When I’m trying to figure out what’s on TV that my granddaughters might enjoy, my overwhelmed mind goes back to the days of the late 1950s when the only suitable TV fare for kids was Saturday mornings.
It was agonizing to choose among three shows, one on each network, because if you didn’t watch it in real time, it was gone. If your sibs didn’t want to watch what you did, you were out of luck. It wasn’t quite the Dark Ages since we all had cathode ray tubes, but imagine a society so bereft that there were no consumer video recording devices.
But I had an experience that made all the juvenile angst worth it. I got to attend The Howdy Doody Show. I was assuredly a fan. Between 10 and 10:30 a.m. every Saturday, I sat inches away from the black and white Magnavox TV (despite my mother’s importunings) and carefully drank in the antics of Howdy and Buffalo Bob Smith.
Somehow, because my parents knew somebody who knew somebody, I was able to get on that show, sitting in the notorious Peanut Gallery with a bunch of other well-scrubbed, Ike-liking, all-American youth. When the day came for me to go to Rockefeller Center, home of the NBC studios, I was in heaven. This was TV. Real television. Going live everywhere, except maybe not the Soviet Union. Mother and I went into the building and everything became entirely surreal for me. I saw one of my favorite people, ventriloquist and show host Shari Lewis, walking down the hallway between two giant men and laughing. I was very much in love.
Mom and I were eventually directed to the studio where Howdy Doody was filmed, and I had never seen anything like it. Everything was either much bigger or much smaller than I had imagined. There were 40 of us kids who streamed into the bleachers that made up the Peanut Gallery. In front of us was a whirlwind of activity — cameras being rolled around, production assistants with headphones, some people in costumes (the stars!), and lights hanging and buzzing everywhere.
A timer big enough for everyone to see was mounted on a stand and counting down the moments to broadcast. One man, very much in charge of the Peanut Gallery, glared at us. “All right you kids, shut up!” he said. “Shut up!” Where, I wondered, was the joy? “Now you do exactly what I tell you to do or I will kick you out of here,” he said. We paid attention. He instructed us on when to applaud and who to watch. We rehearsed the opening seconds of the show, where Buffalo Bob intones, “Say kids, what time is it?” and we all holler, “It’s Howdy Doody Time!” We’d then sing the show’s theme song which, apparently, is one of the first times audience participation was used on TV.
The thrill of being there had turned to terror by the time our handler got through with us, but we did watch that timer with the attentiveness of professional card players and when the second hand hit 10 o’clock we listened for the cue and then hollered for all we were worth.
Then we forgot about the jerk and began to enjoy the show, although we weren’t watching it quite the way we’d been accustomed to. Buffalo Bob used cue cards! Everybody used cue cards! Clarabell the clown, being mute, did not, of course, but he did prance around squirting his seltzer bottles and causing general havoc, which we loved. It was a swirl of activity whether on air with performance energy, or off air with the controlled chaos of changing for the next scene.
We couldn’t hear some of the scenes with the marionettes such as Howdy conversing with Phineas T. Bluster. They were a bit far away and were miked, but not so we could make out what they were saying. I don’t know what the show was about, not that there was a meaningful “plot.” We were essentially extras, there to provide a certain atmosphere but otherwise ordered to stay out of the way. Over to the right was a tiny booth that I realized was the Ruff and Reddy Show. It was just cartoons, of course, with just the live-action host Jimmy Blaine. It came on after Howdy Doody, and we were allowed to watch a bit of it although all we saw was the host reading cue cards. The cartoons were going on elsewhere in the ether of broadcast TV. But still!
As we left, the jerk was smiling (he was done with us and thus, relieved), and saw to it each one of us got a big manila envelope with swag. I remember it contained a cardboard marionette of Howdy Doody, with metal brads allowing the arms and legs to move. It was cool, yet ultimately unimpressive as a functioning toy. There was other stuff as well, most of which I don’t remember. But there was a package of Hostess Sno Balls, pink and covered with shredded coconut. I was well pleased, even though the Hostess cupcake was my preference. But loot is loot and it meant I’d been a member of the Peanut Gallery and a footnote to a footnote of American Pop Culture.
So when I am confronted today with entire networks that are devoted solely to children’s programming, I settle into a comfortable bemusement. And think about Shari Lewis.