Sandy Becker

George Sanford Becker (February 19, 1922 – April 9, 1996), who was known professionally as Sandy Becker, was a 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 Channel 5 WABD-TV and WNEW-TV.

Sandy Becker was born and raised in New York City. He held local radio announcing jobs before first reaching public fame on radio as the title character of the series Young Doctor Malone, a role he was invited to take to television but declined in order to pursue his own television projects. Originally a pre-medical student at New York University in the 1930s, Becker played the good doctor on radio for a decade, after having been the show's announcer. Soon, he started working for Channel 5 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 television announcing, such as for Wildroot Cream-Oil ads in the television series The Adventures of Robin Hood. He did radio spots for Crisco, as well.

In the middle of those activities, Becker found his true calling, spun in large part off from his knack for entertaining his own 3 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 syndicated Wonderama television show from 1955-56.

Becker would also host a weekday afternoon and evening children's wraparound program, The Sandy Becker Show, which had him playing comedic characters, performing puppet skits, engaging his viewers in informational segments and contests, and interviewing guest performers and personalities in-between the reruns of movie and TV cartoons.

The Sandy Becker Show was seen weekday afternoons and evenings from Monday March 30, 1961, to Friday February 16, 1968. The show also ran on Saturday evenings, from March 27, 1961 to September 4, 1965.

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