Frances Horwich

Who was Frances Horwich?

Frances Rappaport Horwich was the host of the popular children's television program, Ding Dong School.

Horwich was born in Ottawa, Ohio. She earned her master's degree in education at Columbia University and her doctorate at Northwestern University. She then became the head of the department of education at Chicago's Roosevelt College.

Ding Dong School was developed by the show's producer, Reinald Werrenrath, Jr., and Judith Waller, director of public affairs programming for the NBC Central Division, and began to air in the Chicago area on WNBQ-TV. The show quickly gained popularity among young children and was broadcast nationally on the NBC network, Monday through Friday, beginning in November of 1952. In that year, Frances Horwich won the George Foster Peabody Award. The series is said to have garnered a 95 percent share of all preschoolers at one time.

In 1954, Horwich moved to New York, where she supervised all of NBC's children's programming. She held this position until 1956, when Ding Dong School was canceled in favor of The Price is Right. Horwich owned the rights to Ding Dong School and syndicated the show until 1965.