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September 7, 2027 will mark 100 years from the day when electronic television made its first appearance on Earth.  To generate interest in the Centennial,  this website and accompanying podcast is going to Count Down the Top 100 Milestones from the First 100 Years of Television over 100 weeks until September 7, 2027.
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Some time in the afternoon of December 27, 1947 a genial thirty-year-old man with wavy dark hair and a broad smile, wearing a fringed cowboy shirt and a bolo tie, looked into a television camera at WNBC Studio 3A in Rockefeller Center and called out,

 “Say kids, what time is it?” 

Across the stage, about 40 children between the ages of 4 and 10 responded enthusiastically…

 “It’s Howdy Doody Time!” 

The host was Bob Smith, a veteran radio announcer from Buffalo, New York who assumed the moniker of “Buffalo Bob” alongside a freckle-faced marionette in a checkered cowboy shirt and a kerchief known as “Howdy Doody.” Children’s programming had arrived on television. 

Like a lot of early TV, The Howdy Doody Show was imported from radio.  

In 1946, the NBC radio network carried a show for kids called The Triple B Ranch, created by Bob Smith for WGR in Buffalo.  The Sunday afternoon broadcast featured songs, Western-themed stories and comic skits performed by the host as Buffalo Bob.  A character called Howdy Doody – “The all-American boy!” – was the breakout hit of the show, bringing young listeners back every Sunday for his earnest personality and cowboy spirit.

Smith’s agent, Martin Stone, quickly recognized the TV potential of his client’s squeaky-voiced alter ego and arranged a meeting with NBC programming executive Warren Wade. Legend has it that Stone brought along his six-year-old daughter, whose unfiltered enthusiasm for Howdy Doody helped persuade Wade to begin planning the show’s transition to television. 

The Howdy Doody Show premiered on Sunday, December 27, 1947 as part of NBCs Puppet Playhouse, before shifting to a daily schedule, Monday through Friday at 5:30 PM – conveniently placing the popular show well after school and before the typical American dinner hour. 

Puppeteer Frank Paris built the first Howdy puppet. The more familiar version of the puppet was created by Velma Dawson, and Howdy’s voice was performed by Buffalo Bob himself.  Not surprisingly, Buffalo Bob and his freckled sidekick were never seen on screen at the same time. 

The show was sponsored by Colgate-Palmolive, which used the platform to advertise toothpaste and shampoo in one of corporate America’s first efforts to use television to target its products to children. 

In addition to Howdy and Buffalo Bob, the show assembled a colorful cast of characters from the fictional town of Doodyville:

• Clarabelle, the silent clown who spoke only with a horn and a seltzer bottle – who was first portrayed by Bob Keeshan, who later found his own stardom as Captain Kangaroo.

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  Chief Thunderthud, a Native American known for the catchphrase “Kawabonga!”

• Princess Summerfall Winterspring, originally a female Native American puppet who eventually became a live action character.  Sadly, the Princess’s birthday fell on Leap Year, February 29, so even though she was 16 years old, she’d had only four birthdays.
• Mr. Bluster, the pompous mayor of Doodyville known for his loud, self-serving decrees. 

Other characters bore silly names like Dilly Dally, Flub-a-Dub and Inspector John H. Fadoozle, but none of the characters was more important than the kids in the Peanut Gallery.  Kids looking in from all around the country could easily imagine themselves in those bleachers. 

Howdy Doody proved the viability of programming for – and advertising to – children, and paved the way for other pioneering shows.

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  Kukla, Fran and Ollie premiered January 12, 1949 on NBC Chicago. Created by puppeteer Burr Tillstrom, and hosted by singer-actress Fran Allison, the show’s ad-libbed, gentle humor found a robust following among adults as well as their kids.

   

• The Small Fry Club, hosted by Bob Emery, another former radio personality known for his warm, low-key style.
• Junior Jamboree and Telecomics were other early experiments in children’s programming, though mostly local or short-lived.

Howdy Doody was broadcast live on NBC for 13 years, airing 2,343 episodes from 1947 to 1960.   It was also one of the first shows to be broadcast in color, providing NBC and its parent company with another vehicle to entice consumers to buy RCA’s pricey, new, color TVs when they first went on the market in the mid-to-late 1950s.  

Howdy Doody was instrumental in demonstrating the commercial viability of television.  The show provided a daily destination for both children and the advertisers that sought to reach them, proving that kids were a profitable audience. 

The template Howdy Doody established lasted for decades: a mix of character-driven storytelling, participatory interaction, product tie-ins, and live performance.  

For 2,342 episodes, Clarabelle the Clown remained silent. But at the very end of the show’s final broadcast, he spoke his first and only word, whispering a single, tearful, “Goodbye, Kids.”

Clarabelelle Speaks! (Wait for it)

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