Dressed in white from glove to boots.
Zoom in, it’s the White Baron,
He can ride and fight, and fight and shoot,
But he never gets a spot
On his pretty white suit.”*
Just exactly who was this lean, clean, but never-mean White Baron, and why are people still talking about him more than 40 years after his departure from the South Florida airwaves?
First, a little background. When WCIX signed on the air in September 1967, the station pretty much started from scratch. Mixed in with endless reruns (anyone for Make Room For Daddy?) came the brainchild of Channel 6 Assistant Operations Manager George DeVries: a children’s show with an on-the-go lead character who made Mr. Clean look like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons.
“I designed him after the Red Baron, and the Tony Curtis character in the film The Great Race,” DeVries told David Rutman in the late 80s. “He dressed all in white, and his teeth sparkled!”
DeVries didn’t have to audition anyone to play the title role. He himself became The White Baron, shooting interviews with kids at various sites around South Florida… sometimes arriving in a snow white 1930s Biplane! The interviews, mixed with cartoons and sketches with typically ridiculous plot lines, somehow resonated with kids, giving the show a healthy three year run before the Baron took his final ride in his flying machine.
“There were some children who got lost in a cave,
Couldn’t find their way out, it was practically grave.
The White Baron was out riding on a milk white horse,
It stumbled and threw him with tremendous force.
Sailing through the air, he slid down the shaft
In that very same cave, oh how he.laughed.
The sparkle of his teeth, oh for over a mile.
They found their way out, just by the light of his smile.”
Today, there are few souvenirs to remind us of this part of Florida’s television history. The White Baron theme song exists on a hard-to-find 45 on the one-off Dazey label, sung and performed by the Funky Five, who I’m told were actually members of Wayne Cochran’s C.C. Riders. (There are those to this day who insist the real White Baron was Cochran himself. A fun theory, but merely apocryphal.)
George DeVries stayed at WCIX for about five years after the end of the White Baron’s run. “People still recognized me. I had good teeth,” he told Rutman. Unfortunately there are no known surviving copies of any White Baron shows. As one who was ordered to throw away our old news film, I can attest that the station was just not interested in preserving its past. Sad but true. Yet questions about the show and its host are among the most-asked about the station and its history. I see it all the time, in the search words that bring people to this site.
To many, The White Baron is a hazy, foggy memory from somewhere in the mirror of their mind. But it IS a memory, of a time when a man in a spotless white suit fought for children, and always won. A time when kids’ imaginations ran wild, and when an upstart independent station with a bad signal dared to try something different.
And he never got a spot on his pretty white suit.
Thanks to David Rutman and the Facebook group “M.T. Graves & Other 1960s Miami Kid Shows”.
* The White Baron theme song by Jerry Mann & Marcie Knight.
15 comments:
goutbobI was married to Guy Aylward the WCIX news caster from 1967.I knew George Devries well and his then wife Sandy who I appeared with in The Drunkard at the Ruth Foreman Theatre with Marcie Knight and also Guy Aylward which is where we met in 1969
I received this note from George De Vries' son. Geoff, thanks for writing!
"jeff, i came across the channel 6 say 6 web site today, i am the son of george de vries who was known as the white baron from the 60 "s . i live in illinois our family was originally from here. i moved back in 1984. from florida... my dad lives in montana and my mom lives in naples fl. i still have some of the original 45's of the white baron theme song as well as the original tv guide from the miami herald newspaper the week of the start of channel 6 and the white baron show from sept. of 1967 .... i would like to get back to florida some day i have not been there in 13+ years... wow it was great to find this web site, those were some great times they don't make good old shows any more , we have a lot in common... take care ,geoff de vries..."
I was one of the tykes on the White Baron show back in the 70's. Memories are decidedly foggy, but some instances of the day are very clear.
The aircraft used on "The White Baron" program is currently undergoing restoration near Ocala, Florida. Old and current photos of the 1933 Curtis Travel Air biplane can be seen at this address:
www.coconutflyers.com/restoration.html
All I remember is that biplane landing. Hey, I was only six!
I remember that during the credits the White Baron was sometimes shown driving a white sports car to a very modern building, jumping out of the car and then running into the lobby. Does anyone remember what building that was, and does anyone have a picture of it? Thank you for any help on this.
That building was the actual WCIX broadcasting offices, which was located at 1111 Brickell Avenue. I worked there for ten years, from 1973 to 1983. It was unique in that the building was completely round five story edifice that had a hole in the middle like a doughnut. The interior walls around the donut holel were all made of glass so people can see everyone else on all the other floors. Unfortunately, the building no longer exists.
I was on the show as a kid, does anyone have those tapes?
I thought Miami planetarium artist Eric Simonson played the white Baron at least at some point. ? ? ?
My father was stationed at Homestead Air Force Base in 1967/68. We had just returned from being stationed in Spain, where the only TV they had was talking head news at night and bullfights on weekends. No exaggeration. One channel, and it was off air most of the time (although we did get Captain Kangaroo Saturday mornings on Armed Services Radio -- but no TV). When we returned stateside, children's TV shows were an unbelievably magical thing for my little sister and me (5 and 7). The White Baron quickly became my favorite. I never missed it. Out of the blue this evening, I thought of the White Baron show. I'm 60 now. So I googled it and landed here. A funny related memory: I recall that one of the toys advertised during White Baron was something called Tricky Doodle Duck. Oh how I wanted a Tricky Doodle Duck for my birthday. Never got one, though.
Shows such as "The White Baron" weren't around for long, but they sure made an impression. Thanks for sharing your memories.
Did anyone else ever notice when the White Baron went to start his plane by hand pulling the prop, he was actually pulling it in the wrong direction?
I too was on the show as a child. I was so shy that when the White Barron approached to greet me I ran away. If memory serves the episode was taped at Floridays day camp and funny thing is the camp got the White Barron to come out at my request.
I remember watching his visits and interviews with children on TV. Once he went to interview children at Riviera Baptist kindergarten dressed in his " flight suit" One of the children in line was my little brother Billy The White Baron knelt down and asked Billy a question. My brother mumbled something incoherent, after which the Baron politely concluded the interview & moved to the next child in line. Later I asked my brother (Billy if the White Baron flew in on his white biplane. He said " No, he got out of a white van".
I was just talking to my brother and I remembered the TV show White Baron when we were in Dade County Florida but moved the later part of 1960's. We wound up searching like a lot of others to see if the song might be on You Tube. I will say we had the best cartoons and kid TV shows between 1950's-1980's
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