Golden Years of Television; 119; "119 Cisco Kid / Howdy Doody, National Broadcaster - Bob Keeshan, Captain Kangaroo"

Oh. The. Major funding for this program was provided by friends of Iowa Public Television. You're Iowa Public Television invites you out a memorable journey through television's first Jacquet live without America's favorite past time when it was young and boisterous. Live and experimenting relive the golden years of television. Good evening I'm Mike Newell and welcome to the golden years of television. Tonight we sampled two different types of children's television programming from the 1950s the weekly action adventure western series and the live studio production. First it's the kids Saturday morning hard riding. Tales from the southwest. Then it's an all time

television favorite starring the peanut gallery and all the citizens from live 1950's duty bill following tonight's presentations is a visit with former broadcast pioneer Bob Keeshan known as Captain Kangaroo. Incredibly in 1950 when Cisco was saddled up his Diablo and poncho got on board his logo Duncan Ronaldo was in his 50s and Leo Carrillo was past 70 yet their durability and south of the border appeal in 158 episodes made the Cisco Kid not only one of TV's first films indications but also one of TV's most popular and longest running series as well. As we look back. We see a pair of television characters developed from the short story fictional Henry. We enjoyed Duncan Ronaldo and lay low in the Cisco Kid.

Let's.

Go. Right. We lost them to them to

get away. Come on. Get back to kind of come on. We're not going to harm you. We're only looking for the way you want of him. Oh. I see that you haven't answered my question. We thought it was not you. You.

Get me. Now when you tell me what this is all about. What you feel when they were. Telling you about. I think you can get excited in a

bulletproof. Doors like you do when you're bored. If you think we might be mistaken.

Come on Joe. You know I think they still thank me. So when I heard you. Like you think I'm doing my gal. On the back of the ring or in a coffin.

Look at them.

Can you think of The Wrestler again. I think.

That's worth 1 0. 1 0. When you

get on. Come on.

Take care of yourself. Where you are.

Yes. In tonight's second presentation we catch a glimpse of children's programming from another

angle from the perspective of the live studio presentation. It was in December of 1947 that Buffalo Bob Smith hollered say kids what time is it for the very first time. And few at the time recognize that an American institution was in the making. The location is duty ville. Somewhere USA and the citizens were Bob Smith creations. It was an unlikely collection of humans and puppets including the likes of dilly dallying Chief Thunder the bluster Princess Summer Fall Winter Spring Flower and howdy little sister Heidi duty. The chemistry was right. And for 13 seasons. Howdy Doody ranked as America's most watched children's program both the daily and weekly versions. As we look back it's Saturday morning at 9:00. And if you would tune to NBC you'd enjoy a Howdy Doody with Buffalo Bob Smith.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah yeah. We're going to show you some of the things in the new people that we have here and

she has a wonderful musical surprise. Boy magic and we've got off. To the store. Did You Know That. We have the program. You don't come out until a little bit later when the fuel will cost. Don't be mad don't be mad. I'm only going to give the

California people speaking. Out. This is calling your. Dad behave. Thank God you're coming. Well good Gavin you'll never get here in time. Well I know. Impossible

so quickly. And you want to be the first. You're going over Mary. You know what the words and I think Oliver when I think your not going to

work. Yes well. He can't get. Here and. I say they wouldn't get any comic book boys and girls. I want you to watch this. Because every one

of these comic stories is coming to light now why. And then they. Wanted to know what he was trying to get the night before.

Playing that person. Back to that kid. That.

You. Know I did a little bit on my story. There. We don't have much now. But. We don't think you can get more than what you've already. There are certainly good to be here and but if you

pardon me it is not be some kind of limited. Let's move it there Buffalo Bob. I'm afraid you are right. Travelling by camel is awfully slow. I'm sending a short film with the boys and girls can see what my films will be about I'll be in duty the in person beginning Friday. Give my love to the Boys and Girls High and low and promise you'll do it with and I think it will be good you know Mr. Thomas the man I bet never going to get must've given that bill to Tommy minded to have ignored for a time enough to watch this is the film that was sent to us by Lowell Thomas Jr. if you remember I met him when I was in Africa and Canada. Here is Mr. Thomas his plane this is a plane that is taking around the world. And here we are flying over the moon in Africa. And here are the great pyramids in Egypt

and look at this boat coming up next. Here's a boat that's not out of the Bible story. No it's an Arab boat called a doll and it's been used today all over the Middle East. Isn't that a vote and here are some porpoises and these are African private been called went to see Dr in Africa and look here Mr. Thomas riding a camel and now he's in Afghanistan with the country and of course they're called Afghan and I think a blanket to me entirely too smoothly to suit me. Don't bluster to spoil things by now. I wonder where that old mustard we already. Yeah yeah more than myself you know the story. Promise that you'll be here. And I don't know where GM got Buffalo Bob or when are we going to hear the story printed I don't know.

