Photo Doody (Howdy)

His face is hand-painted with blue eyes; he has red hair, a gap-tooth grin, pronounced ears and 48 freckles (one for each of the states at the time when the show first went on the air).

He wears a western style outfit consisting of blue jeans, a plaid shirt, cowboy boots and a red bandanna.

Puppeteers successfully repaired the damage but Photo Doody still bears neck "scars" where the vandals pulled his head off.

The other two screen-used Howdy puppets are museum property — the one used in the show remains on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts; and the other ("Double Doody") is on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian.

Actual fabrication of the various Howdy puppets fell to the show's props and puppetry specialists: Rufus Rose, Velma Wayne Dawson, and Scott Brinker.

With hundreds of thousands of children in the television viewing audience glued to their TV sets at 5:30 p.m. weekdays, each show opened with Buffalo Bob asking —"Say, kids, what time is it?"