to absolutely love Merlin.

Well, Joel turned on the charm.

Instead of being.. scared of everything.

And George played off of that.

And after I think it was either two or three shows.

The kids couldn't get enough of them, so he turned the whole thing around and became an integral part of the show.

And then steamboat Bill became Mr.

Cartoon, with George doing Mr.

Cartoon, I think, started in 64 if I'm not mistaken.

So he went from Merlin to his first show, which was called Popeye and his pals, and that was 1965 and what that consisted of was basically a counter and the backdrop making it look like it was the side of a ship, but he did every voice of every puppet as well as doing his job.

So he would just when it's time for them to answer and talk amongst themselves, he would just slide out of camera, out of the shot, and just sit there and do the conversation between all the puppets.

Maybe it may have even lasted up until George left.

George Lewis was the first Mr.

Cartoon on ws AZ, and he ran in that position for quite a few years, until he moved on to another station.

He ended up in Baltimore, and I found out a couple of years later, he was Captain Chesapeake.

And when George left to go to Maryland, station, Jewel took in over there.

And then jewel Huffman, I guess, interviewed for the job or tried out for the job.

Jewel got the role that weekend.

Yes, he was George.. Friday, and jewel was Mr.

Cartoon, I think, on Saturday.

So yeah, and as they say in show business, the rest is history.

I know that it was kind of George's decision that he kind of anointed dad as as the Mr. As the next Mr.

Cartoon, that he thought that was who it needed to be, that the background and their friendship and working together, he knew what my dad was capable of doing and could handle a job without a problem.

Wasn't going to do anything that would sully the good name of Mr.

Cartoon.

And the first little bit of time he just walked through it.

And then he became Mr.

Cartoon.

It became part of his ethos.

It became part of his being.

It just, it was just one of those things where you you almost watched an adult human being sort of metamorphosize into the character that he was playing for an hour or so a day.

And I think at that time, Jewel switched from more standard clothing to the loud jacket bow tie, it was perfect, though.

I mean, he fit in like immediately he was just something because he was poor.

George has passed away, so I can say he's better looking than George was, but he was built for it.

Growing up in Detroit, I saw, you know, children's shows that did a similar thing, but watching jewel do it, he was just so good at it, and he was so good at relating to the kids without talking down to him.

He could talk directly to them and be on their level, yet still have an air of, I don't want to say authority, but understanding, if you will, and that was precious.

You don't see a whole lot of people that have that quality.

Well, I think he took it from the purely, 100% entertainment aspect that George had with.

That to a more of a, you know, community involvement, you know, getting active in what happens to the kids in the community and how they're treated, how they're raised.

Oh, I love it.

Absolutely loved it.

I mean, he in the previous afternoon, leadership would go out to visit different places, and the kids, you know, the parents would bring the kids, and they would just gather around him excitedly.

This could be and again, they had handouts and everything like that.

But I know the kids didn't come for the handouts, just to actually see him in person.

He was, he was very much a family man.

But again, I think he considered all those kids that came in daily to be on television, to be on Mr.

Cartoon, part of that family.

He brought young people in to watch him.

Television gave them good attitudes.

Always spoke at the end of the programs to be good to your parents and to each other, he would always have a message to give the children.

And that, again, is the magic words.

The magic words are probably the most profound thing you'll be remembered for, as Mr. Kurt did, and I just loved the line of making sure that you had said please and thank you, and the manners that he taught the kids, those were very important to him.

I asked him about that one time, you know, how did you come up with that?

Well, I heard a couple other people say it, and my parents always taught me manners, so I thought it was very important to include that every time, and teaching young children the basic manners as well.

I believe.

Let's see it wa.. Ma'am, please.

Thank you.

I think that's all that I can remember.

When he talked to these kids.

He had the rules of saying please and thank you and stuff like that.

He was not only showing them cartoons, he was teaching them behaviors.

And he took that very seriously.

I mean, everybody that talks about my dad, one of the first things they say is, please, thank you.

You're welcome.

Excuse me, I'm sorry.

He just kept adding words there and phrases toward the end, you know, because he would, he was like, You know what?

This one's important.

We haven't been doing it.

You know, go to the church in synagogue of your choice.

