# Buster Brown shoes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 23, 2009, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769 "2009-01-23T14:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mrgriffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@mrgriffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mrgriffin)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/21 "2009-01-24T21:43:17Z")
It was “Ghanga the Jungle Boy”? I would have sworn it was “Rama the Elephant Boy”. So his sidekick was saying “Ai-ee Ghanga, such is so”? I’m chagrined. My memories seemed so clear on that. Then again, I didn’t pick up that Midnight and Squeaky were puppets - just thought they were under restraints and/or terrified. Thanks for the additional bits. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/22 "2009-01-24T22:10:42Z")
I can see being terrified of Andy Devine. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2009, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/23 "2009-01-24T22:17:31Z")
I’ve merged the “Red Goose shoes still around” thread into the “Buster Brown Shoes thread” because they are both about the same staff report. **Gfactor** Moderator ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/24 "2009-01-25T03:12:20Z")
> [@mrgriffin](#): > > It was “Ghanga the Jungle Boy”? I would have sworn it was “Rama the Elephant Boy”. So his sidekick was saying “Ai-ee Ghanga, such is so”? I’m chagrined. My memories seemed so clear on that. Then again, I didn’t pick up that Midnight and Squeaky were puppets - just thought they were under restraints and/or terrified. Thanks for the additional bits. Such is so sahib. The program was Saturday Afternoon Matinee. If memory serves. Froggy the Gremlin was my fav. Hi ya kids, hi ya hi ya bbbbbfbfbtb Officially it was Andys Gang . It also had Midnight the cat that just meyowed Nice. ---
**Author:** ![JimR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@JimR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JimR)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/25 "2009-01-25T05:19:33Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Where did you get them? I love it when old brands come back to life–I use Barbasol shaving cream, for instance–and am happy to be proven wrong. > > (signed) > > Mike Warns, the guy who wrote the report It was a local shoe store (not a chain). They specialized in kids shoes. It’s still a shoe store, but now it has a different name and it specializes in women’s shoes. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/26 "2009-01-25T05:46:19Z")
> [@mrgriffin](#): > > It was “Ghanga the Jungle Boy”? I would have sworn it was “Rama the Elephant Boy”. So his sidekick was saying “Ai-ee Ghanga, such is so”? I’m chagrined. My memories seemed so clear on that. Then again, I didn’t pick up that Midnight and Squeaky were puppets - just thought they were under restraints and/or terrified. Thanks for the additional bits. It was _Gunga Ram_ and his sidekick _Rama_. The cat and mouse were puppets, except when they showed closeups, and then they had live animals(probably under restraint). Eveyone’s correct. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2009, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/27 "2009-01-25T05:57:51Z")
Y’know, it was the thought that some posters would find my catagorical dismissal of “Gieseke” equaling “goose” that kept me from submitting this post a year ago. In the mean time, a contact from another report who connected me to THE expert on the origins of German surnames. Since _mein Deutsche_ is pathetic and his English is non-existent, it took a while before I understood that what he sent me belonged to somebody who had actually PAID for the family history and that his interpretation was, since I HADN’T paid for it, strictly off the record. As for people not reading Turn-Of-The-20th-Century comics, last Fall my mother found the Sunday, December 29, 1907, Chicago Examiner, comics at the bottom of her box of Christmas ornaments last year. Yeah, that was a few decades before her birth, but to say I come from a family of packrats trivializes the pathology. ---
**Author:** ![cmoose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecb155/32.png) [@cmoose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmoose)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/28 "2009-01-26T05:19:01Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > **cmoose**. If you could supply a lin to the column in questions [Whatever happened to Buster Brown shoes?](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2839/whatever-happened-to-buster-brown-shoes) it helps readers to follow along. You can simply cut and paste the url if you choose. > > BTW, great job on the report, **Mike**. 🙂 WilCo. Thanks for compliment. And sorry for my typo on SHOE. ---
**Author:** ![Powers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/29 "2009-01-27T21:15:54Z")
This is a great, great article. I’m impressed! By the way, if you go to [http://www.busterbrownshoes.com/](http://www.busterbrownshoes.com/), it looks like they’re not even using the characters’ profiles anymore. Powers &8^] ---
**Author:** ![SeanArenas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@SeanArenas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeanArenas)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2009, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/30 "2009-01-27T21:24:18Z")
> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#): > > I’m thinking about setting up a page of Standard Responses so that, in future, I could just answer this with “See Standard Response #17.” Could you please post a link to Standard Response #17? It’s as simple as pasting the URL with a space to either side of it. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalGonzo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f04885/32.png) [@DigitalGonzo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalGonzo)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/31 "2009-01-29T21:11:35Z")