I'm getting impatient with the law. You know he promised to hear that story. I think you're not trying. What would you write. You know I can't do.

It. Thank you very much. We're going to present for the very first time on television

Heidi the jungle girl's display of shooting with an African Bolero. Let's bring out the big. I think you're ready tell me. Oh no no no you mean how are you. No you don't understand and I want to ask you were I was I was only correcting your English. Sure I do Heidi only if you say the how are me and you should have said how it was never right here. You say me when you're talking about yourself and you want to talk of me. It's a yes no no no Heidi let's start all over I said Hello Heidi are you now with us today. That's right.

And then you say to me how are you. When you want to go Heidi that's right. Good. What do you think you're learning and that's great Tell me how you are you on that now but the big arrow is feeling. Great well right now boys and girls Heidi is going to show you the kind of fancy shooting that she used when she saved the buffalo's life. You know what you are people. What are your life the life of the people with colors that only the most hair throwing your weight around here don't let me get this is one time that this is not going to get what you want. We're pleased to welcome to the golden years of television a man who has spent his entire

professional life in the pursuit of quality children's television programming. Please welcome. Broadcast pioneer Bob Keeshan. There are unfortunately precious few milestones in network children's programming. In the beginning there was Howdy Doody and Buffalo Bob from the late 1940s through the 1950s. More recently sesame street from the late 1960s to the present and in between is yet another television milestone. The long running Captain Kangaroo Roses are red oak trees are tall. I'd like to see some ping. Oh. It was in 1955 that a 27 year old Bob Keeshan forged a personality that fashioned the baggy jacket the high cut pants and the walrus mustache and the warm hearted sincerity of Captain Kangaroo became a daily staple for 30 years ago. Captain Kangaroo debuted in the

same year as the Mickey Mouse Club and with quality programming now available both in the early morning and in the late afternoon. It could be said that 1955 marked the beginning of the golden age in children's network television. Captain Kangaroo is best remembered perhaps for its relaxed atmosphere. It's unhurried pace and the soft edges on the personalities who populated the treasure house. There was Mr. Green Jeans Mr Moose and grandfather clock and the troublesome bunny rabbit as well and each enjoyed the company of the captain. As did several generations of early morning television viewers Bob Keeshan you proceeded through your career fair feeling very responsible for children's programming. Yes well I think it's incumbent on anyone involved in children's television as a producer or writer actor whatever. To realize that we do have a great responsibility for the effects of our programming on young people and to then to act with that understanding so that the programming we produce does display a

respect for young people and leave them better than we found them soft edges around the characters. Bob Keeshan and Captain Kangaroo and Mr Green Jeans and everybody else in the treasure house. You had a learning models then you were teaching children to treat each other gently. Yes and we hope that they were completely unaware of it. That was a very important aspect of it the the art of entertaining but using if you will the stuff of education and the stuff of life good habits and accommodation and so on as our material for entertaining. So it is true that we were very consciously modeling behavior the way Mr. Green Jeans the captain or in simple ways we always read each other and very friendly and warm away and it was obvious that we displayed respect for each other. And even when there were episodes of antagonism perhaps between mild antagonism between bunny rabbit and myself there was

never any serious edge to it it was all in good fun. So I think that perhaps our young people for a couple of generations were unaware that that we were modeling those behaviors for that 1955 to 1985 in the evolutionary process and television has children's television programming now going under the microscope as it were. There's a lot of violence. It's awfully noisy that quick camera changes action adventure seems to be the name of the game and the children are worse off for it. Well many of our child professionals tell us that they tell us that there is a link between watching a violent television and aggressive behavior in young people. A Senate committee is presently here and I started trying to establish if possible a causal link. I think we all know that there is like I think it's a linkage. I think a child who is perhaps predisposed to. Aggressive behavior because of other factors in his life is probably

affected more than the child who is not predisposed. But I think we all have to be concerned. Television is difficult to talk about in a vacuum because I think television and the way we use it in this country is not just broadcaster responsibility but it is how parents use it when we use it as a babysitter. For example there are so many American parents do all of the questions involved in children and television all related very much to total questions of children and society how we as parents treat children how we in the legislature treat children how we in the end Social Services and other government functions treat children. So I think that we all have a lot of questions relative to children and society and how we nurture them that we have to answer with some seriousness. We've come to a time when the word deregulation can mean an awful lot. But in this in this context the pacing of television has allowed us now to say that we

