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Sam and Friends BookOne thing that's been intriguing me as of late is how exactly fan mail worked in the past.
In the days before the internet, where we could easily obtain addressed to which we could contact our favorite celebrities, performers, writers, etc while fan mail slowly became discouraged, fan mail was widely encouraged, especially in children's fare: how many Saturday morning shows back in the day had characters interrupt the closing credits to say, "Don't forget to write, keep those cards and letters coming!"?
Jack Wild once said when he was doing H.R. Pufnstuf, he got letters from stoners all the time saying things like, "Yeah man, I know how you feel, I talk to mushrooms too, and I never get any help from these guys," and was thinking, "What? !" Meanwhile, both Sid & Marty Krofft said even though it was the youngsters who were encouraged to write in, it was the college kids who they got the most mail from.
Janice Karman tells a "sad story" about how horrible she felt back in the 80s that Alvin and Theodore were getting more fan mail and Simon hardly got any, but once they started writing more for Simon and evolving his character, his fan mail quanity increased.
Even the SSU book printed various little notes that kids sent in to the various Muppets on the show over the years.
But how was it all done back in the day? How did kids get the addresses to send their fan mail to? If kids didn't know or couldn't find the addresses, how did they know where to send their mail? Did they just write a character's name on the envelope and send it in hopes the postal workers knew where to forward it to? And what of the postal workers themselves? How odd did they find it at first to see mail addressed to fictional characters as opposed to real people? And when did the trend begin coming to a stop, when characters no longer acknowledged viewers to write in, and references to fan mail during the actual program (like Rocky and Bullwinkle used to do) disappeared?
In the days before the internet, where we could easily obtain addressed to which we could contact our favorite celebrities, performers, writers, etc while fan mail slowly became discouraged, fan mail was widely encouraged, especially in children's fare: how many Saturday morning shows back in the day had characters interrupt the closing credits to say, "Don't forget to write, keep those cards and letters coming!"?
Jack Wild once said when he was doing H.R. Pufnstuf, he got letters from stoners all the time saying things like, "Yeah man, I know how you feel, I talk to mushrooms too, and I never get any help from these guys," and was thinking, "What? !" Meanwhile, both Sid & Marty Krofft said even though it was the youngsters who were encouraged to write in, it was the college kids who they got the most mail from.
Janice Karman tells a "sad story" about how horrible she felt back in the 80s that Alvin and Theodore were getting more fan mail and Simon hardly got any, but once they started writing more for Simon and evolving his character, his fan mail quanity increased.
Even the SSU book printed various little notes that kids sent in to the various Muppets on the show over the years.
But how was it all done back in the day? How did kids get the addresses to send their fan mail to? If kids didn't know or couldn't find the addresses, how did they know where to send their mail? Did they just write a character's name on the envelope and send it in hopes the postal workers knew where to forward it to? And what of the postal workers themselves? How odd did they find it at first to see mail addressed to fictional characters as opposed to real people? And when did the trend begin coming to a stop, when characters no longer acknowledged viewers to write in, and references to fan mail during the actual program (like Rocky and Bullwinkle used to do) disappeared?
