Captain Kangaroo is
a children's television
series which aired weekday mornings on the American
television
network CBS from 1955 until 1984. In
1986, the American Program Service (now
American Public Television,
Boston) integrated some newly-produced segments into
reruns of past episodes, distributing the newer
version of the series until 1993.
The show was conceived and the title character played by
Bob Keeshan, who based the show on "the warm
relationship between grandparents and children." Keeshan was the
original
Clarabell the Clown on
The Howdy Doody Show when it
aired on NBC.
It had a loose structure, built around life in the "Treasure House"
(later renamed "The Captain's Place"), where the Captain (whose
name came from the big pockets in his coat) would tell stories,
meet guests and indulge in silly stunts with regular characters,
both humans and puppets. The show was live for its first four
years, and was in
black-and-white
until 1968. In 1983, CBS shortened the hour-long show to a
half-hour and moved it to an earlier time-slot. It was canceled by
CBS at the end of 1984.
In the TV season of 1997–1998, an
All New Captain Kangaroo
was attempted by
Saban
Entertainment. John McDonough played the Captain.
It was shot in
Tampa,
Florida
. Keeshan was invited to appear as a special
guest called "The Admiral," but after seeing sample episodes, he
declined to appear or have any association with the new
incarnation. It ran for one season and inspired a spin-off,
Mister Moose's Fun Time.
Cast
Other actors in the show included:
Hugh Brannum played the Captain's main sidekick
Mr. Green Jeans and other
less-frequently seen characters, such as the
New Old Folk
Singer, who played a double bass (or "bass fiddle") as if it
were a guitar,
Mr. Bainter, the Painter, Percy,
and
Uncle Backwards.
Cosmo Allegretti created and performed several of the show's
best-known puppet characters, including
Bunny Rabbit, who always tricked the
Captain into giving him carrots, and
Mr.
Moose, whose
riddles and
knock-knock jokes invariably ended with
hundreds of ping-pong balls cascading from above and hitting the
Captain on the head. Allegretti was also the actor portraying the
Dennis the Apprentice, Miss Frog (the telephone
operator),
Mr. Whispers, Dancing Bear,
Grandfather Clock, and
Uncle Ralph
characters.
The Banana Man
Sam Levine played an unusual, mostly mute character known as
The Banana Man, who produced huge
bunches of bananas from within his coat. He would also magically
pull watermelons from his pockets. (Levine replaced the original
performer, A. Robins, who died in 1950.
[8762] [8763]Although he was mute, he would continually hum
in a falsetto voice, and, when finding several bananas at once in
his pocket, would exclaim "Wow!" in a falsetto voice.
Bill Cosby was a regular on the show from 1980–1984, when he did
Picture Pages educational segments (as
had the Captain himself, from 1978-1980).
From 1973 until 1977, Debbie Weems (1951–1978) was a regular on
Captain Kangaroo. She played many roles, including Debbie
the newspaper reporter, and was also an active puppeteer who did
the voice for Baby Duck. Weems also sang on many episodes and
recorded an album of songs from
Captain Kangaroo.
James Wall ("Mr. Baxter")
Jimmy Wall (credited also as "Larry Wall") was a regular on the
show from 1968 until 1978. Playing the kindly "Mr. Baxter," he
added a sense of calm to the show when all others around him may
have been caught up in the silliness. He also starred with the
Captain and Mr. Greenjeans in a serialized production entitled "The
Missing Paint Mystery" (shown on the program from December, 1969
until 1977; with the exception of 1976) in which the trio travels
to Curaçao (a Caribbean island) to confront the playfully evil
villain, Garumph (played by Cosmo Allegretti). Wall also worked as
a stage manager for CBS on Captain Kangaroo and other CBS
broadcasts, including
60 Minutes. Now age 90, Wall
continues to work as a CBS stage manager, and on September 1, 2008,
was honored for working on his 41st year of the "US Open" tennis
tournament. Sportscasters Dick Enberg and John McEnroe commented
that Wall still has a strong backhand tennis shot.
Carolyn Mignini
Carolyn Mignini played herself and all the women's roles on Captain
Kangaroo from 1981 until the program went off the air in
1993.
Kevin Clash was discovered as a puppeteer on a local Baltimore
television program and began appearing regularly on
Captain
Kangaroo from 1980 through 1984. He was the puppeteer for the
puppet character Artie (a voice vaguely reminiscent of the one he
later used on
Sesame Street
as Elmo) in puppet segments featuring Ralph and Artie. He also
appeared as himself and as an actor in many of the costume sketches
on the program.
