I'm a liberal pagan living in West, Texas. Yes. That West, Texas.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

.......SAY KIDS! WHAT TIME IS IT???.......

It's Howdy Doody Time..... I was only 4 years old when Howdy Doody(Puppet Playhouse) first came on TV...and sadly to say...I didn't watch it..don't think we had a tv and at 4 I was more interested in playing outside with my cousins.Think it became Howdy Doody Show in 1949. Back then there was nothing on tv during the day except a test pattern..which most of you don't even know what that is..it was a pattern that was on the screen alllll day long..until 5pm at night when for 5 days The Howdy Doody Show started off tv viewing...nope, no Oprah, no news, no soaps, not a damn thing...just a pattern..then..tada...Buffao Bob and Howdy Doody..The Buffalo Bill gang ran for 13 years...2,343 shows...Kowa-bonga...I don't remember for sure when I actually started watching it but there was one year that Buffalo Bob wasn't on(he had a heart attack and we were told he was vacationing in some village, forget where) but I do remember seeing Gabby Hayes playing Bison Bill while Buffalo Bob was gone, think that was in 1949 or 1950..But Buffalo Bob came back and intertained us with old movies, skits, the Peanut Gallery(oh, how I longed to be in the Peanut Gallery)...There were so many people on the show..There was the Story Princess, Chief Thundercloud, Tim Tremble(played by none other than Don Knotts),Princess SummerFall WinterSpring(and to this day I still can't say it right 'wintersummerfallspring'...),Bison Bill,(just read where he was only on during the year 1954), The Flub-a-Dub(made out of 8 parts of differnt animals), the Mayor of Doodyville, Phineas T. Bluster, Howdy's sister Heidi Doody, Inspector John J. Fadoozle, Captain Windy Scuttlebutt, Hector Hamhock Bluster, Don Jose Bluster and Sandra Witch.
The H
owdy Doody show was the fist show to regularly broadcast in color..They ran Howdy for 'President of all kids' and ended up getting requests for 250,000 buttons...Some where around 1956-57 Mickey Mouse came on and the ratings started to slip, the audience that had watched for all those years were growing up(and like me, discovered Rock & Roll)...so they moved back to Saturday's...and with a little help from "GUMBY"... they held on till 1957 when they were canceled...
So how many of you old farts out there remember starting your evening
off with 'SAY KIDS!WHAT TIME IS IT?'...........
aaaahhh, skipping down memory lane is fun....I am enjoying this, but not sure anyone else is...should I stop now???? or go on to the music of the 50's...tv shows of the 60's??? What do you say kids???

ah fuckme till someone pulls my strings

13 comments:

apositivepessimist said...

oh I knew that test pattern...now when my SBS station goes off air for the night [yeah we got one that still goes off heh] it just has a continuous stream of weather temps around the world accompanied by the same CD playing until they restart a couple of hours later...one night I listened to celtic music...ahhh.

howdy doody...I've heard of the show but never saw it, just on those 20/30/whatever years of television specials.

*sits at Grannies feet*..."tell us more granma, we don't care on what it is"

Lauren said...

We didn't have a TV until about 1958 or 59, but they ran Howdy Doody in sindication here until 1967. There was also The Mickey Mouse Club and locally we had Bozo the Clown (I later worked with his younger brother in the early 70s), Captain Muddy, a tug boat captain and his gang of puppet friends, Soupy Sales and Johnny Ginger, a hotel bellhop who hosted a morning cartoon show. . . Soupy was the best. . . I had the opportunity to meet him about 12 years ago, when he revived his club act. He was quite a guy. . . I was sad to hear about his death. . .

And then there was Al E. Cat and Panzie, a cat and bulldog puppet show. I don't recall the host's name. . . They always had a live audience and always broadcast live at 4 PM weekdays. . . I think that was about 1962. . . I would have been 9 at the time. . .

I miss all those old kid's shows. . . Better than the crap they show now. . .

Thanks for the memory jog. . .

Big Pissy said...

GAWD! The picture of that clown scared the crap outta me!

We didn't even own a t.v. until I was around 5 years old....so 1961....

I never saw Howdy Dody, but I do remember watching American Bandstand every afternoon with my older brothers when they got home from school.

Good times..... :)

TheWayfarer said...

In this get-anything-you-want-on-DVD day & time, I wonder how hard it'd be to get the complete Howdy-Doody series?

Cassandra said...

Are you smoking crack woman?
Sorry, still pissy about the race. Happy posts are pissing me off. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

apositivepessimist said...

yeah up in the state of Queensland...http://www.flexi.net.au/~ingleweb/texas.htm

Unknown said...

Didn't Captain Kangaroo or Mr. GreenJeans get their start on that show?

Nit Wit said...

I remember Howdy Doody which is kind of strange as I was hatched in 1956.
Nobody mentioned Lambchop. I still love my Three Stooges.
I remember sitting in front of the TV and watching the test pattern waiting for the shows to start. I was drawn to the Indian head that was always on ours.
We had a channel here until about 6 years ago that used to go off after Conan Obrian and put up the test pattern.
Did you really have lectricity when you were little grannie? Tell us more.

I decided that the problems that they had in Northern Ohio were a cosmic bip for what they did in the 2004 election.
DVDs of that show might not be that good as they didn't have high quality recording in TV then.

Nancy said...

Howdy Doody, my son Travis was born on his birthday. My son's dad has his origional Howdy Doody puppet. He passed it down to Travis a few years back.

Still no Crazy Horse.

Maybe later today.

BriteYellowGun said...

That show was WAAAAAAY before my time! Okay, well, maybe just a little before my time. If you talk about Lost In Space, that I can relate to.

Donna said...

Oh I love reading this stuff. This was all way way behind my time as well. My mother would talk about these old shows, and I'd look at her as if she was on crack..I had no clue what she was talking about..haha!

Cheyenne said...

I loved that show, and right afterward was "Frontier Playhouse." Of course, it was always when the dishes were being done and I would tell Mom that I would dry them afterward, knowing full well she would do them anyway. Thanks for the great memories.

Unknown said...

-Im so old I remember them playing the National Anthem when the tv station went off for the night.
-I say Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca live on tv.
-I remember The Arther Godfrey Show introduce Julius LaRosa
-I sang along with Schnookie Lanson on Hit Parade.
-Howdy Doody took crap off Clarabelle and liked it.
-Ted Macks Amateur Hour was then the American Idol talent show.
-Liberace played piano while his brother George played violin while Mama sat in the audience.
-Make Room for Daddy, Father Knows Best and Our Miss Brooks were the weekly comedies.
-Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show.
-Ike ran for President and Adlai E.Stevenson yelled while a gavel pounded in the background.
-Buster Brown lived in a shoe.
-Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Johnny Weismuller were movie matinee idols.
-Eleanor Rosevelt did talk show tours.
-High Noon was first shown on TV.
-The Life of Riley was possilbe.
-Only Kate Smith sang God Bless America
-Roy Rogers and Trigger rode to adventures every Sunday night with Dale Evans and Buttermilk; and Pat Brady and Nelliebell.
-The Lone Ranger and Tonto roamed the west with a white horse and a black mask not to be confused with Zoro.