He always said synagogue because of Grandma, you know, because he believed in like, No dominational dominance, no reason for anyone who's looking for guidance or help from the Lord or from any kind of spiritual guidance.

No one should be, you know, looked down upon for being different.

When jewel came in, he always said hello to everybody.

He didn't just go straight into the studio and work and he and at the time, it was Dave Kinder who played beeper.

Hello.

My name is Dave kinder, and I am beeper.

Beeper is sidekick to Mr.

Cartoon sidekick.

Sidekick is a really good word for it.

Yeah, I think they added beeper when Merlin, when Merlin disappeared.

You know, Merlin wasn't there anymore.

We didn't have the monster.

Just one of those things that came along, just a character that KY interacted with, the kids.

Ky interacted with Mr.

Cartoon.

If you worked in production, or you were an intern, there was a good chance that you were gonna end up being beeper.

I was beeper for a day.

I think it was just a general rule of thumb that it's like you, it's your turn to be beeper.

My brother John was one of the very first beepers.

My daughter was beeper, and then I got to play beeper.

So it's kind of a family thing for us.

What it was like being beeper was a total mind flip, to be honest, at first, because when I was a kid, growing up, I watched that show probably just as much as everybody else did.

I would come home from school, sit down and watch the Mr.

Cartoon Show.

Loved it.

Becoming beeper just was unbelievable for me that I could not believe I made that position.

Because once you get into that beeper costume, I mean, you have to be over the top to be to be seen.

And he also, like, if you're new, you have to understand all these things that Mr.

Cartoon is gonna do with you.

A lot of it was ad lib.

I mean, you know, you still had your prep, which was, of course, the yucca bucket.

The kids just loved, that little red bucket.

Just a splash of water in and throw it.

Round.

Yeah, we would always do the beeper twist before the yucca bucket.

Yeah, I fo.. beeper would go sit on the kids laps.

I don't know why kids think it's good for a 1500 pound lion type creature to sit on you.

It's hard to say what, who beeper, what beeper is..

I don't, I don't think we ever figured that out, even at sa z the origin of beeper was, I don't know how many years of a process, from what I understand, it was a mixture of several different characters.

You hear a lot that it looks like one o..

They used to have the banana splits, and then they, I don't know if banana splits left or channel three got up.

Banana splits, whichever way it happened, I'm not sure.

Well, when beeper first came to be, he was four individuals.

He was drooper, Fleegle, bingo and snarky, the banana splits and the costumes were on loan from Hannah Barbera, and dad was using them for mascots on the cartoon show, and he didn't send them back.

He just kept them and said, Yeah, let them come to Huntington get them, and they didn't.

So he put them all together into a mainly, I'd say, 80% grouper, and then 20% throwing in bits of Snorky legal and bingo, you know, to complete what was called friend at the beginning.

It was Mr.

Cartoon and friend.

So they said, friend doesn't really fit.

They wanted to u.. a little bit.

And I believe it was a, I don't know the person, but someone out of Centerville or Circleville, Ohio, one of those two.

I can't remember which one that sent their name guess in, because he had the bicycle horn and honked the horn all the time.

So that person came up with the name beeper all being the most like the least imaginative way of naming.

It was the most appropriate.

I'm glad for the experience to be beeper, but I'm glad it's also open time only.

Beeper is still very much part of ws AZ lore.

He is our station mascot.

He goes everywhere.

People to this day know who beeper is those big and I think sometimes scary red eyes of beeper are so recognizable around our region.

To this day, beeper is our mascot here at ws AZ.

So when there's a parade or there's a festival, I will hire somebody to be beeper.

And so it was always this oddity of how the Mr.

Cartoon Show played out for us on the outside every day, seeing these troops of children come through.

And yet, every time they were so excited.

I mean, they were practically bouncing to get into the studio, because they knew this was going to be an experience of a lifetime, to be on these little risers we had where jewel would put all the kids, and then Bieber would come out and entertain and then, oh my, when Mr.

Cartoon came out and gave them the 321, roll them.

I think the thing that you have to remember about jewel is the whole time that he was Mr.

Cartoon.

He also had this other job where he was doing the weather.

He worked every day doing the weather at the Huntington station, on the newscast.

But he still did Mr.

