Harrigan

Overview

Harrigan was a Canadian children's television series in the 1970s and 1980s. The show starred Barry Dale as Harrigan, a leprechaun. Harrigan was produced by Kingston, Ontario television station CKWS-TV, and aired across Canada in syndication. Part of the theme song included the words: "H - A - double R - I - G - A - N ... it's Harr-i-gan!" Portions of the half hour program would involve the title character viewing hand drawn pictures submitted by his loyal fan-base of children by looking into his magical pot of gold. His co-star for these segments was a young lady appropriately named Marigold. Another segment would have Harrigan sitting with his good puppet friend Mr. Green as they read a book to the children watching. The character originated at Ottawa's CJOH-TV where it ran for its first two seasons. The leprechaun originally appeared on a children's show called Sandbox at 7 a.m. on the CTV network. Dale suggested syndicating the television show, a request that the station manager was not willing to do. Lorne Freed of CKWS-TV invited Dale to syndicate Harrigan at his station. Harrigan taped original shows until 1985 and then ran re-runs until 1992. The Harrigan series won three CanPro Awards, which are the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy Awards for syndicated programs.