Skipper Tom Hattan

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Los Angeles children may remember Skipper Tom Hatten, who hosted the Popeye Show on KTLA 5. Tom Hatten, a performer on television and Broadway, would have children on the show and entertained them by showing Popeye cartoons (mostly from Max Fleischer and Associated Artists Productions), reading trivia and mail, and performing cartoon sketches. One of the contests was a squiggle contest. Children would send in a squiggle (a one-line drawing) and Tom would draw a cartoon character from that squiggle. This show recorded from 1956 to 1964 and aired throughout the 1970s.

Tom was born on November 14, 1927. His acting credits on stage include Annie (he was "President Franklin Delano Roosevelt"). He also portrayed a corrupt military officer in the movie Spies Like Us, and spent many years hosting KTLA's Family Film Festival...which, for some time, used the Little River Band's hit song Reminiscing as its theme music (without the lyrics, since copyright laws were relatively meager during the 1970s).