John Burstein joined the show in 1980 as
Slim Goodbody, a man wearing a
bodystocking which showed the
internal
organs of the human body painted on it.
Bill McCutcheon joined the show after the cancellation of
Mr. Mayor. In the former show he
played Dudley D. Dudley the substitute statue in Mr. Mayor's town
square, and then made guest appearances on
Captain
Kangaroo.
Cartoons
A
cartoon starring a funnel-capped
shape-shifting boy named
Tom
Terrific was part of the show in the 1950s and 1960s. Tom
had a
sidekick named
Mighty Manfred the
Wonder Dog, and a nemesis,
Crabby Appleton. Other
cartoons included
Lariat Sam, which was developed by
veteran
game show announcer Gene Wood, then
a show staffer (who also sang the cartoon's theme song).
The Canadian-British cartoon "
Simon in the Land of Chalk
Drawings," appeared in the 1970s, featuring a child with magic
chalk who could create all sorts of short-lived creations in short
adventures (the original version featured a British narrator, but
Keeshan's voice was dubbed onto the cartoons for their U.S.
airing.)
The UK-produced cartoon
Ludwig, about a magical egg-shaped
robot was also included about that time. The cartoon's musical
score consisted of selections from the works of
Beethoven.
Also appearing in the 1970s was
The Most Important Person,
a short series of five-minute segments on the importance of life.
These segments would later be incorporated into most syndication
prints of
The Underdog
Show.
There was also a cartoon series called "The Toothbrush Family".
Based on an extended family of hygiene utensils as the name
suggests, they would embark on adventures based in the bathroom,
like water skiing in the tub, or rescuing friends caught in the
drain. Episodes were just a couple of minutes each.
A silent cartoon in the 1970s named "
Crystal Tipps" featured the
adventures of a young girl. Later reruns were narrated by the voice
of Mr. Moose.
Another UK favorite, "
The Wombles" were
also featured.
Re-runs of the
CB Bears and
Undercover Elephant as well as Motormouse and Autocat (of
the
Cattanooga Cats) were
shown in the 80's run.
Special guests
Among the special guests who made periodic appearances were
ventriloquist
Shari Lewis and
Lamb Chop; Mister Rogers (
Fred Rogers), who appeared in a 1975 episode,
where he and the Captain try to restore an old
gramophone. Comediennes
Joan Rivers,
Imogene
Coca,
Phyllis Diller,
Charlotte Rae,
Ruth
Buzzi, and
Minnie Pearl made guest
appearances, as did opera star
Roberta
Peters, talk show host
Phil Donahue
(in 1978),
Marlo Thomas, actor and folk
singer
Theodore Bikel, game show host
Bill Cullen, singers
Pearl Bailey (several appearances),
Dolly Parton, and
John
Denver and Television performers
Penny Marshall,
Cindy Williams,
Lorne
Greene,
Bonnie Franklin,
Andy Griffith,
The Smothers Brothers,
Rita Moreno,
Arte
Johnson,
Fannie Flagg,
Gale Gordon,
Lucie
Arnaz,
Ken Berry,
Mike Farrell,
Dick
Shawn, and
John Ritter as well as
Eli Wallach,
Anne Jackson,
Jerry
Stiller,
Anne Meara,
Jack Gilford,
Paul
Sorvino,
Hal Linden,
Mary Kay Place,
Walter Slezak, and
Carol Channing, plus there were several
appearances by
Alan Arkin and one when
his son
Adam Arkin played Alan's
father.
"Good Morning Captain!"
Beginning in the mid-1970s and continuing through the decade, the
show would open with several different people wishing the Captain
'good morning.' Many of the openings featured non-celebrities, but
also featured stars from hit TV shows, most of which broadcast over
CBS. The montage of 'good mornings' would always
end with the Captain himself returning the greeting before the
opening credits ran.
Among the celebrity greeters:
Regular features
Other regular features included
The Magic Drawing Board
and the Captain's "Reading Stories" sessions, which introduced kids
to stories such as
Curious
George, Make Way for
Ducklings, and
Mike Mulligan and the Steam
Shovel. The
Sweet Pickles books
were featured.
