The Wallace and Ladmo Show!
On Saturday we went down to the
Mesa Historical Museum where they have
display of the Wallace and Ladmo show.
Bill Thompson was there signing autographs
and it was so fun to bring back all
those childhood memories.
If you grew up in Arizona between the years 1954 and 1989, these words are familiar. Our pal Wallace, also known as Wallboy, greeted us every morning or afternoon (depending on their time slot) during the week and the fun began.
The Wallace & Ladmo Show is truly an Arizona icon. The show had a remarkable 35 ½ year run on local television station KPHO-TV5 in Phoenix. It was eventually seen all over Arizona, northern Mexico and towns in California that were near the Arizona border. The show was even briefly syndicated to Los Angeles and New York.
Apart from their television appearances, the trio that made up the show (Bill “Wallace” Thompson, Ladimir “Ladmo” Kwiatkowski and Pat McMahon) also made thousands of personal appearances all over the state. Their sports team, the Ladmo Jets, raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities.
Wallace & Ladmo provided a daily dose of classic cartoons and live skits that lampooned local and national news, politics and life in general. Regular characters such as Marshall Good, Captain Super, Gerald, Aunt Maud and Boffo the Clown provided humor that the adults could relate to while the kids in the audience waited for the next cartoon.
Wallace & Ladmo will always have a cherished place in the hearts of thousands of lucky people who were touched by their humor and overall fun outlook on life!! To the fan and non-fan alike,we hope you enjoy this tribute to a very funny show put on by some very, very talented men and women.You will see excerpts of interviews with those who created the nonsense for all those years, as well as the fans who enjoyed it. So have fun as you peruse WallaceWatchers.com.
The Ladmo Bag
The Ladmo Bag Phenomena began when Wallace & Ladmo were discussing how to give away prizes quickly.
All too often a child would be chosen to win a prize and... on live TV... The lucky recipient would freeze.
They couldn't pick a prize. They were all great prizes. Many times a child would regret what they chose and ask if they could pick something different.
Ladmo struck up a brilliant idea!
Why not pack a bunch of goodies in a bag?
Ladmo's brilliant idea gave way for the Ladmo bag. An Arizonan child's sugar induced Nirvana!!!
A Ladmo Bag is always filled with 10 items and a picture of "The Gang."
There were lots of ways to win a Ladmo Bag. You could send in a post card in hopes that your name will be drawn from the barrel. You could send in pictures, jokes, and stories. Or you could simply be lucky enough to be sitting in the lucky seat that Wallace designated on his seating chart. No one knew who the winner was until Ladmo made his way over with the bag!
The winner of the bag was instantly famous! The luckiest day of your life was broadcasted on TV for all your friends, family, neighbors, and everyone else in AZ to see!!! Everyone wanted to know what was in the Ladmo bag, everyone wanted to hold it and see it. It was the envy of everyone... young and old! The Ladmo bag continues to be as treasured as the famous Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket.
When Lonnie was a kid, The Wallace and Ladmo Show came to Holbrook
for the Grand Opening of the Whipples store. Lonnie won a Ladmo Bag!
The Final Wallace & Ladmo Show 
The Wallace and Ladmo Show ended its remarkable 35 ½ year run in December 1989. It still holds the record for the longest-running daily television show (with the original cast) in US history. A fan recalls:
I remember exactly where I was when I heard the program was going off the air. I, at the time, was an attorney in private practice. I can remember being in the car at Guadalupe and Gilbert Road in Gilbert, Arizona when I heard on KTAR Radio that Wallace and Ladmo was going to go off the air in December of 1989. That shows you how important these guys were to all of us.
The Death of Ladmo
The State of Arizona was stunned when it heard of the death of Ladimir Kwiatkowski on March 2nd, 1994 after a brief illness.
4 comments:
OH MY STARS!!!!!! I ♥ ♥ ♥'d Wallace and Ladmo!!!!! They seriously were part of everyday for me...when Ladmo died...I made huge Ladmo bags for all my children and their friends...I loved them! Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
You just brought back a flood of memories to me! Wallace and Ladmo was a huge part of my childhood. Simply saying "Wallace and Ladmo" makes me suddenly hope I'm sitting in the right chair so I can get the Ladmo Bag!!!
Merry Christmas. Lisa -- for some reason I have lost your address. Can you email it to me so I can send you a belated Christmas card? jenbrimhall@gmail.com
Wow...thanks for that blast from the past!! I remember watching Wallace & Ladmo up until I was 9 and we moved to Utah. I had no idea they had been on TV for so long.
I remember Sam and I being sooooo excited to see them at the AZ State Fair. I hadn't thought about them for decades!!
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