"I wish there were a land of play! I wish that I could fly away!"

Such were the dreams of a precocious little girl named Susan Heinkel, who starred in her own adventure series called Susan’s Show, which debuted in 1957 – first on a local station in Chicago and eventually nationwide. In the fine tradition of other famous little girls like Alice and Dorothy, Susan has a penchant for exploring other worlds, and used a magic chair in her kitchen to transport her and her small dog to the enchanted world of Wonderville.

Wonderville was filled with a delightful collection of creatures that included a friendly talking stove and the musical stylings of the Foolish Forest Orchestra, featuring such puppet performers as flautist Gregory the Bunny, Bruce, the resident gopher percussionist and violinist Wolfgang the Bear, all led by the not-so-capable flippers of conductor Caesar the Penguin. When she wasn’t listening to music or conversing with cooking appliances, she would visit  Mr. Pegasus who operated the wonderful Cartoon-a-Machine, a magical devise that entertained all with a steady stream of Terrytoon cartoons.

Hosting the show, which was originally called Suzie’s Show when it debuted on a local Chicago network was 12-year old, Susan Heinkel, a young girl whose show business debut had occurred nine years earlier when she appeared in a St. Louis Christmas Pageant. She was given her own series, which featured her alongside a collection of oversized props – giving the illusion that she was much smaller. Thanks to the success of the local show, CBS eventually picked up the series and introduced the entire country to the young hostess in the more mature-sounding Susan’s Show, which appeared on over 70 stations. Jack Coughlin provided the voices of various inanimate objects, as well as Mr. Pegasus on the short-lived half-hour series.

Susan performed admirably and professionally on her own series and never turned into one of the infamous former child stars that tend to terrorize the world in later years. Rather, she went on to attend high-school like any normal kid and never returned to the spotlight of television. Whether or not, she continued to visit her old friends in Wonderville remains unknown.