First Captain Kangaroo, Now Madge... :(

Bob Keeshan, Captain Kangaroo, Dies at 76

The Associated Press
Friday, January 23, 2004; 1:34 PM

QUECHEE, Vt. - Bob Keeshan, who gently entertained and educated generations of children as television's walrus-mustachioed Captain Kangaroo, died Friday at 76.
Keeshan died of a long illness, his family said in a statement.

Keeshan's "Captain Kangaroo" debuted on CBS television in 1955 and ran for 30 years before moving to public television for six more. The program was wildly popular among children and won six Emmy Awards, three Gabriels and three Peabody Awards.

The format was simple: Each day, Captain Kangaroo, with his sugar-bowl haircut and uniform coat, would wander through his Treasure House, chatting with his good friend Mr. Green Jeans, played by Hugh "Lumpy" Brannum.

He would visit with puppet animals, like Bunny Rabbit, who was scolded for eating too many carrots, and Mr. Moose, who loved to tell knock-knock jokes.

But the show revolved about the grandfatherly Captain Kangaroo, whose name was inspired by the kangaroo pouch-like pockets of the coat Keeshan wore.

"I was impressed with the potential positive relationship between grandparents and grandchildren, so I chose an elderly character," Keeshan said.

[ Edited by: Johnny Dollar on 2004-02-18 10:11 ]

Well, there just went a big piece of my chilhood. I loved watching his show.
Thanks for all you gave Captain!!
Here was his opening theme song:
http://www.audioautographs.com/tiki/CAPKANG.WAV

A Tiki Cheers To You

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga on 2004-01-23 12:53 ]

[ Edited by: Unga Bunga on 2004-02-19 01:17 ]

POOP!

What happened to Mr. Greenjeans? (or is it Greengenes-maybe he was an alien?)

One of the fist things I ever got as a kid was a Captian Kangaroo doll. It was more like a cartoon 'stuffed animal' version of the Captain and it talked when you pulled the string. One of the things it said was 'my pockets can hold all kinds of things'. Hmmm...gotta laff at that as an adult. Funny thing is...I still have the doll 30 some years later! It doesn't talk anymore and its kinda worn out, but it's still here. I watched that show all the time when I was a kid. Looking back alot of the stuff on that show was totally surreal. Dancing Bear, Magic Drawing Board, The Town Clown, and those frog puppets, I forget what their names were, but they were SO weird.

Wonder where Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit are these days. Retired in Florida? Yeah, I though I saw them at the bar at Mai Kai making some noise.

In honor of the Captian I will drop a hundred ping pong balls out my window tonight on some unsuspecting pedestrians below.

On 2004-01-23 13:01, donhonyc wrote:

In honor of the Captian I will drop a hundred ping pong balls out my window tonight on some unsuspecting pedestrians below.

That's Great!!! donhonyc that's the funniest thing I read all day ~ mahalo brah

Farewell, old friend..at least he has loyal pallbearers, Mr. Green Jeans and Bainter the painter.

R.I.P.
Thanks for the fond memories

I remember that puppet-filled song "co-co-nut and bah-nah-nah" from his show...and so mixed up a drink last night with coconut rum - banana liquer and lime juice.

I called it the "Captain Kangaroo"...

None of us (8) knew he had died until just now.

weird.

As we drank those last night - a couple each - we talked about that show for a good 30 minutes.

We must have been in sync with the good Captain. He was MUCH cooler than Sesame Street or Mister Rogers or any of the other "watch and learn" shows of childhood.

I hope he and Mr. Rogers are being well served at the Big Kahuna table in the sky.

Both Bunny Rabbit and Dancing Bear have no comment.

NO WAY!

I never got to find out what was in Mr. Green Jean's magic pocket.

My favorite episode was when Captain Kangaroo was visited by pago the antipapalosa (er..., or maybe that was a dream).

donhonyc, were those frog puppets? I thought they were worms. Didn't they used to sing to eachother like Steve & Edie Gormet?

That was a wonderful tribute you wrote. As I crawled beneath the covers & closed my eyes to go to sleep last night, I thought I could hear the gentle bouncing of ping pong balls all over this great land of ours.

Were they worms? I can't remember.

I went to the Museum of Television & Radio a few years ago and watched an old episode of Captain Kangaroo. Talk about unearthing parts of your brain that you haven't used since being a kid! Those worms or frogs were on the episode singing to each other, and it totally freaked me out because I hadn't seen them in so long. They were like hand puppets made out of gold lame' or something. They were almost like some weird hallucinatory image out of a Captain Beefheart song. Have any of you ever heard the song 'Ella Guru' from the 'Trout Mask Replica' album? It sounds like the Captain is dueting with one of those puppets.

Captain Kangaroo, Captain Beefheart.
Treasure House, Trout Mask.

Wow, scary!! What the hell is going on here??

One of my earliest memories is of watching Captain Kangaroo in my elementary school's music room (it was the only room in the school that had a TV hookup) and loving every minute of it. I heard about his death at work during my lunchtime. Honestly, it was all I could do to keep working the rest of my day. I know everyone will miss him terribly, each for their own reasons. To me, he was the best part of my day, even better than macaroni and cheese for lunch! Here's to you Bob, you are loved and missed by everyone.

OH! I just remembered a little bit of Bob Keeshan trivia for you. He began doing the Captain at the tender age of 28, after leaving 6 seasons on the Howdy Doody show as Clarabell the Clown. This means, he's pretty much touched almost every child in America since, what, 1951? Now that's truly amazing. . .

