Front row, from left: harpist John Duncan, puppeteer/voice actor Rod Coneybeare with Jerome the Giraffe and Rusty the Rooster and puppeteers Nikki Tilroe and Karen Valleau. In the back row, from left, show creator Bob Homme as The Friendly Giant and puppeteer Nina Keogh. (missing is Bob Stutt who often performed some of the raccoons)
$LC_DEITY, yes! I’d totally forgotten about John Duncan! (after all, he was seldom if ever on camera).
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Meanwhile, in Seattle:
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Bob Homme was the Friendly Giant. Rod Coneybeare performed Jerome the Giraffe and Rusty the Rooster. They had a roster of other puppeteers who would come in as needed, mostly to perform the raccoons and other animals that accompanied Friendly when he played his recorder pieces. Each show had a storybook sequence. The pacing of the whole thing was even and measured and consistent and gave young viewers a safe place and a “big chair by the fire for two to curl up in”.
Butternut Square was indeed the source of Mr. Dressup. Ernie Coombs and Fred Rogers were both from the US and after Butternut Square, Rogers went back to the US but Ernie stuck around and got his own show. They both became icons of children’s television. I knew Ernie and adored him and still miss him very much.
Razzle Dazzle was its own odd little late afternoon show. They had a set of bleachers in the small studio that they’d fill with kids (school groups, girl guides, cub scouts, anybody who happened to be passing by the studio) and called it the Peanut Gallery. I was on it once and was most fascinated by the warm-up act, which was a ventriloquist telling the oldest and lamest jokes (I remember them all). The host at that time was Al Hamel (Mr. Suzanne Somers) and the puppet character Howard the Turtle was performed by John Keogh - that’s his daughter Nina in the photo.
I never got to work on Friendly and have always regretted that. On the piano in our living room is the small grand piano used by the puppets in the show.
The Howdy Doody show, to me at least, was loud and crass. In my later “youth”, Pee Wee’s Playhouse was fucking genius.
One thing I could never get over was the fact the Friendly Giant kept a chicken in a bag hanging on the wall. What the hell was that about?
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Here ya go:
Catholics weird everyone out.
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Okay, yes, this is the Captain Kangaroo intro I remember from my childhood. This theme and this pattern are seared into my brain, right down to the fact that I watched it in black & white (I didn’t watch a color tv until 1969). I never saw that cartoon posted as the intro.
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Best local kid’s show ever. I got this as a kid in Vancouver BC via cable. It’s a weird, kind of voyeuristic feeling growing up on another city’s TV stations and their news such that it feels like it’s “yours” in a way, even though you’re not actually from there (visited tons of times of course, love the place, but you know what I mean). I do know how to pronounce “Puyallup” correctly, at least. And the “Ooga-chaka” from “Can’t Fight This Feeling” will always belong to this show for me.
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You had color tv in 1969? Other tgan a few times elsewhere, I didn 't see color tv until I fixed up a color set someone was discarding in 1979 or so.
It did seem odd to make the transition, though looking back black & white seems odd. Not helped by the tv sets we did have were fairly crummy.
another Canadian children’s show, this one hosted by my aunt. She conceived and produced it,and I remember her editing it in the basement of her mid-century modern (of course), surrounded by fan mail and stuffed toys (it was broadcast from film). Perhaps, for a child, even less compelling than Howdy Doody; she focused on some pretty high brow works. Cyrano de Bergerac was a favourite . There was a Cyrano doll available as a co pro …
http://www.tvarchive.ca/database/17240/hidden_pages/details/
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when i saw the colorized opening video on the main article, my instant thought was “That’s the new opening.”
Then i thought ohmygodiamOLD
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Locally we had Boomtown (a western show that was a hit in Boston), with Rex Trailer and Sgt Billy:
And Major Mudd:
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The possibility of actual TV show focus groups back then frightens me.
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We didn’t get Howdy Doody, but the Captain Kangaroo show was achingly boring. It was punishment when I was forced to watch the whole thing. No part of it was engaging on any level.
Mighty Mouse, on the other hand, was fun.
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Look up. Waaay up.
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I too grew up with b&w TV. Some neighboors had a color TV and it sucked. Sure it was in color but the picture was almost always out of whack. Also, I religiously watched The Wizard of Oz every Sept, but I never saw it in color until I was in college. Finally got the joke, “Well, that’s a horse of a different color.”
Also, since I’m here, Howdy Doody was mildly fascinating in a creepy sort of way. Capt. Kangaroo was simply boring and the Mickey Mouse Club, for the most part was incredibly irritating (I cared far less about watching Annette grow up than I did about Johnny Crawford).
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This is a horror show. This was well before market research into what kids actually like to watch. It was adults mimicking a Sunday school format secularly, i.e. trying to guess what kids want.
I could not have been less interested in Captain Kangaroo. This was more to my taste:
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