Synopsis of Saturday Morning Show

Runaround was a game show hosted by ace ventriloquist Paul Winchell, who along with his dummy, Jerry Mahoney, provided audiences with well over 60 years of golden entertainment. Unfortunately, this game show wasn’t as successful as Winchell's other ventures.

The show featured nine contestants, all children, who would answer questions based on sketches they had just watched. The possible answers were placed in rectangles on stage, and in order to answer the question correctly, the children had to run to the rectangle they thought contained the right answer. To throw off other kids, the contestants would "run around" until Winchell clicked his clicker, signifying time had expired.

If the children answered correctly, they were given a token and allowed to proceed. If the children answered incorrectly they were banished to a penalty box of sorts until they answered a question correctly. The player who accrued the most tokens by the end of the game won prizes, including family vacations.
Winchell would stop the game in the middle of each episode to perform a routine with Jerry Mahoney and his other dummy, Knucklehead Smiff, and kids were also treated to music and film clips.

Release History

9/9/72 - 9/1/73 NBC

TV Sub Categories

live-action
variety
game shows

TV Studio

NBC

Television Cast

Host Paul Winchell
Narrator Kenny Williams

Other Saturday Morning Links