Winchell’s most successful TV show was Winchell-Mahoney Time (1965–1968), a highly-imaginative kids’ show written by his then wife, actress Nina Russel. Winchell played several onscreen characters, including Knucklehead Smiff’s father, Bonehead Smiff. He also played himself as friend and adult advisor to Mahoney and Smiff. He also created “Oswald,” a surreal character, by painting eyes and a nose on his chin, covering his face with a small costume, then having the camera inverted. The resulting pinheaded character seemed to have an immensely wide mouth and a highly mobile head. Winchell created this illusion by moving his chin back and forth.
The show was produced at KTTV-TV in Los Angeles, which was owned by Metromedia. In 1986, Winchell sued Metromedia (which by then was about to be purchased by Fox Television Stations as the foundation for the new Fox Network) over syndication rights to 288 surviving videotapes of the show. Metromedia responded by destroying the tapes. Subsequently, a jury awarded Winchell $17.8 million.[5]
Winchell’s last regular on-camera TV appearances working with his puppets were The Storybook Squares (a children’s version of the adult celebrity game show The Hollywood Squares which was seen Saturday mornings on The NBC TV network during the 1969 TV season) and Runaround, another children’s TV game show seen Saturday mornings on NBC TV from September 1972 to September 1973.
Source wikipedia
I saw something about this on TV last night