Cartoon, and he largely produced that show with the help of the, you know, the production folks at ws AZ, that was his baby jewel, was considered by the station primarily a weatherman, and by himself, he was considered primarily Mr.

Cartoon.

He was sort of a staple of the station.

You know, they had a lot of long term people at Ws, AZ, DJ Schroeder, Jewel Huffman, boss Johnson, and then a lot of the younger, newer hosts that they had.

He got to work with a lot of those people when you think about .. basso, Boz Johnson, Bob Brunner, Jim reader, DJ Schroeder.

Like you hear these stories about people, and I heard them long after, you know those people had retired.

So these people remain these legendary status, and no one more so than jewel, though that's the power era that I think really cemented channel three as number one.

Just it wasn't going to change.

I don't think anybody watched anybody but Boz with Bob Bowen on sport.

It's down on weather.

We worked together on the six o'clock news for at least 13 or 14 years, and I worked at ws AZ for about 11 years, from.. and that's how I knew jewel, he was my coworker.

I met jewel in my first couple years at ws AC in the late 1980s and it was his last couple of years there, working with jewel for a short time at the end of his career, at the beginning of my career, where I became a reporter and banker, he was just, just a calming pres.. that we admired because of his long history in television and at ws AZ, and all the different talents he had and things he had done, oh yeah, he was a great mentor.

And I don't even think he .. a great mentor he was.

That's the thing about jewel.

I don't even think he realized that.

I think one of the things that jewel Huffman showed everybody was you have to be human doing this job, and it's an unnatural job, being in front of a camera every day of your life and telling other people's very personal stories.

And yet jewel had a way of being so friendly, so personable, that you wanted to be with jewel as he would tell you stories on TV.

I believe it was the midday news one day when Jeff Atkinson was there, they had a bet about one of the baseball games, because jewel was a big Cincinnati Reds fan, and Jewel lost the bet.

Had to take his rug, as we called it, and turn it around backwards.

And he did that live on the midday news with Jeff Atkinson just laughing his head off.

I still remember the one day that he jogged across the studio at noon time that at the end of the show, there's jewel running behind the news anchor at the desk.

And I said, Yeah, that fit really well.

And he was basically bringing the audience in, recognizing that, you know what this guy got to come back and watch him tomorrow, because he just did something that kind of put me on the edge of my seat, and that's what jewel did all the time.

Tony Cavalier and I worked as a side by side as a weather caster, here with jewel, back in the 80s and early 90s, Tony was a meteorologist, highly qualified and determined to professionalize the weather department.

I think jewel respected him.

I don't think, I don't think there was any animosity between them, but I think jewel recognized that the world was changing and and Tony was making it a lot more high tech to do the weather.

Because when Tony came to town, you know, my dad picked him up at the airport.

He did not I came in the cab drive, and I asked the cab driver, I said, Who's your favorite weather person here in town?

And without hesitation, he said, Well, Jewel Hoffman.

I didn't know who jewel was, so I said, Well, tell me a little about jewel.

I mean, I knew he worked for ws easily.

I didn't know him personally.

He said, Well, you know, he's the type of guy that he just lets you feel you're his friend.

He invites you into the house every night.

He's got a genuineness about him.

Had him over for dinner, and kind of took him socially under his wing, you know, to give him some comfort, you know, as being the new guy in town and everything.

But I don't know how much he really could that he showed Tony.

I think that might have been more of a Tony helping him, helping Tony with on air, part of it, but Tony helping him slowly morph into what was becoming more technology, you know, oriented weather cast.

So I'm a new kid in the bar.

My mother had just passed away, and here I am, two or three weeks later, and I've got nowhere to go for Thanksgiving except jewel invited me over, and I still remember there was a rare white Thanksgiving in this area, how cold it was and how warm his family was.

When you work in TV, you work the holidays or whatever.

So the first Thanksgiving, I hadn't really thought about it.

I knew I I was missing Thanksgiving, but I had some pitiful meal.

And Jewel sat down and had his Thanksgiving meal that he brought in from where they'd done, done of that at his house, and he just, he gave me his his dinner.

Your job, Joel taught me was to reach out to people and to be part of their family.

And he did that exceptionally well.

But he was, he was very much a family man.

They treasured their children, three daughters, Marvin, his son, and I think, an adopted grandchild.

