This from the AP---Goodbye, Clarabell
NEW YORK (AP) Lew Anderson, who captivated young baby boomers as the Howdy Doody Show's final Clarabell the Clown, has died. He was 84.
The musician and actor died Sunday in Hawthorne of complications from prostate cancer, said his son, Christopher Anderson.
Long mute as Clarabell, Anderson broke the clown's silence in the show's final episode in 1960. With trembling lips and a visible tear in his eye, he spoke the show's final words: "Goodbye, kids."
With the show's Peanut Gallery of kids looking on, Anderson used bicycle horns to give yes and no answers. For more expressive moments, he wielded a bottle of seltzer.
The show, which launched in 1947 when television was still a novelty, was the first network weekday children's show. Anderson joined "Doodyville," a circus town peopled with puppets and human actors and watched by the Peanut Gallery, in the mid 1950s.
Though his fame as Clarabell followed him throughout his life, Anderson was also a success as a musician and bandleader. In recent years, his All-American Big Band appeared on Friday nights at New York's Birdland jazz club.
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