Hickory Hideout (1981)

Hickory Hideout was a television program for children which aired in Cleveland, Ohio on WKYC-TV from 1981 to 1991. It had human hosts, Cassie Wolfe and Wayne Turney, puppet squirrel characters, and a handful of other characters, such as Buzz Buzzsaw and Cecelia C. Seesaw. It addressed psychological issues that children face and was a change from the usual lineup of Saturday morning animation based cartoons. Kathryn Hahn, a Cleveland native who later appeared in the NBC series Crossing Jordan, had her first TV appearance on the show. The show also featured a young Matthew James Murphy, who went on to perform in the Broadway musical Rent. At the time of the program's production, WKYC-TV was an NBC owned-and-operated station. From 1986 until the program's conclusion in 1991 Hickory Hideout was also broadcast on other NBC-owned stations, including WNBC-TV in New York City; WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.; WMAQ-TV in Chicago; KCNC-TV in Denver; and KNBC in Los Angeles.