A full decade before I took my Irregular shilling, the traditional pay for service to our friends Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, I found myself unexpectedly in the service of another famous duo . . . at least famous in Peoria. And they paid a lot better. This week, I had good cause to remember those days.

Passing into history, even as we speak, is the little niche in the entertainment world once known as the local afternoon kid’s cartoon show. A live costumed host provided the outer framework for a string of unrelated cartoons or short comedy films, like the Three Stooges or the Little Rascals. The closest remnant to it we have in the modern day is when Patchy the Pirate hosts a Spongebob special.

Every local market seemed to have one in the early decades of television. In Chicago, it was WGN’s Bozo the clown. WSIL in Southern Illinois had Cactus Pete. And in Peoria, it was Captain Jinks and Salty Sam. They had a live show every weekday afternoon from the fifties to the early seventies, and after a brief hiatus, returned with a pre-taped version in the late seventies and early eighties.

They had a huge market share in their afternoon time slot in those pre-cable days. Usually your choice in viewing was the Captain and Salty, an afternoon “Dialing for Dollars” movie, or reruns of Gilligan’s Island or The Brady Bunch.

And in my last days of college, with the usual college male’s love of the Three Stooges, I found myself watching Captain Jinks and Salty Sam while pondering my future.

“I wonder if they use scriptwriters?” I wondered, and proceeded to write WEEK, the local NBC affiliate, to find out. The response was positive – they didn’t use scripts, but would like to see what I could come up with. Apparently my first submissions caught somebody’s interest, as I was hired on to write two skits a week for the fall of 1979 and the spring of 1980, at a going rate of fifteen bucks a skit.

In later years, I would always think that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson would have made perfect hosts for a cartoon show, with Watson playing straight man to Holmes’s one-liners. Salty Sam was Captain Jinks’s Watson, and even though I was just getting into mainstream Sherlockian culture at exactly that point in my life, I never let that interest migrate into my Captain Jinks scripts. Bringing in the deerstalker and curved pipe for a routine would have seemed natural, and I wish I had. (Then I would have a Sherlockian TV scriptwriting credit!)

Leaving out Sherlock Holmes seems trivial enough, until one considers my last contribution to the show. During a spring planning meeting, everyone involved in the show was asked to come up with ideas and mine, sad to say, was “Captain Jinks in Outer Space.” Yes, the anticipation of The Empire Strikes Back was plainly swaying me further than the Great Detective that spring.

Why am I bringing all this up this week?

Well, Thursday from three to six, a local bar named Kelleher’s played host to a benefit in honor of our old friend Salty Sam. In prior weeks, it had been brought to the attention of local newspaper columnist Phil Luciano that for all he did in our community, the grave of George Baseleon who played Salty Sam remained unmarked. Phil got interest stirred up in making sure George got the tombstone he deserved, and the benefit got going.

Local talk-radio station WMBD broadcast its Markley and Luciano show from the fundraiser, and all sorts of people who either worked with the Captain and Salty or who were fans of the show all showed up, were interviewed, and generally had a great chance to reminisce about our good times on the S.S. Albatross.

These days when almost all of my writings seem to focus around one famous duo, it was good to step back and remember the two great guys I got the fun of working with once upon a time.

Your humble correspondent,
Brad Keefauver

P.S. Now, if you will indulge me, here’s the internet storage of

The Captain Jinks and Salty Sam skits written by Brad Keefauver, listed by air date

September 7, 1979 – “Captain Jinks’ Vacation”
Captain Jinks plans a vacation to Camp Pottawattamus in Tuskoweegee Falls, Arkansas, but eventually decides to stay aboard the Albatross for his rest.

September 18, 1979 – “The Unhappy Mermaid”
Ethel the mermaid complains about the cook throwing leftovers overboard by throwing fish with notes tied to them.

September 25, 1979 – “The Bosuns Have A Party”
Captain Jinks is tired after the bosuns kept him awake with a slumber party, which they didn’t invite him to, so he decides to have one of his own.

October 23, 1979 – “Babysitting the Lobster”
Bosun Joe has left his pet lobster Spot with Captain Jinks while he goes to the galley, after remembering what happened when Bosun Cindy showed Cookie her goldfish.

October 25, 1979 – “Cookie’s Demands”
Cookie, offered a job writing recipes for school cafeterias, threatens to leave if the following demands aren’t met: a new chef’s hat, one day off to wash his t-shirts, an annual Albatross dinner-dance to be held on his birthday. The Captain gives in so the mateys at school won’t suffer.

October 31, 1979 – “Tricks and Treats”
Captain Jinks covers Polly with a sheet, pre-empting the Polly Halloween Show until Groundhog Day. A crab nibbles the treats, Captain throws throws them out and they fall into Ethel the mermaid’s halloween sack, The Captain and Salty decide to dress up as themselves.

