The Candy Apple News Company facts for kids

The Candy Apple News Company was a locally produced children's television series that premiered on Friday, February 2nd 1979 at 8:00pm on WCAU-TV Channel 10 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The premiere was rebroadcast the following Sunday at 8:00am, which remained the show's time slot for the rest of the season. It was rerun early on weekend mornings for many years until the final regular airing on September 7th 1991. Between 2006-2011 WCAU occasionally ran a show called Out of the Vault that featured Candy Apple News Company, although it's unknown how many episodes were shown.

In the show, a small human cast interacted with puppets in an old-fashioned, small-town storefront office which operated as a feature service distributing items of children's interest to television, radio and newspapers. The principal human cast member was Matt Robinson, who had previously played Gordon on Sesame Street., as the Editor-in-Chief. He was joined by his assistant C.B., played by Mary Margaret Myers, and a staff of puppets; a bat (Boris) worked as book reviewer, a mole (Morgan) was a researcher, and a cuckoo (Alistair) was the timekeeper. Other Candy Apple regulars included puppet Sparks O'Sullivan and a vintage 1930s talking radio that acted as show narrator. Each episode was an hour of skits, short educational films, and other produced pieces.

The mole, bat, and cuckoo puppets were first used a year earlier in the half-hour WCAU feature Yipe! Don't Be Afraid. They were built by George Neff, chairman of the art department at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.