AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |
Back to Blog
Captain kangaroo characters1/4/2024 ![]() ![]() In 2014 he produced and directed the smash-hit "I’ll Say She Is", the first ever revival of the Marx Brothers hit 1924 Broadway show in the NY International Fringe Festival. Boomers, say goodbye to another piece of childhood: The man who created Dancing. He has directed his own plays, revues and solo pieces at such venues as Joe’s Pub, La Mama, HERE, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, the Ohio Theatre, the Brick, and 6 separate shows in the NY International Fringe Festival. Captain Kangaroo character actor Cosmo Allegretti dies at 86. Trav has been in the vanguard of New York’s vaudeville and burlesque scenes since 1995 when he launched his company Mountebanks, presenting hundreds of acts ranging from Todd Robbins to Dirty Martini to Tammy Faye Starlite to the Flying Karamazov Brothers. He has written for the NY Times, the Village Voice, American Theatre, Time Out NY, Reason, the Villager and numerous other publications. (is best known for his books "No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous" (2005) and "Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube" (2013). Moose would trick the Captain into saying a secret word that would release a humiliating cascade of ping pong balls on top of his head. Stations started running locally produced programs for kids, based on the popularity of early nationally syndicated shows such as Howdy Doody and Captain Kangaroo. Every show (it ran every weekday morning before school). Here’s a can’t-miss routine that was a highlight of the show as I remember it. Cosmo Allegretti, who created and voiced puppet characters like Grandfather Clock and Dancing Bear on the childrens television show 'Captain Kangaroo,' has died. Other regular features included Magic Drawing Board and “Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings”, later parodied on SNL by Mike Myers. And then there was the Banana Man, based on vaudeville’s Banana Man A. Bainter the Painter, and other characters. ![]() Others in the cast included Hugh “Lumpy” Brannum, a musical veteran of Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians who played the Captain’s right hand man Mr. Moose, Dancing Bear, Grandfather Clock, Rollo the Hippo, Dennis the Handyman, etc. ![]() The late Bob Keeshan and his iconic character not only sported unparalleled facial hair. On Kangaroo he ran the whole show, still playing a mute clown character called the Town Clown, but mostly playing emcee as the sweet-mannered Captain, reading stories to children, announcing various segments and special guests (often major celebrities), and engaging in comedy routines with various puppets and costumed characters, many of which were played by Cosmo Allegretti: Bunny Rabbit, Mr. Why we'd follow him anywhere: Multigenerational childhoods, of course. Keeshan had gotten his start playing Clarabelle the Clown on The Howdy Doody Show(1948-1952). In No Applause I spoke of children’s entertainment as one of the last places you could find vestiges of pure vaudeville, and Captain Kangaroo, Keeshan’s CBS show from 1955 through 1984 showcased many such remnants. Today is the birthday of the great Bob Keeshan (1927-2004). The K Man himself, framed by Bunny Rabbit and Mr. ![]()
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |