CateAyo and I are BSing about Dancing Bear from Captain Kangaroo – he asked “what was with the muzzle,” and my answer was “a muzzle? I thought that was his nose.”
Neither of us can find a decent picture, though. Anyone with superior google-fu want to make us look like idiots, please?
TIA
I always thought that was his nose. He didn’t seem like the sort of bear who would need muzzling.
Here’s a not-very-large picture.
And here’s another.
Here’s a little video performance for your enjoyment! 
Or is it a fried egg?
Wow. Just … wow.
I think it says quite a bit about the Boomers that that was our formative TV.
And pinkfreud – excellent work! Thanks!
Mrs. Moose???
Surely not? The Platonic love between a dancing bear and a variably sized Raggedy Ann doll is a timeless story if there ever was one.
The brief glimpse of special guest Doug Henning in the final frame, however, is a screaming indictment of the formative entertainment Captain Kangaroo saw fit to inflict on children during the '70s. I feel confident stating that the Boomers had it sweet and easy by comparison.
If you had problems integrating Dancing Bear into your life, I have two words for you: Slim Goodbody.
Even when little, I could tell that Dancing Bear’s nose was a screen so the guy inside could see out. And sometimes you’d see the shadow of the guy behind Magic Drawing Board. But the Captain had that Postmodernist thing going on: the humor on the show as a wink at us who’d figured it out, and he didn’t talk down to us.
Not as far out there as Soupy Sales, but not a “no gags” place like Mr. Rogers’.
Na na na na na na na I can’t hear you.
The clip was from after the Captain was cancelled by CBS and went to PBS, which puts it from 1986 or later.
How tell? On CBS, the Captain wore a blue coat; on PBS, it was red.
I always felt the big black dot in the middle of Dancing Bear’s face made him look just too weird.
Cite? Because I came across this picture of Captain Kangaroo’s jacket, and was surprised that it was black, and thought it was supposed to be red, and I watched him circa 1970.
Generally, websites agree that his jacket was red, although this site says “A syndicated revival of Captain Kangaroo was attempted in 1997, with bearded actor John McDonough in a blue jacket.”
Anyone know why the Smithsonian’s jacket is black?
Yep, that is one flat muzzle. But I don’t think I ever noticed as a kid.
I expect that’s the original jacket (or one of them) from the show’s beginning back in 1955, which was of course broadcast in black and white-- so there’d be no point for a bright red jacket back then. I don’t think the red jacket had a badge either.
I definitely recall the red jacket from my childhood, and it’s unlikely that I was still watching the Captain during his PBS years. (Unlikely, but not impossible…) The groovy white piping was kind of reminiscent of The Prisoner in a way, vaguely. Maybe those ping-pong balls were embryonic Rovers?
Any hoo… here’s a YouTube clip which appears to depict a broadcast from WBNG, the Binghamton NY CBS affiliate. The date given is 1976, and the red jacket is present and accounted for. So I feel better. Also, apparently Dolly Parton’s coming over! How about that.
The Captain with the PicturePages guy, circa 1980. Whatever happened to that guy anyway?
That is what is generally referred to as “implied snoutage”. See the unpublished private correspondence of Derrida and Lacan , especially from the era of The Structuralist Controversy (also Derrida’s later work on Heidegger), for analysis of concentric, contrasting, circular nasal representations especially as commentary on olefaction in the nuclear age.
:eek:
Oh, mercy, I’d forgotten all about THAT freak!
Thanks a heap–when come back, bring brain bleach!
I used to beg my parents and grandparents to send off for PicturePages so I could play along. I never did get them.
Re: Slim Goodbody. I can remember being emotionally traumatized by a cliffhanger storyline involving him being tortured. To this day all I have to do is close my eyes and I can vividly see him screaming. I don’t know what the plot was, or why he was being tortured, or who was torturing him; hell, I couldn’t even remember the little freak’s name until I just read it in this thread. But his screaming face is burned into my brain.
I don’t like it.
Heh. You’d think we would have covered that element, given that both CateAyo and I have social science doctorates.
This TV-addicted kid’s mom preferred that I start my mornings with the Captain, which she considered more “wholesome” than Ray Rayner with his cartoons!
Just to let you young’uns realize how hard we had it back then, I had to listen for sounds of my mom coming from the other room, and quickly switch between channel 9 and 2 WITH NO REMOTE CONTROL! Oh the horrors!
Anyone else in the mood for a little Tom Terrific? Oh no - PING PONG BALLS!
I can’t remember exactly who it was, but a few years back I was at a party where one woman said her dad was the man in the Dancing Bear suit. If I could remember exactly who she was, perhaps I could get a definitive answer on this crucial question.
I loved seeing these! I sang along with the song.
My mother never tires of relating the way I was terrified of the Dancing Bear at age 4 (which would have been in 1959), and would go hide behind a particular armchair whenever he came on.
I can still hear the theme song in my head, you know. It will be with me until the day I die. Dunno whether to bless or curse Youtube.
Watching that opening, it strikes me what a kind face Bob Keeshan had.
Oh, and, as for “Boomer formative experience”, it has to be in B & W or it ain’t the real deal. Just sayin’… 
