In 1996, the Montana Broadcasting Society honored Taschioglou as a “Female Television Pioneer.” She was grateful they remembered her work on the show some 32 years earlier. Her unhinged action was taken very seriously and luckily the children on the set were none the wiser.” It was later revealed that the caller had also auditioned for the role of Miss Nancy. Miss Nancy never left the children on that show and although she was concerned the show went on as scheduled. While the music and games continued the fire engines were racing to her house only to find no flames or smoke anywhere. “Immediately a floor director held up a sign asking if anyone had the current location of her two kids. “One morning in the middle of a live broadcast the station received a phone call and a woman stated that Miss Nancy’s home was on fire,” Peters wrote in the email. Jean Taschioglou of Vacaville looks at a clipping from 1962 in the Malstrom Air Force Base newspaper about her career as a host on the Romper Room television program.(Joel Rosenbaum / The Reporter) He also recalled a particularly harrowing, prank-gone-wrong experience. I personally loved it because so many of my peers at school wanted to hear their names said on TV.” Son Byron, who, at one point, also appeared on the show, recalled in an email that all the children “loved this fantasy way of closing the show. Magic Mirror, tell me today, did all my friends have fun at play?” Amen.”Ĭlips from YouTube show that, toward the end of each broadcast, each hostess would hold up the “Magic Mirror” and recite the rhyme, “Romper, bomper, stomper boo. The hostess also would serve milk and cookies to the children, but, before eating, they would recite the “Romper Room” prayer: “God is great, God is good. Don’t Bee (mean) (selfish) …” admonitions to show the kids what they should not do. Do-Bee, an oversized bumblebee who came to teach good behavior, with his “Do-bee (kind) (friendly) …,” suggestions.
“Every couple of weeks, they sent lesson plans,” she recalled. Like other hostesses in other regions, Taschioglou and the children - usually four, she said - would then set out for the next 45 minutes or so playing games, doing exercises, singing songs, telling stories, and learning moral lessons, all of which were generally accompanied by background music. (Contributed photo - Byron Peters)Įach “Romper Room” was formatted to open with a greeting from the hostess and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Romper room magic mirror tv#
In a photo taken in the early 1960s, Jean Taschioglou of Vacaville demonstrates simple exercises to children during an episode of the children’s TV program “Romper Room” at the KFBB-TV station in Great Falls, Montana. She was quickly hired at KFBB-TV, where she was a “Miss Nancy” on that regional broadcast of the children’s educational program. Standing in her Buckeye Street home, neatly dressed, her light hair coiffed in tight curls, her eyes lively and attentive, Taschioglou, a graduate of Boston University, said, “I’ve always been a teacher.”īy son Byron Peters’ account, she was “well-liked and loved by the children,” but the needs of the Air Force forced the family to move to Great Falls. In a photo taken in the early 1960s, Jean Taschioglou of Vacaville teaches two children during an episode of the children’s TV program “Romper Room” at the KFBB-TV station in Great Falls, Montana. Like most preschool or elementary school teachers, she brought joy, a love of learning, kindling wonder, and imagination in the lives of her students, some of them in Vacaville in later years.īut to thousands more on television in the 1950s and ’60s, in the era of black-and-white TV sets, Jean Taschioglou of Vacaville was a “Miss Jean” in a regional broadcast of “Romper Room,” in Bangor, Maine, and, later “Miss Nancy” in Great Falls, Montana, leaving the children’s show in 1964 when her Air Force officer husband, Byron, was transferred to Travis Air Force Base.ĭuring an interview last week, Taschioglou, who turns 90 on Thursday, looked back on her brief TV career teaching math, spelling, and etiquette - and arguably a kinder citizenry and shared future - to a handful of preschoolers in TV studios and to an unseen audience of many thousands, no doubt also transfixed when she held up the frame of a hand mirror, a show tradition, the “Magic Mirror,” and called out the selected first names of young viewers she could “see” in their homes.
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