from CrazyAboutTV.com

Series Description:

The Lights Out TV show was a 30 minute anthology, horror series on NBC. Each week audiences were treated to tales of terror, mystery, and suspense, often involving the supernatural.

Lights Out Cast:

Jack La Rue............... Narrator (1949-1950)
Frank Gallop ............. Narrator (1950-1952)
Arlo Hults ............... Organist (1949-1952)
Doris Johnson ............ Harpist (1950-1952)
Paul Lipman .............. Theremin Player (1949) (See Trivia Below)

Lights Out Trivia:

The Lights Out TV show was inspired by the “Lights Out Radio Show“. It was broadcast from January 1, 1934 to August 6, 1947. It began on a local radio channel (WENR) in Chicago and then after a few months, it moved to the NBC Radio Network.

If you check out the episode list below, you’ll see that only four episodes of Lights Out were broadcast in 1946 and then no more until 1949. Ironically, the TV show also broadcast those first episodes on a local NBC station (WNBT-TV) in New York City as a four episode special. Then, three years later, NBC decided to bring it back as a series that would be broadcast nationally. In 1948, ABC, CBS, and NBC expanded their programming from nearly nothing to several hours per day. The shows were mostly simply entertainers (comics, singers, etc.) performing in front of a camera, talk shows, news shows, and a few that had to be produced. In 1949, the number of produced shows (needing actors, scripts, etc.) went way up and Lights Out was one of them!

Since Lights Out was an anthology series, there were no regular cast members from week-to-week. There was a well known guest star or two nearly every week, however. To name just a few, there was John Forsythe (“Dynasty“), Jonathan Harris (“Lost in Space“), Steven Hill (“Law & Order“), Ross Martin (“The Wild Wild West“), E.G. Marshall (“The Defenders“), Burgess Meredith (“Batman“), Leslie Nielsen (“Police Squad“), and Robert Stack (“The Untouchables“).

If you look at the cast list above, you’ll notice that a musician named “Paul Lipman” is credited as a “Theremin Player”. The Theremin is one of the first electronic musical instruments. It has two antennae that sense the position of the musician’s hands. One of them varies the tone of the music and the other varies the volume. It’s “eerie” sound has made it the instrument of choice as the background music for many movies including “Spellbound”, “The Spiral Staircase”, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, “The Thing”, and “The Ten Commandments”. It was also used in the soundtracks of several other motion pictures.

Before each episode began, the audience saw a close up of a pair of eyes followed by a bloody hand that reached out to turn off the lights. Then there was an eerie laugh and the narrator said, “Lights out everybody” followed by a candle being blown out. This same technique of getting the audience worked up and ready to be scared to death was used later by Alfred Hitchcock (“Alfred Hitchcock Presents“), Rod Serling (“The Twilight Zone“), and Boris Karloff (“Thriller“), and others.

Lights Out had some stiff competition for viewers when it first went nationwide in July of 1949! CBS was airing “Candid Camera” in the same time slot followed by “The Goldbergs“. Both of those were extremely popular shows. To make matters worse, Lights Out was followed by “The Cities Service Band of America” which was a series highlighting a 48 piece band, vocalists, glee clubs, and baton-twirling majorettes.

Like all nationwide shows at that time, Lights Out was broadcast live to New York City and was filmed on “kinescope” for later viewing in the rest of the U.S. Kinescope refers to the filming in black & white of a show using one camera and 16mm film.

Taken from CrazyAbout TV.com

Series Description:

The Howdy Doody TV show was a children’s series about Buffalo Bob and his friends, both live characters and marionettes, at a circus for the first two seasons, and then, in the town of Doodyville. There was a live audience section that regularly allowed the at home audience to see the reactions to Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody’s antics on the faces of delighted children. It was the first nationwide broadcast of a children’s TV show!

Howdy Doody Show Cast:

Cast:

Bob Smith ................. Buffalo Bob
Bob Keeshan ............... Clarabell (1947-1953)
Bobby "Nick" Nicholson .... Clarabell (1953-1955) / Cornelius Cobb
Lew Anderson .............. Clarabell (1955-1957)
Gil Lamb .................. Clarabell (One Episode Only in 1953)
Bill LeCornec ............. Chief Thunderthud
Dayton Allen .............. Chief Thunderchicken
Judy Tyler ................ Princess Summerfall Winterspring #1 (1949-1953)
Linda Marsh ............... Princess Summerfall Winterspring #2 (1953-1957)
Ted Brown ................. Bison Bill
James Doohan .............. Timber Tom
Larry Mann ................ Cap'n Scuttlebutt / Flub-a-Dub
Rhoda Mann ................ Flub-A-Dub
Jean Cavall ............... La Touke / Papa
Robert Goulet ............. Trapper Pierre
Eric House ................ Willow #1
Barbara Hamilton .......... Willow #2
Caryl McBain .............. Princess Haida
Peter Mews ................ Timber Tom
Maxine Miller Gerrard ..... Princess Pan of the Forest
Mary Anne Heartline ....... Herself

Voices:

