CHICAGO — Of the many classic children’s shows on WGN-TV from back in the day, few were as long-running as “Romper Room” — preschoolers’ daily offering that ran from 1954 to 1960 (at WGN-TV’s Michigan ...

Jean Durkee was a schoolteacher, and happily so, in the late 1950s when her mother saw a newspaper advertisement for a host of a children’s TV show and suggested she apply. “You’ve got to be kidding ...