Published: February 20, 2009 04:49 pm      

Here’s Hal

DVD to document popular children’s TV show host from the ’60s

INDIANAPOLIS — Steve “Papaw” Pyatte considers himself a nostalgic person. The Brownsburg filmmaker’s wistfulness really got triggered when he was a guest roaster for syndicated columnist Mike Redmond at a Muscular Dystrophy Family Foundation event.

Exiting the restroom, Pyatte spotted an older gentleman he remembered watching on TV as a child. It was Harlow Hickenlooper, host of “The Three Stooges Show” on Indianapolis’ Channel 6. Pyatte was so excited, he hugged him despite having never met the man before.

“I was like a little kid,” he said. “I didn’t know his real name at the time, so I called him Harlow. He stood up and did a little bit for me. At that moment he took me back to my childhood.”

The real Harlow

Hickenlooper is actually Indianapolis native Hal Fryar. The man who entertained central Indiana children for 12 years on WFBM/WRTV with pies in the face and general silliness is now in his early 80s and living in Franklin. He still makes personal appearances, but only for adults now. The slapstick days are essentially over.

Fryar estimates you have to be at least 42 years old to remember him as Hickenlooper. Two waitresses at the Madison Grill don’t fit that criteria, and therefore don’t remember him, during a recent breakfast. They promise to ask their parents about Hickenlooper after Fryar gives them photos of him as his alter ego.

“Don’t be disappointed after all this build-up,” he told them.

A lot of people don’t know much about Fryar’s TV career, which also included a stint as Grandpa Harlow from 1990-95 on WFYI-20. Pyatte started researching Fryar’s background after meeting him and found there was a dearth of information. First he offered to design a website for Fryar, which is at www.harlowhickenlooper.com. Then he decided to make a documentary on him.

“He did so much for me and other children when he was on television,” Pyatte said. “I just want to give something back to him and his family.”

One of the biggest coups in realizing this documentary was when Tom Barker, a former Channel 6 cameraman, gave Pyatte six hours’ worth of Hickenlooper footage. Not everything was archived in those days, so the collection proved a treasure trove. It took Pyatte a couple years just to sort through it all and determine what he wanted for the documentary.

He still didn’t know what direction he wanted to take until he interviewed Fryar in his home last year. There have been documentaries made on Hickenlooper before, but not Fryar.

“I wanted to interview the man behind the jacket and hat,” Pyatte said. “When I told him I was coming there, I wanted him to be Hal Fryar, not Harlow.”

Fryar is impressed someone has taken such an interest in him after all these years.

“It’s fantastic,” he said. “I can’t believe he’s given so many hours of his time to do this.”

But the man who was a 2008 Indiana Broadcast Hall of Fame inductee has never been entirely forgotten.

“I’ve gotten enough e-mails that I’m finally beginning to believe (my impact),” Fryar said. “The interesting thing is they come from all over the country.”

One service Fryar offers for free is calling grown-up fans and singing “Happy Birthday” to them on their special day. He recently did this for a guy from Arlington, Texas. When Fryar mentioned he had been in Dallas the year before for his grandson’s wedding, the man told him to visit next time he’s down and he’ll fix him the biggest steak.

The entertainer

Fryar knew as early as the third grade that he wanted to be an entertainer. At breakfast he struggles to open a packet of creamer.

“You might note I have no mechanical skills whatsoever,” Fryar said.

This despite the fact he attended Arsenal Technical High School, which was big on vocational skills then. He barely passed his classes, but excelled in the arts including choir and theater. His first time on stage, Fryar played a Native American in a Thanksgiving program. He was literally wearing a burlap potato sack for pants. He was already nervous. That and the hot stage lights started making him sweat, then itch.

“I scratched in inappropriate places, and the audience would laugh,” Fryar said of his debut. “That laughing swelled over me. I thought ‘gee, that’s really neat. Is that all it takes to make people laugh?’ As simple and ordinary as that sounds, I think that was my introduction to being a ham.”

After school Fryar began working as a stand-up comic, though they weren’t known as such in the 1940s. There were few nightclubs in the city then, so he performed in civic posts like the Elks, Eagles, and American Legion. Many famous entertainers passed through Indianapolis on their way to bigger cities like Chicago in those days, and Fryar got to know them.

He found out about a Catskills resort that was a training ground for many of these comics. Fryar was on his way there when he stopped in Sandusky, Ohio, for a swim. Someone stole his wallet, thus ending his journey. Fryar returned to Indianapolis broke.

He did like Sandusky, though, and sent his resume to a 250-watt radio station there. Fryar ended up spending a year on the air.

“If you could pick any small station in the country that was professional, they could’ve won the prize,” he said. “It was a really wonderful place.”

In 1953 Fryar learned an NBC-TV affiliate was signing on in Youngstown, Ohio, so he went there and got a job as an announcer. He admits his peers had better voices than him, “But they were radio people. You take the copy away from them and they were dead in the water.”

Fryar’s ad-libbing savvy was still sharp from his days on stage, which led to him getting more assignments than his colleagues. Before the Federal Communications Commission banned newspapers from owning local TV stations, the Youngstown Vindicator controlled the channel Fryar worked for.

“We got all kinds of publicity,” he said. “Everything we did, our picture was in the paper. It was very easy to become a known quantity.”

To complete Fryar’s destiny, affiliates in those days had to originate more of their own programming than they do today. Fryar covered community-related news on his own show, “Hal’s A Poppin’,” for a few years with virtually no budget.

“It was very demanding,” he said. “You had to come up with all kinds of ideas.”

The Hickenlooper years

Even with his six years of television experience in Youngstown, when Fryar returned to Indianapolis to work for Channel 6, they put him on the radio. At the time Hoosier Hank was host of “The Three Stooges Show.” Fryar would fill in as his nephew when Hank was on vacation. Producers dictated that Fryar use a moniker that started with two H’s like his predecessor. There was a Sen. Hickenlooper from Iowa then. Fryar liked that name, but not in combination with his. A producer came up with Harlow.

Hoosier Hank was nearing retirement when Hickenlooper joined the cast. That, combined with Hickenlooper’s spoony verve, quickly endeared him to the young audience. All told, Fryar was on Channel 6 from 1960-72, also hosting the shows “Fun Time” and “All Hands on Deck” with co-stars like the buckskin-vested Curley Myers (who turns 88 this year). In 1965 Fryar appeared in The Three Stooges movie “The Outlaws is Coming,” drawing the ire of many area English teachers.

The Hickenlooper persona proved so popular that Fryar was typecast, and had to go to other cities for different acting opportunities. But though he only entertains for adults now, he always preferred his adolescent audience.

“They were always so sweet and honest,” Fryar said of the younger fans.

He embraces those who never forgot Harlow Hickenlooper.

“If not for the good ratings they gave me, I wouldn’t have lasted,” Fryar said.

Pyatte hopes his documentary ensures Hickenlooper will live on. While he’s absorbing all the costs of producing it, he is seeking monetary donations from fans to help defray the expense of DVD duplication. In exchange they’ll get their names listed in the credits. Pyatte expects the documentary to be finished in the next few months. It will be available through the Hickenlooper website.

“I’ve been very privileged not only as a child to have experienced Harlow Hickenlooper, but as an adult experiencing Harlow Hickenlooper all over again and then get to know the man Hal Fryar,” Pyatte said. “It’s been an amazing ride.”

wade.coggeshall@flyergroup.com