My sister died very young, and unexpectedly, she had a son, and there was a problem with, you know, the father.

They went down to court, sued and took custody of him, changed his name to Huffman, and.

So after all that work, my mom and dad both spent the greatest part of their retirement raising another child.

I mean, he was jewel Huffman, and he was a guy who was a dad and a grandfather, a great grandfather, and I don't mean great grandfather.

I mean, he was an awesome grandfather, like he just he he loved what he did, you know, especially towards the end, because he was getting ready to retire.

So there was a lot of nostalgia around at the time.

I think jewel accepted the fact that the economics of the television industry was such that television stations were no longer basing their license renewals on local children's programming.

When a station every five years came up to get its license to broadcast, there was a requirement by the federal government that it operated in the public interest, convenience and necessity, and you had a checklist of things to do, news, programming, Public Affairs, programming, children's programming.

Once the Federal Communications Commission decided that that was no longer going to be a requirement for the license, a lot of stations stopped doing children's programming because it just wasn't very profitable.

Oprah, the first of the talk show movement.

But Oprah was who took over the four to five.

Wasn't like, you know, he was forced.

He enjoyed the fact that he could have two hours on Saturday.

I was jewels supervisor when I was news director, and he was, he hit 65 back then, that was his social security age.

So I'm not real good with numbers, but I sat down with him one day and I said, here's the deal, Joel, you got your company retirement, you got your Social Security, and you get this much money just for sitting home.

And I said, if you stay on, we'd love to have you stay on and keep doing Mr.

Cartoon, which was kind of getting phased down to the weekends.

By that time, you're going to make about $1.90 an hour.

And Jewel stayed on for five years.

It wasn't really that much of a big deal about it, because he had originally said he was going to retire before that, and he stayed to help them through a ratings period at 70, the company bought him and his wife, Gladys a beautiful vacation cruise in order to send him off into retirement.

But I think he went a little unwillingly.

So when he retired, that was a giant chunk of history that was walking out the door.

I don't remember specifically talking to jewel about the loss of Mr.

Cartoon, but I will say there was a nostalgic aspect to jewel, because of all the things he had done and seen in his television career, and in fact, the very the last show that he ever did in the studio our daughter, who was three at the time that we had company employees, station employees, got to have their kids on that show.

And so our daughter, who was three, got to be on that show.

She was on the very last Mr.

Cartoon Show.

So that's kind of cool for me, personally.

So jewel called me up and told me he wanted me in the B pursuit on the final show.

And I was, I again, I was, I was mind blown.

Why me?

Your grandson is doing beeper?

He said, No, you have been beeper.

You have been beeper the longest with anybody else.

And that relationship, that jewel and I had, he said he wanted me in that suit on the final show.

And yes, there were some tears Those last days were kind of like, really, we're giving this up.

I have never known a w, s, a, z, without a Mr.

Cartoon.

I didn't say goodbye.

Mr.

Cartoon that night.

I said, See you later.

These are my children, beeper and be bad of whom I am very proud.

You did a magnificent job today, and I thank everyone here today who had the love in their heart to come down and be with me.

I appreciate it.

Everybody wave and say, Bye, Mr.

Cartoon.

That's the thing that when you talk to jewel, especially after he retired, I think we don't really, we don't really realize how much we love something until it's gone and when jewel.

Wasn't doing Mr.

Cartoon anymore, he said to me all the time, man, I wish I could do that show again.

And after jewel retired, he would still go to the garden party with Gladys and his wife and my wife and I would go there.

And so we would sit and talk and see each other at those Garden Parties.

You know, I knew that he very often wa.. Presbyterian Church, which was their main church here in town.

He really, he loved to belt out the songs.

But other than that, I thought he did, just did a lot of personal appearances as Mr.

Cartoon.

And that was, that was kind of his alter ego.

He swam every time he went down the Y when he couldn't play raccoon anymore, he would swim every day, go to the sauna.

He got way more active in the Scottish Rite and in the Masons coach peewee baseball when, when Jeremy played and he did singing events, I think he enjoyed his retirement, him and Gladys and man, she was a warrior, because she, she had cancer, fought it.

They said it was gone.

Came back.

She went through everything again, and it came back.

