HOWDY DOODY FROM QUICK NEWS WEEKLY

 I've collected all 209 issues of QUICK News Weekly.  In that wonderful little magazine you can discover the whole 1949-1953 world!  And here's part of it: 

Broadcasting men were pointing to one answer to the question of whether video could develop new, original shows especially suited to it rather than adapted from movies or radio. The answer: "Howdy Doody (NBC-TV, Monday through Friday, 5:30 p.m. EST), a charming puppet show designed for children but rapidly drawing a large and delighted adult audience. The star of the show, which has a circus setting: a knee-high puppet named Howdy Doody. The man behind the puppets: Bob Smith, an ex-disk jockey who dreamed up Howdy Doody in 1947, has zoomed with him to the top of the television personality bracket.  (QUICK, Nov. 14, 1949)

Bob Smith, creator of "Howdy Doody," recalled that his pint-sized puppet-cowboy once was a bodiless voice named Elmer. That was when Smith was a radio m.c. on a children's show. To add to the fun he introduced a drawling, oafish voice (his own on a higher register), called the character "Elmer." Because Elmer always addressed the kids with "Howdy doody, kids!" his radio fans soon began calling him "Howdy Doody," demanded to see what he looked like. That made him a natural for video. Late in 1947, a body that matched the voice was constructed and introduced on his own NBC-TV show (Mon.-Fri., 5:30 p.m. EDT - Sponsors: Mars Co., Ovaltine, Colgate, Kellogg Co.). He's been a top-rating TV-viewing habit ever since.  (QUICK, July 3, 1950)

A freckle-faced puppet named Howdy Doody has become a $15 million-a-year businessman with five TV shows a week, a record album that outsells "South Pacific" albums, and a flourishing comic-book circulation. By fall, musically-equipped, three-dimensional, animated displays of Howdy Doody are going to be in 18 department stores. Predicts the Howdy Doody brain trust: "This year at Macy's, Howdy Doody will share billing with Santa Claus." (QUICK, Sept. 11, 1950)

Buffalo Bob Smith, human alter ego for puppet cowboy Howdy Doody, admitted he "knows less about puppets than anybody in the world." A former radio actor, Bob parlayed a booming voice and an ability to get excited about the things kids get excited about into one of TV's top small fry shows.

The "Howdy Doody" idea developed five years ago out of a Western comedy character Bob used to do on radio. It now employs seven live actors and a handful of puppet regulars. Bob's job: playing himself, and Howdy's voice. (Someone else pulls the strings backstage.)

For grownups who can't understand the show's big moppet following, Bob explains: "Kids are dominated all day long. They'd like to be Howdy, because nobody bosses him around and he always wins out in the end." The show's 6,000 letters a week, 3-year wait for tickets to the show's "peanut gallery" bear him out. "It's a natural," says Bob, "and in three years there'll be a whole new generation."  (QUICK, Feb. 2, 1953)

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