"The Howdy Doody Show was one of the first and easily the most popular children's television show in the 1950s and a reflection of the wonder, technical fascination, and business realities associated with early television. While Howdy and his friends entertained American children, they also sold television sets to American parents and demonstrated the potential of the new medium to advertisers.
The idea for Howdy Doody began on the NBC New York radio affiliate WEAF in 1947 with a program called The Triple B Ranch. The three Bs stood for Big Brother Bob Smith, who developed the country bumpkin voice of a ranch hand and greeted the radio audience with, "Oh, ho, ho, howdy doody." Martin Stone, Smith's agent, suggested putting Howdy on television and presented the idea to NBC televi-sion programming head Warren Wade. With Stone and Roger Muir as producers, Smith launched Puppet Playhouse on 17 December 1947. Within a week the name of the program was changed to The Howdy Doody Show."
A strange record with a mix of newsreel and childrens puppet show! Not sure who it was aimed at. A brief segment here which gives a flavour of the whole LP.
Read more about Howdy Doody Time HERE.
Howdy Doody - Howdy Doody Time
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3 comments:
Whoa! Your page suddenly opens up with one very scary picture - frightened the life out of me.
Then I looked a little closer and it's uncanny how, apart from the hair colour, it looks very much like Tony Blair.
Is this art imitating life or life imitating art?
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I remember watching this when it was in syndication. This show is the reason why I developed a fear of clowns and a dislike of laugh tracks at a very young age.
Clarabelle the Clown was one creepy looking guy. He gave me nightmares and he was not one bit funny to me. His job seemed to be mime laughing and honking his horn at things that were not funny and then motioning to the kids in the peanut gallery that they to should be laughing too. Just thinking about him gives me the shivers.
But I must admit the theme song started playing in my head the second I saw old Howdy's face.
Its a very scary record on lots of levels. I wonder if Crusty The Clown in the Simpsons is based on Howdy Doody? Clowns are pretty creepy but I did see a fantastic russian clown once at the Old Vic theatre in London who did some amazing routines- battling snowstorms etc.
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