Do you remember Jellybeans? Not the candy, the show. Jellybeans was a program for kids that was on KMBC several years ago. The star was a clown named ZAP! and he was surrounded by a bunch of early-grade-school age kids spread out on bleachers. They were divided into three teams: The Bananas...The Blueberries....The Red Team. (Apparently, those of us who worked on the show didn't think of apples, strawberries or, better yet, The Raspberries!) My job was to ask some general knowledge questions and the team with the correct answers would get to take a run at the obstacle course. Someone usually got slimed at some point during that portion of the show. Just the other day, as happens fairly often, a person came up to me and said "Hey, I was on Jellybeans!" The disconcerting thing about this encounter was that the friendly person was about eight feet tall, with a full beard and a voice like the brother, Robert, on Everybody Loves Raymond. Yes, I am old and the kids that were little on Jellybeans are now all grown up...and, it seems to me, most of them really are tall and a little intimidating...maybe there was something in that slime!

Just the same, it is a nice feeling to think that that old show is a part of some peoples' childhoods...like Whizzo is for an older generation of Kansas Citians. With a billion channels out there and programming designed for kids on the air anytime of day, it maybe hard for some younger folks to imagine how important and rare a kid's show was back in the olden times. I am talking about the times before even Sesame Street. When I was little, the PBS station was not even on the air most of the day and when it was it featured a guy with a crewcut, short-sleeved white shirt and skinny black tie explaining the water cycle using ice-cubes and a fan. On days he was feeling especially sporty, the TV instructor would create a volcano with vinegar and baking soda or baking powder...I can never remember which. Aside from a couple hours of Saturday morning cartoons and the skinny guy with a tie on PBS, the weekday battle for the hearts and minds of little kids came down to two shows going head to head at 3:30 p.m. Circus 3 with Cowboy Eddie and Marshall the Marshal.

Marshall the Marshal, or just The Marshall if you were a hip kid, featured a TV sportscaster dressed up like Wyatt Earp. In addition to doing sports, The Marshall also owned one of the most popular bar and grills on the University of Wisconsin campus in Madison. For that reason, my mom didn't really want me to watch his show...it was just a little too...gritty. In fact, I think his place was called The Nitty-Gritty. It sounds odd, now, but back then, it did seem like the tougher kids in the neighborhood watched The Marshall and the rest of us gravitated toward Cowboy Eddie.

Cowboy Eddie was a puppet. His human friend was named Howie Olson. The main feature of the show, Circus 3, was watching cartoons but the real reason we watched was Cowboy Eddie. It was a dream to think, some fine day, you'd actually get to be a part of the live, studio audience. But, that was a very tough ticket...if Madison in the 60s was Las Vegas today, then Eddie was Celine Dion. However, asking a boy made of wood to sing "My Heart Will Go On" seems a little cruel. Well, thanks to a friend who's dad once worked on the furnace of somebody at Channel 3, where they did the show, a bunch of us got to go to celebrate our pal's sixth birthday.
It was a hot, humid summer day as about a dozen of us piled into a stuffy station wagon for the thirty mile trip to the city. This was in the days before we all got smart about seat belts, so all of us just wedged into whatever space we could find...sweaty little kneecaps fighting for every inch. By the way, the car had "2-60 Air Conditioning" meaning open 2 windows and go 60.

At the studio, we were ushered onto bleachers and packed together like sardines. We also smelled like sardines, by this point. The order of events was as follows: Cowboy Eddie and Howie Olson welcomed everybody then introduced the first Popeye cartoon during which we were treated to Twinkies and strawberry shakes. (I gave mine to the kid next to me as I was, and remain, more a Ho-Hos and chocolate shake kind of guy. My seat-mate wolfed down his and mine in about five seconds flat.) After a commercial break, the camera started to move from kid to kid, in extreme close-up, to ask the question of the day. Remember, this was in the university town of Madison Wisconsin in the turbulent 1960s, so our question was: "Explain the Global Impact of Defense Secretary McNamara's policies in Southeast Asia on both Economic and Cultural Facets of Life." Okay, I made that up. The real question was "What's Your Favorite Animal?"

So, let me set the stage: it was a hot, muggy day and all of us kids had just rumbled over lots of hills on the way into town and were now seated in a sauna-like studio with hot lights beating down on us...the kid next to me was filled to the brim with Twinkies and strawberries and ice cream. He started to sound a little like an old lawn mower that won't quite start. As the camera got closer to me, I was in the midst of an intense internal debate over whether to answer the animal question honestly as in "dog" or be creative, "the red-bellied, flat-nosed jumping hyena." I never had the chance to answer the question. Just as I opened my mouth to answer, the kid next to me opened his and...well...to put this delicately...he turned my brand new Keds into stinky, old tennies. Cowboy Eddie, being a pro, immediately introduced the next cartoon and the mop brigade arrived.

According to a great writer in the Madison newspaper, Doug Moe, Eddie is returning to Madison for the 50th anniversary of Channel 3...his TV home. According to Mr. Moe, Eddie has been living in Florida the last few years and, as is often the case with celebrities, has had a little work done. By the way, that appearance on his show back then was my broadcast debut and, so far, it is the only time my shoes were so grossly violated on the air despite being told I make my co-workers and many viewers sick to their stomachs on a regular basis. I've also been told my performances are wooden but I take that as a tribute to my TV role model, The Legendary Cowboy Eddie.