are laissez faire about children's programming. There seems to be a loss or a lack of social responsibility. Well yes I think that. I find that very unfortunate because for years broadcasters were specifically held responsible to meet the needs of young audiences and when their license came for renewal they would go to Washington and talk about the wonderful things they had done. Not for that reason of course because they were good citizens and socially responsible. Now of course television the broadcast industry is now deregulated and broadcasters have no responsibility specifically no responsibility particularly if they look around their community and see needs being met by other licensees public broadcasters for example. They are then relieved of responsibility. So now that they are relieved of their responsible I want to see some of that good citizenship that they talked about all those years and unfortunately I don't think we're going to see too much of it because it's a very competitive

economic medium and broadcasters are really living by changed rules the rules have been changed by the government and they now really have the marketplace to contend with much more than government regulation before Captain Kangaroo. There were the Claribel years tell us something about Buffalo Bob Smith and howdy. Well that was that was really very much an accident. I mean people say how did you ever get involved in television I often say just a bad break. It was very accidental I was a young for a young man 20 years of age I was an undergraduate in the New York City working my way through college on the G.I. Bill of Rights having just come out of the Marine Corps and I was working as a page boy at NBC met Bob Smith did some research for his radio writers at the library and became quite friendly with them and then when he was about the televised Howdy Doody and the late 1947 there were only 80000 television sets in the entire country. A lot of them much smaller than the television set you have a year most of them. And Bob Smith asked if I would like to help as a

utility character on the set and life said through absolutely wonderful. And he tipped me five dollars for every program that I did so it really was not in any sense a serious effort on my part. But nobody was serious about television in those days and then it grew up gradually grew up and I was away late on my way to law school and never got there. Television became a huge industry with 30 million sets in the country and the networks span the continent and everybody wanted to get involved in it. And I also concurrently married and then became a parent and began to think what are we doing to children with television. Well more to the point in a positive sense what is the potential for helping aiding educating better serving children through this medium of television. And so I want to left how do you do it in 1952 and went to some local programming in New York which was very very much different from how do you duty. It was very much a value oriented one of them very very similar to Captain Kangaroo which attracted CBS's attention and they said Would you please put together a program of this

sort for the CBS network and I did. And 955 the institution began its run on CBS television had an awful lot of control over the character of Captain Kangaroo. Absolute control I should receive full blame for whatever he's not because I produce the program that my company produced and I remain the executive producer all through the years. So I began at the planning stage and I ended up speaking the line so I had the beginning in the end of every program in the future about occasion the future I hope it will be with this system of public television we love CBS because we did not have access to our traditional audience Public Television has welcomed us with open arms but with no pocket book Public Television is not well funded as probably your audience knows. And in our wisdom we deregulate television and cut back on funding to public television. So we're looking for corporate underwriting and if we can find a corporate underwriter who is willing to spend a modest sum of money to bring Captain Kangaroo five days a week to public television we will be available to a

contemporary audiences. It seems in this day and age that Fred Rogers has become the fodder for late night comedians. There are a lot of similarities between the softness of Captain Kangaroo and the softness of Fred Rogers and we are talking about two of the most decorated television programs of all time. Well Fred and I are very dear friends and I refer to Freddie's always embarrassed when I do it but I refer to him as my as my saints by my guiding light. I preceded Fred of course on television but I just think Fred is such basic to begin with a wonderful human being he I. My tears come to my eyes when I think about how wonderful Fred is he's just a great great human being and he's done such good work and I think that we are soulmates we really are very close as you say Michael. And the future of public television and the future of television programming we all hope includes Bob Keeshan. Is there a timetable involved here the timetable has only to do with the corporation the underwriter if we can

find the underwriter tomorrow we will be ready including public television will be ready to go very very quickly and then bring the captain back to it Monday through Friday. It all depends on the underwriting. Bob you have made a huge contribution to the network children's television programming I want to thank you on behalf of your many fans out there. Well you're very kind Michael thank you very much. Bob Keeshan joining us he is Captain Kangaroo and we hope he joins us again thanks Bob. Thank you Michael. We hope you've enjoyed our trip. TV's first Dechen will be back with more of the fabulous 50 years when we once again bring you the golden years of television. Her.

Major funding for this program was provided by friends of Iowa Public Television.