And then she tried one more time, and it came back.

And, you know, she's like, 8283 years old.

She was just like, that's it.

I'm not doing anymore.

You know, I just want to be with you guys and live the rest of you know, my life out.

And they had to take her to hospice.

And she actually passed the very afternoon that she arrived at hospice.

Yeah, mom's passing.

It affected all of us badly, you know, kind of, it kind of derailed the family.

And, yeah, that was that took a big toll on on dad.

He He spent the next four years basically saying, you know that he was just ready to go be with glad I want to be with my my wife, you know, and my nephew lived there with him, the one from that they raised.

And I was out there all the time.

And my sister was my other sister, too.

So we kept him as as busy as we could.

But when you've got work and other things, you can't be there 24 hours.

He had a really massive stroke, and I think if he hadn't been in such great health, it would have it would have taken him right then.

So he had to be put into a facility.

I did get to go visit him a couple times, I don't want to say nursing home, but it was one of the rehab type places that he'd spent some time in, as well, just to see him and bring a smile to his face when I got to go see him at that place, the Ashland winter wonderland of Lights Parade is A spectacular event, and every year they honor someone who has done something above and beyond to be their grand marshal.

And they wanted to honor jewel Huffman as the Grand Marshal.

And we tried desperately to be able to make jewel make that appearance, and he was just too far along.

He just physically couldn't do it.

And that really was the first time we realized, wow, we're not gonna have jewel around forever.

That's probably why we why it's still such a big part of ws AZ lore, the Ashland Christmas parade is because of what it meant for him.

I personally slowly watched his decline because he only lived four months longer when he was in the facility, he just stopped eating, and that was just a matter of, like, less than a month, and he just kind of, you know, went it was sad for how, you know, how much he attacked his life.

You know, that was just sort of like, you know how that sound when you put a two wet fingers on a fuse.

That's kind of how it ended.

So I heard right away when jewel had passed and one of his beepers, his most recent beeper, Dave Kinder has always been in touch with me, so I heard pretty quickly Dave Kinder came to me and he's like, What do you think about me coming in as beeper?

Did you think it's tacky or what?

And I think, I think it's great.

I had to, I had to have Bieber say goodbye to him then.

So he put on the beeper suit, and we just locked arms and walked down to the casket when Bieber came.

That was so touching at his death.

Bieber.

Was there.

So when beeper walked down to be the last person before they closed the casket and then jewels, whole family standing, of course, Marvin was walking with me.

I couldn't see a thing inside that suit.

I couldn't get tissues up there to wipe the blurriness from my eyes, either.

But Marvin walked me down.

I got to see jewel Bieber was the last one to visit with him before they closed the casket, and Bieber said his goodbyes to Mr.

Cartoon, and then went over to each member of the family and gave him a hug.

That was one of the second most cheerful moments I've had in my life.

I just couldn't I knew it was going to happen.

I just couldn't believe it had happened.

Joel Huffman was a very interesting person with all of his work that he did with his church the community, he was pretty much a people's person.

He always looked to help the kids and help anybody in need.

I never saw him with anything but a smile on his face.

So for me, that makes me grateful that I got to have that connection with him and that he touched my life in a small way.

I think everybody who was a part of the life of ws AZ in the Huntington area and this entire region in the 60s and 70s remembers jewel and Mrs.

Jewel and Mrs. Local programming, I mean, you got to see kids from your community on these on the air, waving at the camera, telling them to roll them for the cartoons, saying please and thank you, and doing stuff like that.

It was kind of kept a community together, and jewel was a part of that.

Somebody will mention Mr.

Cartoon in passing, and I'll be proud to say I knew Mr.

Cartoon really well.

You know, I was friends with Joel Huffman.

He was a second father to me.

He's very deeply missed, very deeply missed.

He was a larger than life figure that didn't really ever know it or show it.

But I miss him, that's for sure.

I I remember the magic word, please.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Excuse me, and I'm sorry.

Everybody, don't forget also to your grown ups, you say yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am.

Everybody wave like men and say bye cartooners.

And I really did love my time when I was working at ws AZ, but I want you all to know out there, all the children that I had come on the show with me.

I loved you most of all.

You made my life something special.

God bless you All.

Thank You.

You This is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

I.