Songs included
Little Mary Make Believe,
Guess Who I
Am,
Little Black Frog,
There's a Hole In the
Bottom of the Sea,
Erie Canal,
Horse in Striped
Pajamas,
The Littlest Snowman, Daniel the Cocker
Spaniel, and many many more. On the first show of every month
the Captain would have a birthday cake for all of the children with
birthdays that month.
Keeshan also had a recurring role as "The Town Clown", a pantomime
piece that took place in and around the exposed wagon home of a
tramp-like circus clown. Like the character of Clarabelle that he
played on
Howdy Doody, the Town
Clown never spoke.
Favorites on the show were
Grandfather Clock
(voiced by Gus Allegretti), Rollo the Hippo and Dancing Bear.
The show would very often have simple
black light theatre segments utilizing
paper or cardboard cutouts. A notable recording of a popular song,
such as
Judy Garland singing
Over the Rainbow (from
The Wizard of Oz),
Mary Martin singing
Never Never Land (from
Peter Pan), or
Danny Kaye singing
Inchworm (from
Hans Christian Andersen)
would be heard while the cutouts played on the screen, animated by
a concealed
puppeteer. On other occasions,
full-fledged
hand puppets would
"perform" to the song being played.
Theme song
The original theme song to
Captain Kangaroo (titled
"Puffin' Billy") was used from 1955–1974. It was an instrumental,
written by
Edward G.
White. The track was from a
British stock music production library known as the
Chappell
Recorded Music Library which was sold through a New York
agency called Emil Ascher. The tune's original title referred to a
British steam locomotive. This tune was used on other programs on
both sides of the Atlantic. For example, two years before
Captain Kangaroo, it served as the wrap-up music for an
episode of the radio program
Rocky
Fortune called "Murder Among the Statues".
In its native United Kingdom
, it became famous as the theme to the weekly
BBC radio program Children's Favourites from 1952
to 1966, and is still widely recognised by the post-war
generation. It was later used in the
Enid Blyton parody
Five Go Mad in Dorset and in a
number of British TV adverts. The "Puffin' Billy" theme played as
the opening of each episode, with the music continuing until the
Captain hung his large ring of keys on a nail (which seemed to act
as a switch to turn off the music). If the Captain's keys ever
slipped off the nail, the music would begin playing again.
In 1957, lyricist Mary Rogers penned lyrics to the tune, creating a
newly titled
Captain Kangaroo song.
In 1974, a new theme song was composed for
Captain
Kangaroo, written by composer Robert L. Brush. As the new
theme used similar melodic elements from the original theme, Edward
G. White's name was added to the song credits.
Much later, around the 1980s,
Schoolhouse Rock mainstay
Lynn Ahrens (who composed and performed a few CK
songs herself), composed a new theme, entitled "Here Comes Captain
Kangaroo".
The theme song for
All New Captain Kangaroo used the
opening notes and part of the melody of the familiar theme as its
introduction.
Schedule history
While
Captain Kangaroo was still in planning stages, CBS executives had the idea of hiring Al Lewis, a kids' show host in Cincinnati
(ABC was running Lewis'
show at that time), to host their show, but Lewis' managers refused
to release him from his contract. Lewis' local kids show
went off the air in Cincinnati a year after
Captain
Kangaroo left CBS.
For the first three months,
Captain Kangaroo was only seen
on weekday mornings. Thereafter, until 1968, Captain was also seen
on Saturday mornings. One exception was the 1964 to 1965 season,
which saw the broadcast replaced on Saturdays by a Keeshan vehicle
called
Mr. Mayor. From 1968 and until 1982 it was seen on
weekdays only again.
Except for pre-emption for news coverage,
notably the three-day continuous coverage of the assassination of
John F. Kennedy
in 1963, and a few shows that were 45 minutes,
the show aired a full 60 minutes on weekday mornings until
1981. It was broadcast in color from September 9, 1968
onward.
The audience of children could never compete in the ratings with
such entertainment/news shows as
The Today Show, although
it won
Emmy Awards three times as
Outstanding Children's entertainment series in 1978–1979, 1982-1983
and 1983–1984. But in the fall season of 1981, to make more room
for
CBS Morning News, the
Captain was moved to an earlier time slot of 7 a.m. and cut to
30 minutes, sporting a new title
Wake Up with the
Captain. In the fall of 1982, it was moved Saturday mornings
to 7 a.m. (6 a.m. Central, Mountain, and Pacific). A rerun from
recent years was offered to CBS affiliates to run Sunday morning in
place of the cartoon reruns offered before. Most CBS affiliates
only cleared Saturday mornings after that. Still a third of the CBS
affiliates no longer ran Captain Kangaroo at all after 1982. It was
finally canceled altogether at the end of 1984 due to lack of
clearances from affiliates.
