[From "Kovacs Corner" on YouTube.com] – Here Kovacs spoofs the grand daddy of all children’s programming, “The Howdy Doody Show”. Instead of Buffalo Bob Smith, we have Buffalo Miklos Molnar hosting the show, which also includes his on camera commercial plugs for his “Miklos Bor”. (For those of you who are not aware, “bor” is Hungarian wine). Again, the stagehand’s laughter clues us into the inside prank of spiking Ernie’s bottle of “bor” with something along the lines of hard whiskey. The Clarabelle-type clown character is none other than Kovacs’ and NBC staff announcer Bill Wendell. Bill later became the first studio announcer for “Late Night with David Letterman” and followed him to his current CBS gig before retiring in 1995. He passed away April 14, 1999. Kovacs takes dead aim at the early to mid 20th Century characterization of the eastern European immigrant type of personality. Their humor at that time was much less sophisticated and much more simple then that of the American norm, and their thinking processes and problem resolution skills were sometimes brutal and to the point. The Howdy Deedy puppet in this clip can attest to that! It has been suggested on other Kovacs web sites that Miklos is Ernie’s loving spoof of his father Andrew. The voiceover for Howdy in this clip happens to be the late voice artist Dayton Allen, who was the voice of the character “Double Doody” in the orginal series. He later went on to work with Steve Allen and voicing characters for …
Posts Tagged ‘Bill’
Ernie Kovacs – Miklos Molnar hosts “The Howdy Deedy Show”
Thursday, July 14th, 2011Writer Eddie Kean on the origin of “Cowabunga” on The Howdy Doody Show
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011See Edward Kean’s full interview at www.emmytvlegends.org
Howdy Doody
Monday, July 27th, 2009The Howdy Doody Show was one of the first and by far the most popular children’s television shows in the 1950′s and a reflection of the wonder, technical fascination and business realities associated with early television. www.millcreekent.com
