The show debuted locally on March 1, 1951, and appears to have had its last telecast on August 13, 1955 (by which time WDTV had been purchased by Westinghouse and become KDKA-TV). It was carried by the DuMont network from September 6, 1952, until May 16, 1953, with 30 minutes on the network and an additional 30 minutes broadcast to the local Pittsburgh market. It also appears to have aired on WQED in Pittsburgh in 1959. Happy was a dogpuppet which interacted with host Ida Mae Maher (died July 3, 1969).[2][3]
Ida Mae Maher also made public-service appearances at elementary school classrooms in the Pittsburgh area. She used a puppet named, "Happy Tooth", to encourage young children to practice good dental hygiene.
No episodes were believed to have survived. In 2015, however, Clarke Ingram, creator of the DuMont historical website, announced he had located a partial show.[4] This fragment, which aired on February 5, 1955 (just six days after WDTV changed to KDKA-TV), is the only known existing footage of the program. In 2019, this footage was digitized and uploaded to YouTube. [1] The original film now resides at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.
