Local Legends present

April 1966 found the husband and wife team of Jack and Phyllis Spear starting their successful children's program, which aired on KCOP, channel 13. During the first year of their show, they received over one hundred thousand letters from their viewers.

Both the Spear's were originally from Newark, New Jersey, where Jack studied music composition at the Newark Conservatory. Phyllis studied music at Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, New Jersey. They married in 1952. Prior to their move to California, Jack and Phyllis created, wrote and performed in another successful children's show called "Pip The Piper", that ran on both the ABC and NBC networks from 1960 to 1962 with Jack as Pip and Phyllis as Miss Merry Note.

Beyond creating, producing, writing and performing the Jack and Phyllis Show, they also wrote and composed all their own music and lyrics for the show and later a Jack and Phyllis Show record. Both were members of ASCAP and had at the time, collaborated on seventy five songs written just for kids. Many of their inspirations at the time came from their own three children. They felt that there was a certain importance to playing to children at their own level. That music in particular was a way of reaching them and giving them a better understanding of life around them. They felt strongly that music is a universal language and that children would love to participate in the rhythm of music by clapping their hands and snapping their fingers.

Along the way, kids got to sing with such Jack and Phyllis creations as:

Magic Keenie, Mrs. Finch, Little Seymour and Annie of the Ozarks.

Jack and Phyllis made their home in the San Fernando Valley. Jack Spear Productions resided in Hollywood, California. The TV Show from 1984, "Weekday Heroes", which covered three local kid's show hosts was also worked on by Jack Spear.
Anyone having any more information to update on Jack and Phyllis please email...!

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