Sandy Becker

George Sanford Becker (February 19, 1922 – April 9, 1996), who was known professionally as Sandy Becker, was an American television announcer, actor, and comedian who hosted several popular children's programs in New York City. The best known of these was The Sandy Becker Show, which ran from 1955 to 1968 on WABD-TV and WNEW-TV, channel 5. Radio actor and announcer Sandy Becker was born and raised in New York City. He held local radio announcing jobs before first reaching public attention in 1947 on radio as the title character of the series Young Doctor Malone. Originally a pre-med student at New York University in the 1930s, Becker played the character on the radio for a decade, after having been the show's announcer. Becker was invited to take the role to television in 1958, but declined, in order to pursue his own television projects. Children's TV host After Dr. Malone, Becker started working for WABD (later WNEW) TV channel 5 in New York City and began hosting a program featuring Bugs Bunny cartoons, The Looney Tunes Show, on weeknights from 1955 to 1958. A second Friday night program called Bugs Bunny Theater ran from 1956 to 1957. Becker also did also announcing, such as for Wildroot Cream-Oil ads in the television series The Adventures of Robin Hood. He also did radio spots for Crisco. In the middle of those activities, Becker found his true calling, spun off in large part from his knack for entertaining his own three children, with his vocal and comic versatility and mimicry. This led him to his morning show, beginning in 1955. He soon added a noontime program, Sandy Becker's Funhouse, briefly in 1955. He also hosted the first year of the syndicated children's Sunday TV show Wonderama, from its six-hour premiere in September 1955, until 1956.