"Sheriff" John Rovick, the beloved Los Angeles children's TV show host whose gentle, fatherly persona made him a welcome guest in homes throughout the 1950s and '60s, died Saturday morning. He was 93. 

Rovick died in his sleep at a nursing facility in Boise, Idaho, said his wife, Jacqueline. 

A Toledo, Ohio, native who launched his broadcasting career in radio, Rovick was a newly hired staff announcer at KTTV-TV (Channel 11) when the Los Angeles station first went on the air in 1949. 

In 1952, after KTTV acquired a batch of old cartoons and was searching for someone to host a daily cartoon show for children at 5:30 p.m., Rovick came up with a novel idea: Sheriff John. 

Rovick knew longtime Los Angeles County Sheriff Gene Biscailuz, "and I had been an honorary Sheriff before I started the show because I was interested in law enforcement work," he told The Times in 2008. 

So "I put on a khaki uniform and a badge and got a big white hat, sat at a desk and showed cartoons," Rovick recalled. 

"Cartoon Time" with Sheriff John became an immediate hit with young viewers, earning an Emmy Award in 1953 for outstanding children's program.

KTTV by then had added a new show to its schedule at midday, "Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade," which stayed on the air until 1970. (MORE)