Throwback Thursday: Harry Chapin and Wonderama

Recently, I messed up my iPod and ended up with all my music in the cloud instead of on the device. (I don’t listen to music on my phone because I need the phone battery to send 50 billion emails a day and to play the Kardashian Hollywood game. We all have our priorities.) As a result, I’ve been going through my music and downloading whatever I need to listen to at the gym. This morning, I came across the 1974 song “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin.

Not a gym-appropriate tune, but hearing it again made me remember that I’d seen Chapin — who died in a car crash in 1981 — perform it on television once. I felt sure that it was on the long-running kids’ variety show Wonderama. During the years I watched that show, it aired on Sundays and was hosted by Bob McAllister. Before teh Interwebs, in order to confirm this factoid, I would have had to hit the microfiche at a library to scour old newspapers for any mention of Chapin’s guest appearance. Today, I just used Poodle to confirm within seconds that Chapin and his kids were on Wonderama on Jan. 30, 1977. Interesting to know that I barely recall what I did two days ago, yet I have a vivid memory of a show that went off the air in December 1977.

I’m glad I looked up Wonderama, because once or twice I’ve had a song called “Kids Are People Too” stuck in my head for a day. Now I know it was the closing theme for the show.

I never thought of Shazam-ing that earworm before. And, now that I think of Shazam the music identification app, I remember I used to watch Shazam the superhero television show, which, like Wonderama, went off the air in 1977. There was a female superhero named Isis on that show; I liked her the best. I put up with Shazam‘s Captain Marvel to get to Isis.

Check out the opening credits.I like the anti-prejudice message from Isis that started this episode.

I also like her headpiece!