From TV star To skid row and soup

Many Ozarkian children grew up listening to Norman Champion and the puppets Skinny McGinnis and Rust the rooster on Ky3 Springfield's The children's hour. Do you ever wonder where these childhood friends are today? Aunt Norma went on to serve on the city council and then made her way to Jefferson city to be a state Senator for Mo.
Skinny McGinnis and Rusty the rooster's life has followed a different path.
Children's entertainer Skinny McGinnis, who performed along with Champion on The Children's Hour broadcasts filled a complaint in 1975 with Department of Labor a year before the show went off the air McGinnis, a lifelong resident of Bois D'Arc, now lives in a homeless shelter in north Springfield and is openly bitter about his relationship with Champion."Oh, she was all smiles while the cameras were rolling and the kids were there," said McGinnis, who insisted no pictures be taken. "I was the main draw on the show, and everybody knew it. Me and Rusty. When we asked her to go to bat for us she laughed in our faces - called us glorified prophylactics. Rusty was crushed."
Rusty the Rooser, McGinnis's life-long friend and co-star, fell upon hard times with the close of the Children's Hour. After touring the midwest doing shows at libraries and county fairs, he was tragically killed and eaten by a group of transients at a north Springfield park in 1987. McGinnis does not speak of the incident.