Pogo Poge

No one quite expected that the lyrics of the "Checkers & Pogo" theme song — "Here comes Checkers, here comes Checkers, Checkers ... and Pogo Poge!" — would be quite so prescient. Three actors eventually played Mr. Checkers in the KGMB-TV children's show, but to his Hawaii fans, there could be only one Pogo.

Entertainer Morgan Branch White, better known to Hawaii schoolchildren as TV character "Pogo Poge," died yesterday in Utah, where he had retired. He was 86.

He had retired largely to farm in Sevier, Utah, after he left Hawaii television in 1982, said son Steve White.

From 1967 to 1982, White was an island TV fixture on the after-school program "Checkers & Pogo," considered the longest-running, most successful children's television show in Hawaii.

White recalled in a KGMB "Checkers & Pogo Remembered" special that station owner Cec Heftel rushed the show onto the air. Heftel drafted White, then a disc jockey at KGMB radio, as one of the leads, telling him to grab a costume from wardrobe. The first items White put on were a pointy hat, a too-tight vest, and a clashing striped shirt and pants. This ad-hoc outfit defined Pogo's look for the next 15 years.

In the book "Hi There, Boys and Girls! America's Local Children's TV Shows," author Tim Hollis described Poge's costume resembled an Alpine climber complete with a Tyrolean hat.

The "Pogo Poge" character, as played by White, was kind, impish and innocent, a kind of Stan Laurel to Mr. Checkers' blowhard Oliver Hardy.

Gruff Mr. Checkers was portrayed by actors Jim Hawthorne, former Star-Bulletin columnist Dave Donnelly and Jim Demarest, all of whom have died in the last six years. White, who also wrote and produced several episodes of the children's TV series, carried on the show as a solo act for the last three years it aired.

White also appeared in the original "Hawaii Five-0" series, portraying the islands' attorney general six times. After retiring from Hawaii, White continued children's programming in Utah and played a judge in the 1987 TV movie "At Mother's Request."