Howdy Doody

Howdy Doody was the first children’s program presented live for one hour every Saturday morning, featuring a freckle-faced boy marionette.  When kids across the country began yelling “It’s Howdy Doody Time!” it marked the beginning of the first generation of kids to be reared on TV.  The program ran until 1960 and spawned a few other children’s programs from characters in the ensemble.  “Buffalo” Bob Smith, who was the host and the voice of Howdy, died in 1998 at the age of eighty of pneumonia.  The original Clarabell the clown was played by Bob Keeshan who later became Captain Kangaroo and the host of his own show in 1954:  Keeshan died at seventy-six in 2004 of respiratory failure.  Lew Anderson who took over the job as Clarabell, died in 2006 at age eighty-four of prostate cancer.  Kids thought Howdy Doody was real, and in 1952 he received over a million write-in votes to become president.  When the show ended, Howdy spent many years locked inside a dark trunk in a cold and lonely vault.  In 2000, after an lengthy court battle deciding ownership, Howdy was finally freed, though currently hangs lifeless, on display at the McPharlin Puppetry Collection in the Detroit Institute of Arts.