Penny & Her Pals

Puppetry was popular on some kid shows in the early baby-boomer years. It was a cheap programming idea if the station could lasso a fairly decent ventriloquist. Other puppets on Seattle-Tacoma television: Crazy Donkey, Sturdley the Bookworm, and most of the characters on the Wunda Wunda show. The cartoons on Channel 13 were forgettable, but most boomers remember Penny & Her Pals. Lamoyne Hreha, daughter of a Tacoma restaurateur, Anton Barcott, learned to throw her voice while still in high school and acted as the assistant in the magic act of her future husband, John Hreha, a well-known professional magician and mentalist. She created the Penny TV character with Hreha’s help in the late 1950s.