Stu Kerr

Who was Stu Kerr?

Thomas Stewart Kerr, more familiarly known to audiences as Stu Kerr, was a Baltimore, Maryland, television personality who developed and hosted a number of programs on Baltimore television from 1952 through the 1980s. Playing a "conductor" on the show Caboose in 1978, he discovered Kevin Clash and Todd Stockman.

Kerr was born in Yonkers, New York and as a teenager worked as an NBC page at the network's Rockefeller Center headquarters. He later recalled "sitting in Lowell Thomas' [sic] seat right after he left, while it was still warm", practicing script reading His first full-time broadcasting job was on radio at the age of 19. Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1950, he saw combat action during the Korean War.

Kerr's television career began in 1952 at WMAR-TV in Baltimore, where he created The Janitor, a late-night show displaying his talent for improvisation. He then played in various children's shows at WMAR-TV, beginning with The Early Riser and Bozo the Clown in the 1960s and, later, inventing the character Professor Kool on his popular Professor Kool's Fun Skool program in the late 1960s early 1970s.