Howdy Doody is an American children's television program (with circus and Western frontier themes) that was created and produced by Victor F. Campbell[1] and E. Roger Muir.

After one such disagreement, Paris took the puppet and angrily left the NBC studios about four hours before the show was to air live - leaving the program with no "star".

This made it possible for the network to hire Disney animator Mel Shaw and his business partner Bob Allen to design (refer to U.S. Patent D156687 for a "new, original, and ornamental design" for the puppet) and Velma Wayne Dawson to build and operate a visual character more handsome and appealing than Paris's original, which Bob Smith had called "the ugliest puppet imaginable".

[9] The redheaded Howdy marionette on the original show was operated with 11 strings: two heads, one mouth, one eye, two shoulders, one back, two hands and two knees.

The Howdy show's non-televised rehearsals were renowned for including considerable double-entendre dialogue between the cast members (particularly the witty Dayton Allen) and the puppet characters.

Keeshan continued in that role until December 1952, when he, Dayton Allen, puppeteer Rhoda Mann, and Bill LeCornec left the show over a salary dispute.

There were also two other marionettes, Don José and Hector Hamhock Bluster, brothers of Phineas T. In addition to the original vintage puppets, puppet maker Alan Semok (at the request of Bob Smith in the early 1990s) created several precise replicas of Howdy, including—thanks to improved materials and new molding techniques—a more exact marionette replica than had ever been produced, as well as a new Photo Doody which Smith used in personal appearances until his death from cancer on July 30, 1998, at the age of 80.

[16] After Bob Smith's death, a fierce legal and custody battle for the original Howdy Doody puppet erupted among his heirs, the Rufus Rose estate, and a museum to which the marionette had been bequeathed.

Despite 50 years of numerous repairs, repaints, and replaced body parts, Dawson eventually declared the head of the puppet to be the one she originally made in 1948.

In June 1956, it began to be shown on Saturday mornings only (10-10:30 Eastern), continuing until its final broadcast on September 24, 1960, with the last years pre-recorded on color videotape.

In many of the 1949–1954 episodes released on DVD by Mill Creek Entertainment in 2008, the children also can be heard singing jingles for commercial breaks, with Buffalo Bob or Howdy leading them and the lyrics appearing on screen.

Colgate toothpaste, Halo Shampoo, 3 Musketeers candy bars, Tootsie Rolls and Poll Parrot Shoes are among the products advertised this way, as well as series-long sponsor Wonder Bread.

NBC managed to keep the show going with guest hosts, including Gabby Hayes and New York disc jockey Ted Brown as Bison Bill, explaining to kids that Smith was vacationing at Pioneer Village.

Finally, in the show's closing moments, the surprise was disclosed through pantomime to Buffalo Bob and Howdy Doody; as it turned out, Clarabell the mute clown actually could talk.

A tear could be seen in his right eye as the picture faded to black, and some children in the Peanut Gallery could faintly be heard sobbing immediately before the credits music played.

[23] Kean also did some scripting (along with Stan Lee) of a Sunday-only Doody comic strip through United Feature Syndicate which ran from October 15, 1950, to June 21, 1953.

[26] UPA was hired to do an animated cartoon (Howdy Doody and his Magic Hat), the first directorial effort of Gene Deitch and long thought lost until a print turned up at the Library of Congress in 2010.

[30] On November 4, 2008, Mill Creek Entertainment (under license from NBCUniversal) released Howdy Doody Show: 40 Episodes 1949–1954 on DVD in Region 1.

The 1970s brought a wave of nostalgia interest in an idealized representation of the 1950s, and with it films such as American Graffiti and the TV show Happy Days.

Shortly thereafter, Nicholson-Muir Productions (owned by Nick Nicholson and E. Roger Muir) acquired from NBC the rights to produce the New Howdy Doody Show, an attempt by Buffalo Bob and most of the old cast to recreate their past fame.

For this incarnation, which aired in first-run syndication, the Howdy Doody marionette had actual hair in a contemporary 1970s style and was operated by puppeteer Pady Blackwood.

[32] The revived series was not as successful as its predecessor, lasting only 130 episodes; the show debuted at the start of August 1976 and was canceled six months later at the end of January 1977.

In March 1953, the Kagran Corporation, the organization which produced the original Howdy Doody for NBC, started production on La Hora de Jaudi Dudi, a daily Spanish-language version of the program filmed in Mexico City.

Most of the puppet characters, including Phineas T. Bluster, the cranky mayor and chief killjoy of Doodyville, Dilly Dally, a foolish carpenter who was usually the butt of Bluster's plots, Flub-a-dub, a beast with a duck's head, cat's whiskers, and the parts of several other animals, Heidi Doody, Howdy's sister, and Howdy himself, of course, were retained from the U.S. production.

One of his most notable works was as Matthew Cuthbert in the Charlottetown Festival’s production of Anne of Green Gables, which he played for over twenty years.

In his four decades of performing, Mann’s many credits included Get Smart, Gunsmoke, The Man from Uncle, Hill Street Blues, and The Dukes of Hazzard, to mention just a few of his TV appearances.

Some sources credit James Doohan (Scotty on the original Star Trek) as being the first host of the show, playing Ranger Bill for a short time at the beginning of the series.

That was Maxine Miller, who later went on to play Nurse Farmer in the first three seasons of Misterrogers, the previously mentioned Canadian precursor to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in the U.S. She has since appeared in over 120 movies and television shows.

Howdy Doody made his cameo appearance in the sixteenth episode of The Simpsons’ tenth season, “Make Room for Lisa”.

In the musical Little Shop of Horrors, during the song "Somewhere That's Green", the character Audrey sings, "The kids play Howdy Doody as the sun sets in the west".