May 18, 2006--Clarabell The Clown Is Dead?
Anyone younger than 45 can stop right here and click on Gawker or Daily Kos or Huffington.
Let the rest of us, though, gather round this virtual hearth and shed a tear for Lew Anderson who died a few days ago at age 84. Not necessarily a tear for Lew himself, but for him in his incarnation as Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show.
The Show ran for 2,243 episodes from 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, until September 24, 1960, just a few weeks before John F. Kennedy was elected president. It was an age of very-much-needed Innocence before the cultural revolution that was inadvertently spawned by JFK.
And that innocence was no place better represented, literally embodied, by Clarabell. (See an obit linked; but more important see the second link that shows Clarabell in full flagrant makeup and costume that included an erect rope of hair emerging from his otherwise bald pate. I can only imagine what the Cultural Studies and Queer Studies folks have to say about all of this. Oh well.)
Every afternoon, those fortunate enough to have an early version of a TV, with a five-inch screen more “snow” than image, would pull up chairs to within a foot of the set to peer through the electronic crackle at Buffalo Bob; Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring; of course the garish wooden puppet Howdy himself; and, the wonder of all, Clarabell. They did their shtick in a very mundane studio surrounded by kids in makeshift seats, the Peanut Gallery in fact, where we would project ourselves while we lived out our very basic lives in East Flatbush or wherever, not at the time even capable of imagining five much less fifteen minutes of fame.
Like Harpo, I suppose Lew’s alter-ego (though perhaps alter-id would capture this more accurately), Clarabell did not speak but had two horns, one for yes and one for no—he as you might imagine wore out the no horn!
Clarabell did not speak until the very last episode when he peered into the camera and with tears visible—we could see them since the reception had improved by then—he uttered words for the one and only time, “Goodbye, kids.” Goodbye indeed! Kids indeed!
Rest in peace Lew, Clarabell, and everyone else from the Peanut Gallery who is there with you today because for many of us it will always be Howdy Doody Time!
Let the rest of us, though, gather round this virtual hearth and shed a tear for Lew Anderson who died a few days ago at age 84. Not necessarily a tear for Lew himself, but for him in his incarnation as Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody Show.
The Show ran for 2,243 episodes from 1947, two years after the end of the Second World War, until September 24, 1960, just a few weeks before John F. Kennedy was elected president. It was an age of very-much-needed Innocence before the cultural revolution that was inadvertently spawned by JFK.
And that innocence was no place better represented, literally embodied, by Clarabell. (See an obit linked; but more important see the second link that shows Clarabell in full flagrant makeup and costume that included an erect rope of hair emerging from his otherwise bald pate. I can only imagine what the Cultural Studies and Queer Studies folks have to say about all of this. Oh well.)
Every afternoon, those fortunate enough to have an early version of a TV, with a five-inch screen more “snow” than image, would pull up chairs to within a foot of the set to peer through the electronic crackle at Buffalo Bob; Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring; of course the garish wooden puppet Howdy himself; and, the wonder of all, Clarabell. They did their shtick in a very mundane studio surrounded by kids in makeshift seats, the Peanut Gallery in fact, where we would project ourselves while we lived out our very basic lives in East Flatbush or wherever, not at the time even capable of imagining five much less fifteen minutes of fame.
Like Harpo, I suppose Lew’s alter-ego (though perhaps alter-id would capture this more accurately), Clarabell did not speak but had two horns, one for yes and one for no—he as you might imagine wore out the no horn!
Clarabell did not speak until the very last episode when he peered into the camera and with tears visible—we could see them since the reception had improved by then—he uttered words for the one and only time, “Goodbye, kids.” Goodbye indeed! Kids indeed!
Rest in peace Lew, Clarabell, and everyone else from the Peanut Gallery who is there with you today because for many of us it will always be Howdy Doody Time!
posted by Steven Zwerling at
11:01 AM
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