For those that were too young . . .

. . . 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.

Quintesentially American

There are some things I think of as quintesentially American, Here are some images of them. Have a wonderful Fourth of July.

Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet," Essays, Second Series, 1844

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. ~Theodore Roosevelt

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. -Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

"We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." - Thomas Jefferson





In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want -- which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear -- which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor-- anywhere in the world.

FDR, The Four Freedoms, 1941

Photos from We Heart It and Bing Images