. . . or my foreign friends who didn't have the delight as a child of understanding my last post, I thought I'd give a bit of an explanation. Crabby Appleton was a constant in my childhood. Whenever I was sullen or angry, my mom would say, "Don't be a Crabby Appleton." Automatically, this wonderful man and his amazing show would pop into my head and I would have warm fuzzies full of ping pong balls and moose and Green Jeans.
This is
Captain Kangaroo, an American children's show that ran from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest running children's show in television history. Click on the link and you'll hear the theme song that entranced millions of children through out the years.
In the early years, Tom Terrific was a cartoon that was part of the Captain Kangaroo show. Tom Terrific could change shapes into anything to prevent terrible things, like the dates on the calendar changing, from happening.
Tom Terrific's arch villain was Crabby Appleton, whose nefarious deeds he was always trying to thwart. Crabby Appleton was "rotten to the core" and wanted to make everyone unhappy.
Bob Keeshan, who played and produced Captain Kangaroo, was in children's television from the advent of television. He played the original
Clarabell the Clown on the Howdy Doody show. In developing Captain Kangaroo, he wanted his character to be a warm, grandfatherly person that all children could relate to. From 1955 to 1984, he was. In 1981, Keeshan suffered a severe heart attack and the show was slowly phased out of CBS's children's morning line-up until it's cancellation in 1984. He died in 2004, and is missed by generations of Americans. During his career, he received numerous Emmys, Children's Service Awards, a Peabody Award, The Kennedy Center Honor, was inducted into the Clown Hall of Fame, and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Alfred College and Dartmouth College.
So there you go. American Pop Culture 101. Take notes, because Captain Kangaroo will Definitely be on the Final Exam.
We miss you, Captain.