November 1, 1979 – “Ethel’s Crush”
The Captain gets a love note from Ethel the mermaid, and reveals the only other one to get a crush on him was his old St. Bernard, Stella. In the end, he concludes it would be fine to have another fan besides Grandma Jinks.

November 20, 1979 – “The Albatross News”
Captain Jinks begins his own news show, The Albatross Afternoon News, himself doing the news, Polly doing the weather, and Bosun Cindy on the fish report. Salty comes in to say that Bosun Cindy refused to do the fish report without a raise.

November 22, 1979 – “Thanksgiving Guests”
The bosuns impersonate an Indian tribe to try to get twice as much to each for Thanksgiving dinner, and Salty Sam tells the mateys the history of Thanksgiving.

November 27, 1979 – “Admiral Hornblower Jinks”
Admiral Hornblower Jinks, the Captain’s uncle, comes to visit, and the Captain goes into hiding. Hornblower thinks the ship is a mess and the crew is goofing off, but leaves when he gets a message that his own crew is mutinying.

November 29, 1979 – “Santa Claus Comes Aboard”
The Captain has been getting letters from a San Taclaus who wants to read his mail on TV and can’t figure out  who it is. It turns out to be Santa Claus, who will regularly read letters until Christmas.

December 6, 1979 – “The Blue Sailboat”
Salty Sam wonders who is on the blue sailboat that keeps following them. The Captain tells him it is their oldest fan, Hiram P. Guppygrease.

December 11, 1979 – “Jinks, the Wanted Man”
The Coast Guard pulls up and Captain Jinks thinks they’re wanting a donation to the Christmas fund. But when they demand that “Scarface Jinks” come off the ship, the Captain wonders if his parking tickets have caught up to him. The whole thing turns out to be a case of mistaken identity.

December 13, 1979 – “The Christmas Songbird”
Polly sings “Here Comes Santa Claus” for the kids, being an experienced singer from the Vienna Birds Choir. The Captain and Salty wind up going below to listen to Cookie’s Christmas records instead.

December 18, 1979 – “Christmas Shopping”
The Captain makes out a list for Grandma Jinks, including a custom ping-pong ball, a pirate alarm, and a book of answers to the joke barrel. The Captain is going to give her a Captain Jinks apron that he got at 90% off.

December 20, 1979 – “Christmas Presents”
Captain Jinks loses Salty’s present while pulling it aboard. He asks Polly for help, but is refused. Salty finally comes in, saying that one of the bosuns dropped his present for the captain overboard as well and they decide that good company is the best present.

December 31, 1979 – “New Year’s Planning”
Captain Jinks and Salty Sam prepare for a New Year’s party

January 3, 1980 – “The Bosuns Exercise”
The Captain is making the bosuns work out and run laps because they’ve been getting lazy. Captain Jinks says he stays in shape by playing checkers every morning with Cookie and arm wrestling Polly.

January 7, 1980 – “Salty’s Genie”
An old lamp yields a Jink-ish genie, giving Salty three wishes. Salty’s three wishes are: “I wish you’d put your normal clothes on,” “I wish you’d get serious,” and “I wish for a steak dinner.” The genie disappears and Captain Jinks comes in to say that Cookie is fixing steak for dinner.

January 9, 1980 – “Who Will Cook?”
Cookie is going on vacation and a replacement is needed. Nobody on board wants the job, and Cookie’s cousin is called in to replace him.

January 14, 1980 – “Man Over The Side”
A bosun is hanging over the side of the S.S. Albatross. The Captain throws a rope at him, but Bosun Lisa finally saves him.

January 16, 1980 – “Percy Penguin”
Polly’s cousin, Percy Penguin, comes floating downriver on a ice chunk to visit Polly. He’s on his was to Washington to put North Pole penguins on the endangered species list.

January 21, 1980 – “Captain Jinks’s Other Uncle”
Captain Jinks’s uncle, the riverboat checker player, is talked about.

February 12, 1980 -- “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address”
Captain Jinks tries to recite it while Salty’s all-bosun kazoo band plays, but Salty Sam winds up delivering the address.

February 14, 1980 – “The Captain’s Valentine”
Bosuns steal the mailbag and take it to the galley. Captain gets a valentine from both an old flame and Ethel the mermaid.

February 18, 1980 – “About Washington”
The Captain paints a picture of George Washington in a boat with his horse, a hatchet and a pocketful of silver dollars, causing Salty to tell him the true story of George Washington.

Other skits that were shown but not marked with a date were “The Killer Crab,” “Polly’s Problem,” “Spring Cleaning,” “The Captain’s Toothache,” “The Admiral Takes Over,” and “The Jinks Obedience School.” Another eighteen scripts were bought by WEEK and never used, and one “The Captain Cooks” was taped but never aired.