Finally, it’s Fun Time for Miss Marcia

Marcia Kling retired from WTVC on May 30, 2013. I am honored to share my love for “Miss Marcia” with you.

Our relationship began, unbeknownst to her, when I was a wee lad. I hadn’t even started first grade. You see, in ancient times, we didn’t have Head Start, we didn’t have pre-K, and in rural Alabama we didn’t have kindergarten. If you were lucky (as was I), you had parents or older siblings who would teach you the basics before you started school. Still, they couldn’t cover everything. So it fell to Miss Marcia to show me how to tie my shoes, mind my manners and tell time. Oh yes, tell time. Clocks were foreign to me until I figured out that when the big hand was on the 12, and the little hand was on the 9, that was 9 o’clock: Funtime!

Miss Marcia’s morning kiddie show featured games and songs with actual children in the studio (lucky them!). She would often talk about her own son, John David (even luckier!). The highlight of each day was when she sang her own “Happy Birthday” song. As Chattanooga area baby boomers know, this wasn’t the traditional birthday song. It was unique to Miss Marcia, and featured high notes most humans can’t hope to reach. It doesn’t keep us from trying, but we learned quickly that Miss Marcia was often imitated but never duplicated.

A New York native, she came to Maryville, Tennessee for her education in the late 1950s, moving to Chattanooga a few years later taking a job at a church, then as a school teacher. In 1962, the original host of WTVC’s “Romper Room” left the show, and Marcia was recruited to try out. She was an immediate hit, and a year later the show was renamed “Funtime,” enduring for fifteen years.

If this sounds like a fairy tale, just know that there were some rough spots along the way. In the early 1970s, Miss Marcia was diagnosed with oral cancer. Her absence was noticeable to her young audience. WTVC knew she was irreplaceable. Rather than try to come up with an interim host, the station ran nonstop cartoons on the show during her illness. Entertaining, yes. Educational, no. Fortunately, she was back at the piano several months later, good as new.

What few people knew at the time was, this was no ordinary illness, the kind where you just need a few months of rest and recuperation. Miss Marcia had to learn to speak again, from word one. This extraordinary hostess, teacher and entertainer, who had spoken so clearly and sang so beautifully, would have to work hard to return to this most visible job. Obviously, she overcame this huge obstacle and soon resumed life as our eloquent Miss Marcia.

She remained at WTVC after the children’s show ended, and has continued to produce and host shows for slightly older kids (“Nifty Nine”) and in recent years, older adults (“Lifewatch” and appearances on Don Welch’s “This n That” midday program). On May 30, she’s hanging up the microphone one final time.

Not without some remembrances, though. I finally got to meet my childhood sweetheart when I was all grown up. One day at the mall, I was doing the dad thing with Chris and Vince, who were about 5 and 2 at the time. I saw Miss Marcia, and said, “Guys, you’ve got to meet this lady! I grew up watching her on TV!” She gave me a hug, and I introduced the boys to her. She made the appropriate fuss over them. I didn’t see her in person again until about five years later, and this time I was by myself. “Hi Marcia,” I said. “Well, hello David, how are you?” she responded. “And how are those fine boys of yours, Chris and Vince?” As I’ve told and retold that story over the years, I’ve learned, that my experience was not uncommon. She remembers names like no one else. You can call it a gift, I call it being thoughtful and caring.

Two years ago, when my book was published, I wanted to attract a crowd at my first book signing at Northgate Mall. I figured I’d have a better chance of reaching that goal if I asked the two most famous people in the book to accompany me. Radio legend Luther Masingill quickly accepted the invitation, and Miss Marcia graciously did the same. (I wanted to call the event “Two and a Half Celebrities,” but somebody nixed that idea.) Mission accomplished: Chattanooga’s two most famous residents drew quite the crowd.

I often show people this photo of us prior to the book signing, fresh-faced, enthusiastic and smiling. Then I show them the next one, four hours and a few hundred nonstop autographs later:

Sure, it’s staged, but Luther and Marcia are great sports and it’s good for some laughs. And as Luther would have told you, it wasn’t too far from reality.

I’m thrilled that Miss Marcia stepped away from the daily grind in good health, and is continuing her impressive record of helping every charity that comes her way. I don’t have many regrets about my own career, but here’s one of them: I never got to work with her on a daily basis. Unlike my friends Bill Race, Darrell Patterson and Bob Johnson, I didn’t get that daily dose of Miss Marcia sunshine in person. I should point out however, that when I was little, I thought she could see me through the TV camera. I later told her that, and she laughed and said, “Oh yes, I could see you.” She was joking. I hope.

A final thought: for some odd reason in Tennessee, with its various Halls of Fame, no one has established a Broadcasting Hall of Fame. We finally have a Radio Hall of Fame, but there isn’t one that recognizes TV folks. We need to make that happen. When we do, this all-time great TV teacher, who has worked fifty-one years at the same TV station should be among the first honorees.