It would be hard to think of a more universal touchstone for baby boomers than the Howdy Doody Show. Say kids, what time is it? It’s Howdy Doody time!!!
There came a time when just about every local TV station had a kids show (the one I remember was Ranger Andy), but Howdy Doody got there first. And the show didn’t just entertain us boomers — it sold TV sets, cereal, lunch boxes and a lot of other products. Advertisers definitely took notice.
It all started with New York radio NBC affiliate WEAF, where Big Brother Bob Smith was the voice of a ranch hand on a show called The Triple B Ranch. He would greet the audience by saying “Oh, ho, ho, howdy doody.” Just the kind of nonsensical wordplay children love to hear, and love to repeat.
It was a short leap from there to the Howdy Doody Show and a whole cast of characters who lived in Doodyville. That named seemed rather benign when I was 7 or 8 years old, but in retrospect it sounds like a weird place to live. Buffalo Bob talked to the marionettes as if they were real, so even though we could see the strings on the puppets as plain as day, we began to think of them as real people. And what a collection of characters– Phineas T. Bluster with his flying eyebrows on separate strings, along with Flub-a-Dub and Dilly Dally. And the live characters were just as interesting. Chief Thunderthud of Kawabonga fame and Princess Summerfall Winterspring were pretty captivating. Clarabell Hornblow provided some of the slapstick and was played by Bob Keeshan, who most of you should remember later became Captain Kangaroo! He sprayed seltzer on everyone and we all laughed like the chuckleheads that we were.
I had forgotten that the show originally came on in the early evening, but I do remember that it came on just after Gabby Hayes. When the show came to an end in 1960, it was after airing 2,343 programs. It had its educational moments and teaching opportunities, but mostly I remember the slapstick, some goofy songs and the spraying seltzer, along with an unexplainable yearning for Princess Summerfall Winterspring (I began to think of her as pretty hot looking just as I hit puberty).
Who didn’t want to be in the Peanut Gallery bleachers when the Princess was in town? I guess when I was more interested in the Princess than the puppets, my Doodyville days were over, but I still remember them fondly.
Jay Harrison is a writer and creative consultant for DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.
Our kitchen remodeling project is behind schedule, but they finish up today, so everything should be good to go for Thanksgiving. We have missed cooking so much and can’t wait to crank it up again.
I fill my mouth with summer, lips purple from the juice of tart blueberries I pluck from the bushes. Just past the ripening tomatoes my mother bends down to harvest a perfect cantaloupe. The smell of green is heavy in muggy August air as we amble from our garden toward the modest split level we call home. I follow my mother through the screen door and into the kitchen, where the mustard yellow linoleum cools my small bare feet.
Looking forward to hitting the road, any road, as the post pandemic travel frenzy has taken hold across the nation. All this talk of road trips reminded me of our family’s road trips, such as they were. You could not really call them road trips. More like Sunday drives where Dad had no idea where he was going or how we were getting back home. It would be more accurate to call them Lost Trips.
Have you been reading about The Great Resignation? Droves of people are quitting their jobs, much of it as a result of the pandemic. While lots of factors play into their decisions, including child care challenges, it sounds like workers have discovered the joys of a slower pace and aren’t going back until they find something with more balance.
So, we’re on a game drive in the Tarangire National Park, Tanzania. Three of us couples in a typical van…the kind you’ve seen in a hundred documentaries and Wild Kingdom episodes. We’ve been circling the preserve for hours, our guide and driver, Lucas, short-waves with fellow guides on the same mission…turning the concept of a zoo on its head. Instead of bored animals stuck in cages ignoring us bipeds on the move, we sit in mobile cages while they move about, ignoring us. Every so often the radio squawks followed by a burst of Swahili exchange and we hare off in another direction to form an impromptu gathering, like outdoor concert fans at a rock fest, to gape at—a herd of elephants, or a leopard stalking a waterbuck or hyenas fighting and feasting on a wildebeest. Since two of us guys are of a ‘certain age’ and have been advised to keep hydrated we’re subject to frequent quick pit stops…made all the quicker for possible hostile fauna in the surrounding bush.