Just over a year later,
Captain Kangaroo ran in reruns on
PBS television stations from 1986–1993, with funding from PBS
stations,
School Zone
Publishing Company and from the
John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation.
American Public Television, then
known as the "Interregional Program Service", distributed the show,
along with Britder Associates (Bob Keeshan's production
company), and the Riehl Company, owned by former WPBT-TV
station
manager Dale Riehl.
The show was on the air for 29 years, making it one of the
longest-running network children's program series.
Sesame Street, insulated from the
Nielsen Ratings wars, holds the
record for 40 years
(as of Spring 2009) and still
counting. Several of the original
Sesame Street writers
and producers were hired from the
Captain Kangaroo staff
to help produce and direct the
Sesame Street program when
it went on the air in 1969.
The original director of the program was
Peter Birch who helmed the program for its first
25 years. Producer Jim Hirschfeld took over as director
following Birch's heart attack in 1980 and continued directing as
well as producing throughout the rest of the history of the show
which finally went off the air in 1993.
The cast of
Captain Kangaroo also hosted the
CBS coverage of the
Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade for several years in the 1960s.
Schwinn marketing
From the late 1950s, the
Schwinn Bicycle
Company made use of children's television programming to expand its
dominance of the child and youth bicycle markets. The company was
an early sponsor (from 1958) of
Captain Kangaroo. The
Captain himself was enlisted to sell Schwinn-brand bicycles to the
show's audience, typically six years old and under. At the end of
each live Schwinn marketing promotion, Bob Keeshan would intone,
"Prices slightly higher in the South and in the West". The on-air
marketing program was deemed successful by Schwinn, and the company
increased its market share of child and youth bicycles throughout
the 1960s.
The marketing program continued through the 1971 season, when the
Federal Trade Commission's
Staff Report,
Guidelines on Advertising to Children,
recommended against Schwinn's on-air marketing practices using the
show's host. In response, Schwinn and the show's writers altered
the format in 1972. The Captain no longer insisted that his viewers
purchase a Schwinn, but instead made regular on-air consultations
of a new character,
Mr. Schwinn Dealer. A 1973 internal
company news article concluded that the show's child audience had
difficulty separating Schwinn's sales pitch from that of the
show.
Popular culture
Rock musician
Frank Zappa wrote a
composition named "Mr. Green Genes" on his album
Uncle Meat and a sequel, "Son of Mr. Green
Genes" on his album
Hot Rats. This
led to the urban legend that Zappa was the son of
Hugh Brannum, the actor who played the
character
Mr. Green Jeans on Captain
Kangaroo, a myth Keeshan, in his autobiography,
Good Morning,
Captain, officially dispelled in 1996.
Many popular songs make reference to
Captain Kangaroo,
including the
Statler Brothers'
1965 hit song "
Flowers on the
Wall"; the
"Weird Al" Yankovic
song "The Brady Bunch"; the Bloodhound Gang's "Your Only Friends
Are Make Believe"; and the
VeggieTales
song, "
The Pirates Who
Don't Do Anything".
A Sunday
Shoe strip has
Skyler admiring somebody on TV: "He looks great for his age", "He's
a great communicator", etc. The reader is led to believe, and his
Uncle Cosmo believes, he was referring to President
Ronald Reagan, but in the last panel Skyler
reveals he has been referring to Captain Kangaroo. The strip was
actually published in Keeshan's autobiography, "Good Morning
Captain", in 1996.
Television appearances on network shows by Captain Kangaroo:
References
- CBS "US Open" broadcast, September 1, 2008
- Petty, Ross D., Pedaling Schwinn Bicycles: Lessons from the
Leading Post-World War II U.S. Bicycle Brand, Babson College,
MA (2007), p. 6 Article
- Petty, Ross D., Pedaling Schwinn Bicycles, Babson
College, MA (2007), pp. 5-7
- Petty, Ross D., Pedaling Schwinn Bicycles, Babson
College, MA (2007), p. 6
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