Photo Doody is one of the three original

Howdy Doody ''Howdy Doody'' is an American Children's television series, children's television program (with circus and Western (genre), Western frontier themes) that was created and produced by Victor F Campbell

1940s

marionette A marionette (; french: marionnette, ) is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a marionettist. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or reveale ...

s. He is the Howdy figure that was used in Howdy Doody still photo sessions for the '' Howdy Doody Show'' and the publicity pictures taken with

Buffalo Bob Smith Robert Emil Schmidt (November 27, 1917 – July 30, 1998), nicknamed Buffalo Bob, was the host of the children's show ''Howdy Doody''. Biography Born in Buffalo, New York, as Robert Emil Schmidt, he attended Masten Park High School. Schmidt g ...

. The near-stringless Howdy marionette was also used in personal appearances and parades. His arm joints and legs were specially built to hold a pose for advertising and marketing photography. He sat easily in Buffalo Bob Smith's lap. Photo Doody, made of carved wood, is 30" tall. His face is hand-painted with blue eyes; he has red hair, a gap-tooth grin, pronounced ears and 48 freckles (one for each of the states at the time when the show first went on the air). He wears a western style outfit consisting of blue jeans, a plaid shirt, cowboy boots and a red bandanna.

From prop to the private market

Prior to sale, Roger Muir, executive producer of ''The Howdy Doody Show'', owned the puppet. In 1983 Photo Doody was mutilated by vandals who broke into the New York

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...

office of Muir. Puppeteers successfully repaired the damage but Photo Doody still bears neck "scars" where the vandals pulled his head off. Photo Doody sold at Leland's auction house in 1997 for $113,432 to a private collector. The Howdy Doody sale made international print and broadcast headline news. Following the 1997 auction, '' Art and Antiques Magazine'' named Photo Doody one of the world's "Top 100 Treasures" for 1997. In 1998 the ''Palm Beach Daily News'' (The Shiny Sheet), a ''

Palm Beach Post ''The Palm Beach Post'' is an American daily newspaper serving Palm Beach County in South Florida, and parts of the Treasure Coast. On March 18, 2018, in a deal worth US$42.35 million, ''The Palm Beach Post'' and ''The Palm Beach Daily News'' we ...

'' newspaper, identified

TJ Fisher TJ Fisher is a Southern author, documentarist and social critic who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana and Palm Beach, Florida. Career Prior to being an author, Fisher had taken jobs as a journalist, gossip columnist, documentary filmmaker and ad ...

as the Photo Doody high bidder. A "Howdy Doody Comes to Town" front-page feature story profiled Fisher taking Howdy around town in a convertible and dining out with him at local restaurants. Photo Doody is the only original Howdy Doody prop-

to ever be privately owned. The other two screen-used Howdy

puppets A puppet is an object, often resembling a human, animal or mythical figure, that is animated or manipulated by a person called a puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods or strings to mov ...

are museum property — the one used in the show remains on display at the

Detroit Institute of Arts The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the list of largest art museums, largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation a ...

; and the other ("Double Doody") is on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian.

The TV show

The half-hour '' Howdy Doody Show'' was the first children's program to appear on TV. The pioneering show set the pattern for many children's programs. A near-record 2,343 episodes aired during its 13-year

national TV stint from 1947 to 1960. During the show's heyday, Howdy received 1,500 pieces of mail a week. The program's host,

created the Howdy character for radio and performed the voice of Howdy on television. Actual fabrication of the various Howdy puppets fell to the show's props and puppetry specialists: Rufus Rose, Velma Wayne Dawson, and Scott Brinker. The show was among the first color TV productions —in part to promote the sale of color television sets (NBC, which aired the show, was owned by TV-maker RCA). Beginning in 1950, the NBC test pattern featured a picture of Howdy. Photo Doody was the model for the NBC test pattern. With hundreds of thousands of children in the television viewing audience glued to their TV sets at 5:30 p.m. weekdays, each show opened with Buffalo Bob asking —"Say, kids, what time is it?" The children in the studio audience "

peanut gallery A peanut gallery was, in the days of vaudeville, a nickname for the cheapest and ostensibly rowdiest seats in the theater, the occupants of which were often known to heckle the performers. The least expensive snack served at the theatre would of ...

" responded in unison, "It's Howdy Doody time!" Buffalo Bob Smith did commercials for Wonder Bread, Campbell Soup, Hostess Twinkies and other sponsors that were new to television; it taught marketers the strength of marketing to children.

References

* ''The Season: The Secret Life of Palm Beach and America's Richest Society'', 2004 age 31 by Ron Kessler * ''American Puppetry: Collections, History and Performance'', 2004 age 252 by Phyllis T. Dirks * ''Andy Kaufman Revealed'', 1999 ages 81–82 by Bob Zmuda * ''Palm Beach Daily News'', 1998 anuary and August headline articles by John Henderson, staff write

* ''Palm Beach Post'', 1998 ebruary by Thom Smith, columnis

* Leland

* Doodville Trivi

* ABC New

* ''New York Times'

* ''New York Times'

* ''New York Times'

* ''U.S. News & World Report'

* American Association of Sunday and Feature Editor

* TV Acre

* Smithsonian Museum of Natural Histor

* The Museum of Broadcast Histor

* TV Party: All Hail Howdy Dood

* No Strings Attached (satire), appeared in ''GQ Magazine'', 199

Puppets Western (genre) heroes and heroines