Happy 60th Birthday, Howdy Doody!

[tv star collector]

On Dec. 27, 1947, NBC launched PUPPET PLAYHOUSE on a weekday afternoon
at 5 p.m. (EST). It would become better known as the HOWDY DOODY show.
The first Peanut Gallery (as the live audience was called) consisted of eight
children. HOWDY DOODY pioneered the art of TV product merchandising.
There were Howdy Doody comic books (in fact, the first comic book based on
a TV show), lunch boxes, silverware, marionettes, phonograph records, Little
Golden Books, coloring books, jigsaw puzzles, shoes, costumes, a board game,
a card game, dolls, hand puppets, and toys of all kinds.

Sponsors of the show included Blue Bonnet margarine, Colgate toothpaste,
Campbell's soups, Royal Pudding, Kellogg's cereals, Wonder Bread, Welch's
Grape Juice, Poll Parrot Shoes, and 5th Avenue candy bars.

Buffalo Bob Smith was a radio personality who created the Howdy Doody
character (originally named "Elmer") for the Triple B Ranch Radio Show, in
March 1947. At first, Howdy was "Elmer" and was just a voice who would yell
out, "Howdy doody!" in a kind of Mortimer Snerdish voice. When the kids
would come to the radio studio, they would ask, "Where is Howdy Doody?"
Since it was a radio show, there was no puppet or dummy. So it was then
decided that (1) they would rename the character "Howdy Doody" and (2)
they would create a puppet and put it on television.

Bob Keeshan, the show's first Clarabell the Clown, went on to even greater
fame as TV's Captain Kangaroo. Chief Thunderthud (Bill LeCornec) introduced
the word "Cowabonga" (decades before Bart Simpson or the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles ever uttered it). Judy Tyler was Princess Summerfall Winterspring and, before her death in a tragic automobile accident, co-starred
with Elvis Presley in "Jailhouse Rock." Comedian Dayton Allen (later of THE
STEVE ALLEN SHOW) not only was the original voice of such puppets as
Phineas T. Bluster and the Flub-a-Dub but also appeared as such live
characters as Ugly Sam, Pierre the Chef and Sir Archibald. Allen today is
perhaps best remembered as the voice of Terrytoons' Deputy Dawg.

HOWDY DOODY was responsible for several firsts in broadcasting: it was the
first program to reach 1,000 performances (Jan. 27, 1952), the first regularly
broadcast color program (June 26, 1953), the first to be broadcast every day
in color (Sept. 12, 1955), the first to reach 2,000 performances (Dec. 20, 1955), and the first show to have a giant mail response (12 million letters by
Dec. 31, 1955).

On March 6, 1948, Howdy began his campaign for president. Buffalo Bob
offered the kids in the viewing audience free "I'm for Howdy Doody"
campaign buttons. Only 5,000 buttons were produced. By March 26, 1948,
an NBC press release stated that 26,000 requests for the buttons had been
received. On November 2, 1948, Howdy Doody was elected president and,
on Jan. 14, 1949, he was inaugurated as "President of All the Kids in the
United States."

On Nov. 20, 1949, a Howdy Doody Sunday newspaper comic strip began.

On Sept. 6, 1954, Bob Smith suffered a heart attack. At the time, Smith
was hosting the Howdy TV show, THE BOB SMITH SHOW on TV and two
daily radio shows. Smith was finally able to return to HOWDY DOODY on
Jan. 17, 1955.

On Dec. 28, 1957, Howdy's 10th anniversary on TV was celebrated with an
hour-long birthday party, done in the style of Ralph Edwards' THIS IS YOUR
LIFE.

On Sept. 24, 1960, in the last network show (and the 2,343rd), a special
one-hour program showcases the many puppets who have appeared on
the program over the years; and Clarabell has a secret. At the end of the
show, we learned that Clarabell could talk! The teary-eyed clown looked
into the camera and said, "Goodbye, kids!"

After the show ended, Bob Smith was asked to bring the show to college
campuses, where nostalgic students yearned for the good old innocent
days of their childhood.

On Sept. 3, 1976, THE NEW HOWDY DOODY SHOW began in syndication. But
the updated version only ran for 130 episodes. Later, Bob Smith and Clarabell (Lew Anderson, the third and last Clarabell) began making public appearances at shopping malls.

In 1987, IT'S HOWDY DOODY TIME!, a 40th anniversary two-hour syndicated TV special aired. It
featured appearances by guest stars Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, Dick Clark,
Gary Coleman, Gary Collins, Monty Hall, Pee-Wee Herman, Meredith MacRae,
Mary Ann Mobley and John Ritter. Of course, it also featured the familiar Doodyville
gang: Buffalo Bob Smith, Lew Anderson (Clarabell), Bill LeCornec (Chief Thunderthud,
Dilly Dally), and Nick Nicholson (Cornelius Cobb, Phineas T. Bluster, the Flub-a-Dub).

Happy birthday, Howdy! For a whole generation, you were our first superstar!

[Scoobiedoo30]

Happy Birthday