Josie Carey was there on Day 1. The host of WQED's long-running "Children's Corner" recalled the station's current president, George Miles, referring to her as "WQED's first star," and it's a fitting moniker.

Darrell Sapp, Post-Gazette
"Children's Corner" host Josie Carey earned the Sylvania Award for outstanding local children's program in the United States in 1955, less than a year after WQED went on the air.
Click photo for larger image.

Carey actually began working at the station in October 1953, six months before it began broadcasting.

"I did everything that had to be done, as we all did," Carey recalled, praising the guiding vision of the station's first general manager, Dorothy Daniel. "If it hadn't been for her, there would not have been a WQED."

Though Daniel may not be long-remembered by Pittsburghers, her name was immortalized for millions of children as that of Fred Rogers' puppet, Daniel Striped Tiger. Rogers worked, mostly behind the scenes, with Carey on "Children's Corner" for seven years and brought Daniel with him when he later created "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

Even before WQED went on the air, Carey remembered going door-to-door soliciting $2 at each stop. In exchange, donors received a program guide for the nascent station, which went on air with educational programs featuring such topics as remedial reading, history, painting and how to write in shorthand.

On "The Children's Corner," Carey taught French and, later, station management suggested that she and Rogers run a film teaching German.

"It broke every time," Carey said. "I learned 100 ways to introduce it until they gave me the signal it was going to work."

Because everything was live, improvisation was key.

"Somebody who was supposed to do 10 minutes would do eight, and so Daniel and I would talk to each other [to fill the remaining time]. The puppets grew that way. They became personalities because of these conversations. Everything was live. You couldn't go to anything else. You had to just stand there and smile."

She remembers one dress she wore with a detachable collar. The more chaotic the broadcast and the more excited Carey got, the more the collar would move. It became known as "the traveling collar."

"Kids would write in and say, 'I hope you wear it again,' " she said, noting that her mother made all her dresses.

"We were sure we were doing something important," Carey said of the start-up station. "We enjoyed every minute of it. I was secretary to the station manager; Fred was going to be program developer. Between us we had about 87 programs we were trying to get Mrs. Daniel to consider, but the only one she wanted us to do was 'The Children's Corner.' "

Guests on "Children's Corner" included Johnny Carson, before he became host of NBC's "The Tonight Show," actress Shirley Jones, pianist Van Cliburn and "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles Schulz.

Carey wrote lyrics for 68 songs in the course of seven years of "Children's Corner"; Rogers wrote the music.

Post-Gazette photo
1955: Josie and the pussycat: Josie Carey, with Daniel Striped Tiger, on the set at WQED.
Click photo for larger image.

"If we had a topic that we wanted to pursue and no song we could find, we would sit down and write one," she said. "He would make me very angry because I'd labor over my lyrics and he would sit at the piano and what took me four hours, he would do in four minutes."

Their first collaboration was the "Children's Corner" theme song, "Why Hi, Don't I Know You?" "It was a fantastic partnership," Carey said of writing lyrics for Rogers to put to music. "That's where we discovered that what he lacked, I had, and what I lacked, he had."

She said Rogers learned to write music for her vocal range.

"I used to say I got by on four good notes and a smile," Carey said. "Fred used to have to write music to my voice. If he went too high or too low, I couldn't sing it, but I've pushed those four good notes a long way, I can tell you that."

On a continuing "Children's Corner" soap opera, set in an attic, Lawrence Light married Lydia Lamp (covered on the Society page of the Sun-Telegraph). "Children's Corner" celebrated the birthdays of children watching at home, who often sent in drawings that would be displayed on the program. When the number of birthday greetings grew too cumbersome, four children would be picked to come in and get dubbed princes and princesses on their birthday by King Friday, another long-running Rogers puppet.

"We used bath towels for robes and a light bulb on a stick for a scepter and we played 'Pomp and Circumstance.' They loved it," Carey said. She still meets people who tell her they were on the show and remember being crowned. She said one former viewer is a professor of French who attributes his vocation to the French lessons he watched on "The Children's Corner."

"We had a good time and we really enjoyed that hour. I think the children knew that."

"Children's Corner" aired on WQED from 1954 to 1961, and in 1955 won the Sylvania Television Award for best local children's show in the United States. The series also aired nationally on NBC for 39 weeks.

Carey, a Pittsburgh native who grew up in Butler, was born Josephine Vicari, but WQED's Daniel changed her name before she went on the air. Carey went on to host other children's programs, including "Josie's Storyland" and "Funsville" on KDKA-TV, 473 half-hours of "Whee!" for a South Carolina TV station in the early '70s and "Josie's Attic," a mid-1990s Saturday morning kids show on WQEX.

Today, she continues to perform, acting in and directing the stage comedy "Over the River and Through the Woods" this weekend and next at the Seton Center in Brookline.

Carey, 73, lives in Kennedy with her second husband, Joe Franz. She'd been a widow for seven years when they met in the church choir at St. Malachy Catholic Church. They've been married for 18 years.

After a falling-out with WQED management in the 1970s (she felt her early contributions to the station had been forgotten), Carey said she enjoys a pleasant relationship with those now in charge.

She praises PBS's children's programs, especially "Sesame Street" and the "Neighborhood." "Some of the new programming is better than [Nickelodeon cable network's] 'Rugrats.' Almost anything is better than that."

She's not fond of much of what airs on commercial TV.

"They do a lot of programs for children, but they don't relate," Carey said. "Our program was aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds, and you can't find anything wholesome for 8- to 12-year-olds. They're already watching violent news and sitcoms that are honestly unspeakable. You tune in at 7 p.m. and get 'Friends,' and 'Friends' is suggestive. We tried to get to the child who was opening windows and doors and learning. We tried to introduce ideas, and we had fun doing it."

First Published: March 28, 2004, 5:00 a.m.