https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/the-early-history-howdy-doody-televisions-first-hit-show\/<\/a><\/p>\nA few notes to help you \u201csee\u201d the history in this. (1) When the show started, it ran only on Saturday afternoon from 5 till 6, but after about 6 weeks, the show began a Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday schedule from 5 till 6. On the 11th show, Howdy announced he was going to run for President of the Kids of the USA. (2) The show was originally called, \u201cPuppet Playhouse\u201d featuring Frank Paris\u2019 \u201cToby At The Circus\u201d puppet troupe, and on the first show, which Bob Smith was the host and MC for, there was no Howdy puppet, as there was no time to make him, but Howdy was heard! He was in a desk drawer and to bashful to come out.<\/p>\n
I mention these points because the first thing I noticed was the opening title is now \u201cHowdy Doody Time\u201d, which is finally proof that the name changed long before many other sources say it did. It probably happened when the show went to 3 days a week, which would be about the second or third week of February 1948\u2026possibly February 10th or 17th. Also, the Howdy for President banner is up. By the way, this would be the first show of the day, as only a test pattern preceded the show, and when it ended at 6, there was not another show until 7:15, so there was another hour and fifteen minuets of test pattern.<\/p>\n
When the show starts, notice not only the look of the first Howdy (built by Frank Pairs), but also how different the voice Bob uses for Howdy is. Remember, the voice was developed for the original \u201cTriple B Ranch\u201d radio character named Elmer, who became Howdy Doody after the kids started calling him that because of his greeting of \u201cWell, howdy doody everybody\u201d.<\/p>\n
Notice also that the kids are seated in a way that they can only see Bob and Howdy on the monitors, and not at the desk\u2026since Bob was not a ventriloquist, he moved is lips when he voiced Howdy, so it was best to hide that as much as possible. That kind of set up, with his back to the kids when Howdy was talking, continued for the life of the show.<\/p>\n
At 13:45, when they go to what would later become the \u201cpeanut gallery\u201d the kids are sitting on two, four seat \u201chorses\u201d which were brought over from the place Howdy was born, \u201cThe Triple B Ranch\u201d radio show. It was a kids quiz show and the contestants sat on these glorified sawhorses\u2026when one of the kids got a wrong answer, they were \u201cbucked off\u201d the horse.<\/p>\n
At 15:03, there is a really special moment! A clown comes in with peanuts for the kids, which seems to catch Bob off guard as he says \u201cWho you?\u201d and then, recovers after a second or two and says thanks \u201cRobbie\u201d. This is most likely the first time assistant stage manager Robert \u201cBob\u201d Keeshan (Clarabell) had ever worn anything other than street clothes on the set while handing things to Bob Smith. Before the Clarabell costume, it is known that Director Roger Muir had gone to NBC\u2019s wardrobe department for something to dress Keeshan in, and this classic operatic style clown suit was probably their first try.<\/strong><\/p>\nMany thanks again to Burt Dubrow for letting us see this rare and historic clip from his collection. I hope you enjoyed this very special few moments with the original Howdy on this, the 69th Anniversay of what would later become America\u2019s first daily television program, and the world\u2019s first daily color television program. It was also the first program to log over 1,000 episodes. Since this is the only place to see this video, please share it! -Bobby Ellerbee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE ORIGINAL HOWDY PUPPET ON ONE OF THE EARLIEST SHOWS RECORDED! This kinescope is only 21 minutes long, and most likely was done as a test of the new kinescope system introduced by RCA and Kodak in September 1947. Sometime in April of 1948, the month this was shot, three new RCA TK30 cameras replaced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_popup_image":0,"_vp_format_audio_url":"","_vp_album_images":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail":0,"_vp_custom_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"_vp_custom_thumbnail_cover":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail":0,"_vp_hover_thumbnail_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[683,703,720,742,725],"class_list":["post-43022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-cameras","tag-director","tag-host","tag-iconoscope","tag-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43022"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61395,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43022\/revisions\/61395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.eyesofageneration.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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