Claude Rae ................ Howdy Doody #1 / Phineas T. Buster / Mr. X
Jacqueline White .......... Howdy Doody #2
Dayton Allen .............. Phineas T. Bluster / Inspector John J. Fadoozle / Ugly Sam the Wrestler
                            Lanky Lou the Cowhand / Pierre the Chef / Sir Archibald the Explorer
Bill LeCornec ............. Dilly Dally / Oil Well Willie
Norma MacMillan ........... Heidi Doody
Donna Miller .............. Prunella Bluster / Heidi Doody
Jack Mather ............... Various characters

Howdy Doody Show Trivia:

Buffalo Bob Smith first introduced Howdy Doody on the radio show titled, “The Triple B Ranch Show”. On that show the character was called “Elmer” and he would say hello by exclaiming, “Howdy Doody”!

The Howdy Doody Show was originally called “The Puppet Playhouse” with a circus-type theme. In 1949, the theme was changed to a group of characters who lived in a town called “Doodyville. Many new characters were added, some were dropped, Princess Summerfall Winterspring was changed from a marionette to a real live person and the name of the series became The Howdy Doody Show. The series has also been popularly referred to as simply “Howdy Doody” and “The Buffalo Bob Show”.

The Howdy Doody Show was the first TV show to be aired in color (starting in 1955!). It was the first children’s series to be broadcast nationwide. It was the first NBC series to air five days per week. And finally, it was the first with more than 1,000 continuous episodes for a total of 2343 episodes during its 13-year run!

There were several Howdy Doody marionettes. Buffalo Bob kept one on display in a glass case in his home until his death. There is on in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. that’s called “Double Doody”. Double Doody was actually Howdy’s evil twin brother on the show. Another one called “Photo Doody” was in the office of a former executive producer of the Howdy Doody Show when, in 1983, vandals broke in and chopped off its head!

Howdy Doody did not make an appearance on the first show because the marionette had not been finished in time. Instead, Buffalo Bob Smith pretended that the puppet was in a box!

When the owner of the Howdy Doody marionette demanded that he get all rights to merchandising of Howdy Doody products, NBC said NO WAY! The following month, a new marionette appeared with a somewhat different look!

Bob Keeshan who was the first “Clarabell the Clown” on the Howdy Doody Show went on to become the first “Captain Kangaroo”! Bob started in show business as a page at NBC when he was still in High School. He served in the Marine Corps during World War II. After leaving his role as Clarabell, Bob tried an apprenticeship as an undertaker for a while but quickly gave that up when offered the role of Captain Kangaroo!

In 1954, Buffalo Bob Smith suffered a heart attack in 1954. Bison Bill and Gabby Hayes took his place as hosts for a short time until his return in 1955.

Clarabell never spoke on the show until after the closing credits of the very final episode! Even then, while nearly in tears, all Clarabell said was, “Goodbye, Kids”. Clarabell would communicate on the show by using two horns. Honking one of them meant “Yes” and honking the other meant “No”.

Unlike many of the series of that day that had only one sponser, companies were begging to sponsor the Howdy Doody Show! Among them were Blue Bonnet Margarine, Colgate, Continental Baking, Ideal toys, Kellogg’s cereals, Luden’s, Mars candy, Nabisco cereals, Ovaltine, Palmolive, Poll-Parrot Shoes, Royal Pudding, Welch’s Grape Juice, an Wonder Bread.

Dayton Allen who besides playing the part of “Chief Thunderchicken”, also did many of the Howdy Doody Show’s puppet’s voices, went on after the series to do the voices for Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, and Deputy Dawg … to name a few!

Judy Tyler (Princess Summerfall Winterspring) left the Howdy Doody Show in 1953. She went on to star in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, “Pipe Dream”. That role got her on the cover of Life Magazine. She barely completed the movie, “Jailhouse Rock”, where she co-starred with Elvis Presley when she was killed in a car accident along with her second husband whom she had become married only 17 days prior to her death. Elvis Presley is rumored to have become infatuated with Judy Tyler while filming “Jailhouse Rock” and could not bring himself to watch the film because of her death!

The area where the live audience sat was referred to by the cast as “The Peanut Gallery”.

By 1957, The Howdy Doody Show was becoming somewhat dated. Newer, more up-to-date shows like the “Mickey Mouse Club” were drawing away its juvenile audience. Sponsors left, one-by-one, and the series was canceled.

In 1976, “The New Howdy Doody Show” came to the airwaves as a syndicated series. It again starred Buffalo Bob Smith and Howdy Doody and ran two seasons for 130 episodes!

Theme Song Lyrics:

Title: “Howdy Doody”

Written By: “Edward Keane”

Performed By: “Buffalo Bob Smith”

(Buffalo Bob): “Say kids, what time is it”?
(Kids): “It’s Howdy Doody Time”!

It’s Howdy Doody Time.
It’s Howdy Doody Time.
Bob Smith and Howdy Do
say Howdy Do to you.

Let’s give a rousing cheer,
’cause Howdy Doody’s here,
It’s time to start the show,
so kids let’s go!