All I ever learned from children's television
When and where I grew up there was a locally produced Sunday morning kid's show called Freddie Fudd Reads the Funnies. The show consisted of the main character, Freddie Fudd, a strange middle-aged paperboy (shorts, suspenders, striped t-shirt, and Jughead hat), who after wobbling embarrassingly around the neighborhood on his bicycle, would climb into his tree house, which, strangely enough, seemed to contain a television studio, with his last paper and read the Sunday comics to the viewers. This is probably the exact opposite of educational, unless the subject is copyright infringement. But there wasn't generally a large concern with educational television in those days.
In the time-honored tradition of all children's television everywhere, Freddie had a puppet sidekick. In his case it was Pete the Pelican. I have no idea why a pelican. It doesn't really tie into the paperboy theme, and they aren't exactly indigenous to the Great Plains.
This was also back in the days when the sponsor directly impinged n the content of the shows they advertised on. So, Mr. Fudd and his erstwhile waterfowl companion would blatantly plug the local fast-food chain that paid their salaries during the show.
Freddie would explain that the pelican had a great deal of difficultly holding his cup while drinking. But that didn't have to be a problem because the restaurant was an innovator in the area of providing covers for drinks to avoid the problem of spills. He would advise the children watching to follow his example when visiting the establishment and tells the servers, "For Pete's sake, put a lid on it."
I truly wish I was making this up.
