“Live” televisiion commercial for Welch’s Grape Jelly and Grapelade ( jam) from a 1954 episode of HOWDY DOODY. Welch’s began its association the iconic television show in 1951 and introduced its line of popular Howdy Doody jelly glasses — touted in this commercial — in 1953. In September, 1954, Buffalo Bob Smith suffered a heart attack and convalesced at his him. During his absence, guest hosts, inlcuding “Bison Bill” (New York disc jockey Ted Brown) filled in for Smith and Alan Swift provided the voice for Howdy Doody. Behind the Clarabell the Clown makeup Bobby Nicholson, who had replaced Bob Keeshan the previous year. Keeshan went on to greater fame as the star of CAPTAIN KANGAROO, one of television’s longest running children’s shows, debuting on October 3, 1955 and ending on December 8, 1984. Princess Summerfall-Winterspring is played here by Linda Marsh after Judy Tyler left the show in 1953. Ms. Tyler died in a car accident on July 4, 1957, shortly after completing JAILHOUSE ROCK with Elvis Presley. You can find out more about Welch’s products and history by visiting its website, www.welchs.com.

[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 …

1950′s Howdy Doody Christmas

Scene from the Howdy Doody Show in which Buffalo Bob creates a ice cream soda machine!