OBSOLETE TELEVISION: THE ROOTIE KAZOOTIE CLUB

Before I was a lad, back when I was just a tad, my favorite television show was The Rootie Kazootie Club.  Of course, I never knew that was the name of the show; to me, it was just Rootie Kazootie, the brave little boy puppet who defeat the bad Poison Zoomack in his attempts to steal Polka Dottie's polka dots.  In my memory, there's no image of Zoomack also trying to steal Rootie Kazootie's magic kazootie (something he evidently did on a regular basis); is it Freudian that I obsessed on polka dots rather than kazoos?

According to Wikipedia, Rootie Kazootie began as Rootie Tootie on WNBT, New York, on October 14, 1950.  The live studio audience of kids began to call the lead puppet "Rootie Kazootie" because of his magical kazoo, leaving  the studio to change the show's name from The Rootie Tootie Club to The Rootie Kazootie Club.  By July, NBC was airing the show nationally.  NBC kept the show until November of 1952; the next month, ABC picked up the show and aired it until May 1954.  The show ran for 15 minutes weekdays and 30 minutes on Saturdays, but I have no idea whetheror not this was a regular schedule.

Anyway, Rootie was an all-American boy puppet, wearing his trademark baseball cap with the oversized brim turned up.  He had a dog named Gala Poochie Pup and a (purely platonic) girlfriend named Polka Dottie, as well as his friend El Squeako Mouse.  Rootie's human friends included host "Big Todd" Russell (played by himself) and mute policeman Mr. Deetle Dootle (played by John Schoeopperle, then later by John Vee).  Puppeteer Paul Ashley was the man behind the curtain and the puppet voices were supplied by Naomi Lewis and Frank Milano.

I was not the only kid caught up in the Kazootie fever:  I was joined by two to three million other kids.  The show spawned children's books, comic books, toys, and games.

For a while my young attention was also focused on a very cheesy show called (I believe) Johnny Jupiter, which evidently had two incarnations during 1953-4;  it was the second version of the show that I watched.  This one had sets that out-Ed Wooded Ed Wood.  But despite the lure of Jupiter, my young heart remained more with my original obsession.

Yes, I was easily amused back then.

Luckily, I grew older and soon moved on to another obsession:  Hopalong Cassidy!

Anyway, from 1953, here's an episode entitled Poison Zoomack and His Magnet:

http://archive.org/details/RootieKazootie

And here's a recording featuring "Mitchell" Miller and His Orchestra:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOesLCj8kTU

And a comic book episode from 1954:

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=rootie+kazootie+comics&view=detail&id=DC86DFFB034E89EE7160F408DDA3EEC5DBF1C7C0&first=1

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For more Obsolete Films, etc., saunter over to Todd Mason's blog, sweetfreedom, where Todd will have all the links (unless he is preoccupied bythinking about Renee Russo as Natasha Fatale).