This actually gives a backstory to a bit of my childhood I had no idea on. When I was a wee lad (late 80s, very early 90s), there was a kid’s shoe store in town that I loved to go to for one reason: they had the most awesome toy vending, which was a big goose that would lay out the prizes in golden eggs. Obviously the store had either originally been a Red Geese store or the management had just gotten their hands on an old Red Geese machine, but your description of a child’s glee in the 1950s was true for me in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/32 "2009-01-29T21:27:09Z")
That’s cool! What town? Not as cool, perhaps as finding a store that still had one of those [shoe-fitting fluoroscopes](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/599/were-those-old-shoe-store-fluoroscopes-a-health-hazard) for checking fit, but cooler than finding a store [that still used one.](http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm) But the leather in old kiddie shoes was so heavy and stiff the “wiggle your toes” method of checking fit only worked if the salesman’s fingers were as sensitive as a safecracker’s, so I can understand why they felt the need to use one. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/33 "2009-01-31T11:06:24Z")
All this talk about peripheral Buster Brown merchandising and no mention that [he was a comic character first and foremost.](http://www.barnaclepress.com/list.php?directory=BusterBrown) Check out the other seconds of Barnacle Press: It’s a real treasure trove of American newspaper comics from the 1890s through the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/34 "2009-01-31T20:12:32Z")
[Ahem.](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2839/whatever-happened-to-buster-brown-shoes) Particularly paragraphs 3 and 4 and the first reference. 😃 Unfortunately, Outcault left the New York _Herald_ in 1906 and brought the now-titleless strip with him, while the _Herald_ continued publishing their own Buster Brown comics until about 1911. The Barnacle Press strips are from the _Herald_ and, though I haven’t tracked down the exact date Outcault left, there appears to be a change in artist starting on April 1, 1906. ---
**Author:** ![stucky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@stucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stucky)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/35 "2009-02-02T01:34:45Z")
Buster Brown Shoes (made by Brown Shoe Co. of St. Louis, MO) sponsored the Buster Brown Show in the 1950’s where cartoons were shown by an old man (forgot his name) that had a cat named Midnight (that akways said “niiiiiice”) and the old man would say “Plunk your magic twanger Froggie” and a frog would appear on a grandfathers clock. The frog would flumox the old man while he was talking by inserting words into the old mans patter that the old man would repeat that made his patter sound silly. Us kids loved the show. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2009, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/36 "2009-02-02T03:57:59Z")
The old guy was the great Andy Devine. I’m a bit younger than some (not that many any more) people and, rather than remembering that show, I mostly remember him as Wild Bill Hickok’s sidekick on the show of the same name. As noted above, the show you remember was “Smilin’ Ed McConnell and His Buster Brown Gang” (before Smilin’ Ed died) or “Andy’s Gang.” What I don’t understand is that I have vague memories of that show, but none of “Howdy Doody,” a somewhat later show. Either it is evidence of VERY early childhood memory or of the power of suggestion. Welcome to the SDMB! It’s always nice to find people here who are older than I, just like it’s fun to put the smackdown on the younguns when we (often) get the chance. After all, Pop Culture didn’t start with MTV. ---
**Author:** ![Jake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/37 "2009-02-08T23:31:22Z")
Anyone remember “Buckskin Dan, The Red Goose Man!” ? Or, as us kids would call him “Buckskin Dan, the Goosed Red Man!” It didn’t take much to amuse us… ---
**Author:** ![JRFJR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@JRFJR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRFJR)\ **Post date:** [September 22, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/38 "2012-09-22T23:27:05Z")
I am looking for information on the children that were used in the advertising of Buster Brown Shoes. I was told that my Grandfather was one of those children and am trying to find information on that. Can anyone help me?? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks - John ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/39 "2012-09-23T00:06:28Z")
Have you tried contacting the [Brown Shoe Company?](http://www.brownshoe.com/about/) ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2012, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769/40 "2012-09-23T03:59:05Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Not as cool, perhaps as finding a store that still had one of those [shoe-fitting fluoroscopes](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/599/were-those-old-shoe-store-fluoroscopes-a-health-hazard) for checking fit, but cooler than finding a store [that still used one.](http://www.museumofquackery.com/devices/shoexray.htm) Hot dogs had whole different meaning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buster-brown-shoes/482769.md?page=3)