The Candy Apple News Company

The Candy Apple News Company was a locally produced children's television series that premiered on Friday, February 2nd 1979 at 8:00pm[1] 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.[2] It was rerun early on weekend mornings for many years until the final regular airing on September 7th 1991.[3] Between 2006-2011 WCAU occasionally ran a show called Out of the Vault[4] that featured Candy Apple News Company,[5] 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.[6][7], 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.[8] 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.[9] They were built by George Neff, chairman of the art department at Glassboro State College in New Jersey.[10]