St. Louis
Murdock came to the St. Louis, Missouri area in 1953 to serve as director and star of Coffee Break, a morning program on WTVI in Belleville, Illinois. He cowrote and costarred in Hiram and Sneed. He started as the host of Apartment Eleven, an interview show, on KPLR in St. Louis in 1960.[3]
Another role was as Kronos, the host of the television show Zone 2 on KTVI from August 1965 to August 1966. The show was named Zone 2 because KTVI-TV (the local ABC affiliate at the time) broadcast on Channel 2. It aired low-budget science fiction and horror movies. It aired at 3:30 p.m.–5:30 p.m. The movies shown were severely edited to fit into the time slot, to make room for commercials, and to allow for Kronos to introduce each segment.
He hosted the local KTVI-TV presentation of Adventures of Superman in 1962, appearing as Mr. Willoughby on a program called Treehouse Time. Mr. Willoughby lived in a treehouse and introduced Superman and a cartoon from there. The show was 45 minutes long, leaving 15 minutes for local news at the head of the hour.
Murdock was active in theatre productions in the St. Louis area, including at The Muny and at the old Crystal Palace in Gaslight Square.[3]
He served as master of ceremonies at the St. Louis bicentennial activities center dedication in 1964.[4]
Murdock was also familiar to St. Louis television viewers as the personification of "Grandpa Pidgeon" on commercials for the GrandPa's chain of 15 discount retail stores in the St. Louis area.