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"Winky Dink and You": Hosted by Jack Barry (later implicated in fixing the quiz show "Twenty-One"), this is TV's first interactive kids show. Viewers could purchase - for 50 cents! - a kit with a "magic window" (a clear plastic sheet that you put over the TV screen), "magic crayons" and an erasing cloth, and then could draw on the magic window according to Barry's instructions. Winky himself is a static, barely animated cartoon character with a Brooklyn accent, voiced by Mae Questel (of Olive Oyl and Betty Boop fame). The show is primitive, but it deserves credit for getting little couch potatoes off the couch - sort of.

"The Cisco Kid": In the largely segregated world of `50s kids TV, this Western about two Mexican adventurers who go after assorted villains in the old Southwest represents a genuine breakthrough. The series stars Spanish actor Duncan Renaldo as the handsome and dashing Cisco Kid and Leo Carrillo, a Los Angeles-born descendant of early Californios, as his comic-relief sidekick Pancho. Some may object to Pancho's fractured English and mock cowardice (though he's always brave when the chips are down), but it's great to see two Latino heroes outsmarting and outfighting the bad guys.

"Sky King": Kirby Grant stars as Arizona rancher Schuyler "Sky" King who flies around the great expanse in his plane, Songbird, aiding the local sheriff by chasing after those who deserve to be chased. But watching someone fly a plane is about as exciting as watching a writer type.

"The Pinky Lee Show": A former burlesque comedian and variety show host, Pinky Lee became the host of a kids variety show in 1954, kept it clean and gave it a faster pace than anything kids had seen before on TV. A clear influence on Pee Wee Herman, Lee wears a plaid suit and a floppy checkered hat as he sings, tap dances, mugs for the camera, lisps, kibitzes with the live audience, acts in silly skits, gives a puppy to a kid, hands out "Pinky Pops" to the crowd and gets audience members to sing and dance with him - all in a 28-minute show.

But right in the middle of the episode included in "Hiya, Kids!!," a marionette show begins, featuring a cringe-worthy dancing puppet in blackface. (Blackface was a popular form of entertainment in the 19th and early 20th centuries, which we now view as offensive, in which white performers - and sometimes blacks, as well - painted their faces with black cork and performed the songs and dances of African Americans.)

Full disclosure: Pinky Lee was married to my second cousin, Bebe Dancis. I met him once, back in the '50s when I was 5 years old and my parents took me to one of his shows. Or so I was told, as I can barely remember it.

But I was always proud of being related to Pinky Lee, no matter how distant that relationship was, and it remains pleasing to see him demonstrating genuine talent in his show. Yet after watching the casual, unthinking display of racism that was also a part of his show, I won't be able to view cousin Pinky in the same way again.

It seems that Thomas Wolfe was right - you really don't want to go home again.

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