# Howdy Doody Dies **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 18, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howdy-doody-dies/275390 "2004-11-18T01:29:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2004, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howdy-doody-dies/275390/1 "2004-11-18T01:29:27Z")
Heard the news today that Claude Rae died at age 84. He was the voice of Howdy Doody and Mayor Phineas T. Bluster. For the younguns, Howdy Doody was a marionette (string puppet) on tv between 1948 and 1956 and was the first show to go over 2,000 episodes-totalled 2,543, 5 days a week and then on Saturdays to 1960. My favorite cast member (name anyway) was the Indigean Princess Summerfall Winterspring. And of, course there was Clarabell the totally silent, except for a squeeze-bulb belt horn, clown. His only spoken line was “Good-bye kids”, on the last show. He was played by three different actors, the first being Bob Keeshan, who later moved up to become Captain Kangaroo. The host (no strings attached) was Buffalo Bob Smith, who dressed in quasi-western garb, but who was actually from Buffalo, per the cite. The instudio adience of kids was an onscreen set of bleachers called the Peanut Gallery. Now available on dvd. Peanut Galleryites, see [http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/howdy-doody.htm](http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/howdy-doody.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2004, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howdy-doody-dies/275390/2 "2004-11-18T14:50:34Z")
More accurately, Claude Rae was the voice of Howdy Doody and Mayor Phineas T. Bluster in [the Canadian version](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0250868/combined). Dayton Allen, the voice of Mayor Phineas T. Bluster in [the original American version](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165594/combined) [died a few days ago](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=287024&highlight=howdy+doody). Or did somebody get them confused? ---
**Author:** ![ltfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@ltfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ltfire)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2004, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howdy-doody-dies/275390/3 "2004-11-19T01:12:33Z")
Interesting trivia I came across this morning. In 1954, William Shatner played a character on the Howdy Doody show. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [November 19, 2004, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/howdy-doody-dies/275390/4 "2004-11-19T01:31:49Z")
Yep, for one season on the Canadian version.