Growing up I always thought television talk shows were boring.
Johnny Carson made me laugh  when I talked my parents into letting me stay up late enough to watch but his guests did not impress me as a youngster.
That is unless that guest was Jim Fowler.
Fowler, the co-host of my favorite television program growing up “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom” was a frequent guest on “The Tonight Show” and brought wildlife to the masses for decades via his relationship with Carson.
As I walked onto a stage in front of 3,000 kids at the Global VBS at Cornerstone Church last summer, I felt like I was getting to play Jim Fowler.

The program is called “Cheeto Talk” and it is a late night television talk style show but hosted by a puppet operated by my friend Pastor Brett Own of San Antonio, TX.
During the course of an hour we brought out all kinds of animals for Cheeto to interact with and we had an absolutely great time.
From “Reverend Sweets” one of the guests almost having a legitimate panic attack over our rosehair tarantula to the kids collective “awww” when they saw our short tail opossum it was tons of fun.
The highlight for me was having the Kingdom Zoo kids bring out the animals and interacting with the crowd.
During the last segment Rachel brought out “Rowdy” our coatimundi who was only 10 weeks old at the time. He behaved well in front of the huge crowd and commanded their attention.

At the end Pastor Owen asked me to close in prayer and at this point “Rowdy” climbed on top of my head.
Not that there is much competition in this category but I have a feeling I hold the record for the only prayer with a coatimundi on one’s head while leading  a prayer.
And I got to play Jim Fowler for an hour. I hope the performance would make him proud.
Click here to watch Cheeto Talk with special guest Chester Moore.
Chester Moore, Jr.