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Garfield Goose and Friends

Garfield Goose and Friends was a children's television show produced by WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois, United States during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The host of the show was Frazier Thomas, who did all of the talking. The show centered on a clacking goose puppet named Garfield Goose, who considered himself "king of the United States." There were many other puppet characters such as Romberg Rabbit, Macintosh Mouse, Chris Goose (Garfield's nephew who was born on Christmas, hence "Christmas Goose") and a sleepy bloodhound called Beauregard Burnside III (whose name happened to be a mix of two American Civil War generals). The show used a Little Theater Screen, upon which the camera would zoom before cartoons such as Clutch Cargo and Space Angel were broadcast.

History

Cincinnati

Thomas created Garfield Goose for a local program called Meet the Little People on WKRC-TV (CBS) in Cincinnati, Ohio. Thomas, who was an Indiana native and had worked on Cincinnati local radio since before World War II, said he got the idea when he saw Catholic nuns with a sock puppet in the form of a goose, with which they invited children to "feed the goose" with donations for charity. Garfield was WKRC-TV's telephone exchange. In Cincinnati, Garfield Goose lived in a cuckoo clock, since he'd always wanted to be a cuckoo bird.

Chicago and WBKB

In 1951 Thomas and Garfield Goose moved to Chicago and CBS affiliate WBKB-TV, which was then on Channel 4. At first, the goose was a character on Petticoat Party, a variety show hosted by Thomas. Later, when the character was thought to have enough appeal for a show of its own, Garfield Goose and Friend debuted on September 29, 1952 with Chicago puppeteer Bruce Newton.

Newton had Garfield Goose communicate with Thomas through an off-screen typewriter but Newton was soon replaced by the show's graphic artist Roy Brown as puppeteer, who also created the rest of the show's puppet characters. Thomas began calling the program Garfield Goose and Friends and Romberg Rabbit began "translating" for Garfield. Since only Thomas could understand what Romberg and the other characters communicated, Thomas would repeat what the puppets "said" for viewers to understand.

WGN

WBKB-TV was sold in February 1953 and became WBBM-TV, the CBS owned-and-operated station, which moved to channel 2. Meanwhile Garfield Goose and Friends stayed on the new WBKB-TV, an ABC owned-and-operated station which jumped to channel 7 a year later. During this period, the show was briefrly carried nationally on the ABC network. Then the show nested on WGN-TV (channel 9), which bought the rights in 1955 and stayed there for over two decades, for most of this time running in the late afternoon after children had come home from school. During the early 1970s, the program slowly lost viewership to competition and was moved to weekday mornings. The show's long run ended on September 10, 1976.

Bozo's Circus

Frazier Thomas had taken the role of "circus manager" on WGN-TV's longtime hit program Bozo's Circus after the retirement of Ringmaster Ned Locke in 1976. Thomas cleverly kept his puppets on the air with a storyline in which Garfield "bought" Bozo's Circus. The puppets made daily appearances until 1981. Thomas worked on Bozo's Circus, later retitled The Bozo Show, until his death in 1985. In 1987, the puppets were donated to The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago. The display initially included Garfield Goose, Romberg Rabbit, Macintosh Mouse, Beaureguard Burnside III, Christmas Goose, and Ali Gator (the latter a character who appeared only briefly in a serialized adventure during the show's early years). Ali Gator was later removed from the museum's display.

Aftermath

As often happened during the 1950s and early 1960s (such as with The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson or the first Super Bowl game), Garfield Goose and Friends aired live for much of its history. WGN did not keep many tapes of its local productions, including Garfield Goose And Friends. Rather, since the reels of videotape were very costly, they were thriftily recycled. Station management did not foresee how valuable recordings of these broadcasts would have become. Only four episodes were preserved: March 14-15, 1974, and September 9-10, 1976 (the latter two being the final two shows aired in the series).

Against Frazier Thomas and Roy Brown's wishes, Bruce and Claire Newton mounted a live, traveling Garfield Goose Telepuppets show at neighborhood events for many years after the series had gone off the air, alongside other non-Garfield Goose puppets built and performed by the pair for other shows. To Thomas and Brown's chagrin, WGN-TV management chose not to pursue the matter. Although Bruce Newton would later claim his traveling show featured the first Garfield Goose puppet used on WBKB-TV, Roy Brown denied Newton's claim.

In December 2005, WGN-TV ran a primetime special called Bozo, Gar and Ray: WGN TV Classics, which carried the earliest known saved clip of the show, wherein Garfield Goose had "luckily" gotten hold of tickets to the 1959 World Series at Chicago's Comiskey Park. As it happened at the time of this 2005 broadcast, the White Sox had won the 2005 World Series, which moreover was their first World Series appearance since 1959. Additional color kinescope footage from 1965 came from a vintage WGN-TV sales film which also includes some scenes from Bozo's Circus. The broadcast garnered #1 ratings in the Chicago market and is rerun annually during the holiday season.