New day, new post! I was mistaken on when Mr. Keeshan started playing Clarabell. It was 1948, not 1951. He also started Captain Kangaroo in 1955. I miss him, sorry guys.

That makes me sad! All we have now is Mr. Rogers and the old Romper Room lady. What was her name?

On 2004-01-25 12:26, Atomicchick wrote:
That makes me sad! All we have now is Mr. Rogers and the old Romper Room lady. What was her name?

Sorry to break this to you, Atomicchick, but Mister (Fred) Rogers passed away last February. Long live Captain Kangaroo in our hearts & memories!

I thought that was the case, but couldn't quite remember when he passed away. I should have remembered that, he's a fraternity brother of mine. . . sheesh

Atomicchick wrote

the old Romper Room lady. What was her name?

Her name was Miss MaryAnn...I waited forever to hear my name called when she looked into the magic mirror, I never did hear it....sniff..sniff....

I did meet her when I was 7 at a movie theater that I went to see The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad at an all day Ray Harryhausen Saturday film festival, at some old theater in Whittier, Ca. I knew it was her becuase I had never seen someone with such BIG hair except for pretty Miss. MaryAnn. She was my first television personality sighting. I was very nervous asking her if she would give me her autograph, she was so nice she just smiled and said "sure". She asked if my grades were good and told me I needed to make sure I did all my chores at home. I'm still a good Do Bee. :P

http://latvlegends.com/RomperRoom/missmary.html

[ Edited by: DawnTiki on 2004-01-26 22:51 ]

On 2004-01-24 19:49, SwingingTiki wrote:
This means, he's pretty much touched almost every child in America since, what, 1951?

Mommy, Captain Kangaroo touched me in my no-no place!

GONG!

:)

j$

Madge, Hands-Down A Cultural Winner

By Hank Stuever
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 18, 2004; Page C01

Jan Miner played Madge the Manicurist in an age of blissful, new-and-improved consumer disbelief. Madge came about in a time when Madison Avenue conspired to fool diners at fine restaurants by having their coffee secretly replaced by Folgers, to make Mother Nature think margarine was butter, and to surreptitiously dunk women's hands in Palmolive dish soap.

"You're soaking in it" was Madge's trademark line, first uttered in a television commercial in 1966. Miner played Madge until 1992, outlasting even the original Colgate-Palmolive contract with the Ted Bates advertising agency that created her.

Miner, who died Sunday in Bethel, Conn., at age 86, enjoyed a long career as a serious stage and film actress, but she never played down or tried to escape her Madgeness.

She recognized and enjoyed the permanent spot Madge reserved for her in TV pop-cultdom, in addition to the royalty payments. She was one of those few Americans who make the ultimate sacrifice of likeness and personality to become unforgettable commercial mascots; consequently she would never walk through an airport again without hearing "You're soaking in it." (International airports, too: To Germans, Madge was called Tilly. The French knew her as Francoise. Miner read Madge's lines phonetically in different languages.)

Madge also made for excellent and lasting camp: Gay men of three decades have especially enjoyed telling one another, Madgelike, just how much "you're soaking in it," whether "it" was a metaphor for something emotional, political, fashionable or simply circumstantial. It's a gentle reminder that things aren't quite what they seem, Miss Thing. It's comeuppance. It's surprise. You think you're above all that, but you're soaking in it. Madge knows.

According to a Web site called TV Acres, which devotes itself to such trivia, the talkative, fictional Madge worked in "Salon East Beauty Parlor," where she put her lady customers' hands in a shallow bowl secretly filled with green, sudsy Palmolive. As Madge prattled on about how "Palmolive softens hands while you do dishes," the customer would predictably express doubt, and therefore had to be told:

"You're soaking in it."

Sometimes they'd gasp and start to pull their hands out, and Madge would coax them back in, saying relax, relax. You'd been punk'd by Madge, tricked into having such soft hands.

Repeat shtick for 26 more years, off and on. No one can explain why this commercial worked for so long, or to what degree anyone loved Madge. (More than Rosie? Less than Mr. Whipple?) She transmitted some of the sassy broad feel of her era -- Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnett, Jo Anne Worley, the strong women wisecrackers of sketch comedy and cocktail parties. But we never got to hear the rest of her gossip and knowledge. What else did Madge have to tell us?

Miner studied under Lee Strasberg and did repeat seasons of Shakespeare festivals. She played Gertrude Stein on stage in the 1980s, and into her old age was still working (among her last credits is an episode of "Law & Order" in 1994).

But Miner would always be Madge. Audiences attending plays in which she was cast would gasp -- "Madge!" -- when she walked on stage. A&W root beer once persuaded her in 1991 to moonlight as Madge for an ironic ad campaign that had her soaking her hand in a mug of root beer. She was a soaker, soaking in it on cue. She told the Boston Globe in 1987 that she was lucky to have been Madge, that landing a role in a commercial is like a "present from heaven for actors. Did you know that only 10 percent of all actors earn over $10,000 a year?"

As Madge, Miner was set for life. One line, one little commercial job, turning into something people would always remember, yelling "Hey, Madge," wherever she'd go. Waving at her with their dry, flaky hands.

I wonder if any of the Madge's soakies ever attained stardom later on?
The thing I liked about her in the commercials was that she didn't come off as stupid or annoying to sell the product and you always felt like you were in on a little secret.
:wink:

Bummer. My hands will never be the same again!