Product Description

The Howdy Doody Show made its debut on television in 1947. When The Howdy Doody Show first aired, there were only 20,000 American homes with television sets and NBC only had stations in six television markets. The show was credited as a major factor in the growth of NBC. The Howdy Doody Show went on to air 2,543 episodes, before running its final episode on September 24, 1960.
The Howdy Doody Show set numerous benchmarks for television. It was the first network kids show to air five days a week, the first show on the air each day (it was preceded by the network's color pattern), the first television show ever broadcast in color, and the first show ever to air in more than 1,000 continuous episodes. While Howdy and his friend s entertained American children, they also sold television sets to American parents and demonstrated the potential of the new medium to advertisers.

Loaded with Extensive Bonus Features...including Rare Interviews from the Archive of American Television the company that produces The Emmy Awards.

This delightful collection contains 40 of the best full length episodes (including commercials) from 1949 to 1954. These 40 episodes were chosen from the NBC Universal vaults because they were the most requested episodes by Howdy Doody fans. Join Howdy Doody, his cousin Heidi, Buffalo Bob Smith, Clarabell the Clown, Chief Thunderthud, Princess Summerfall Winterspring and Mayor Phineas T. Bluster on a journey to through classic entertainment!

Bonus Features:

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11344 in DVD
• Brand: MILL CREEK ENT. (UNDER DIGITAL
• Released on: 2008-11-04
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 5
• Running time: 1260 minutes

Features

• HOWDY DOODY 40 EPISODES 5 DVD (DVD MOVIE)

Customer Reviews

Say Kids, What Time Is It?
It's time to sit back, get nostalgic, and let Buffalo Bob Smith, Howdy Doody, Clarabell and the entire gang entertain you once again in this delightful DVD set from Mill Creek Entertainment. Mill Creek you ask? Aren't they the company that releases all of those box collections of public domain movies and television episodes? Yes, it's the very same Mill Creek but with a difference . . . . the 40 episodes included in this reasonably priced collection are all licensed directly from NBC Universal, and Mill Creek has really delivered a first-class DVD release. Somewhat surprisingly, Mill Creek sweetens the deal with a nice array of bonus items in this release, including a scrapbook-like booklet chock full of pictures, a historic timeline, interviews, and three bonus episodes, including the series' farewell episode broadcast in 1960.

The range of the episodes contained in this set run from 1949 through 1954, and the bonus disc includes the show's very last episode in 1960, broadcast in color, which included Clarabell speaking for the first (and last) time on the show. I like the earliest shows the best when the show was originally titled "Puppet Playhouse" since they represent the dawn of television. They're technically crude and some of the missteps become apparent when a camera occasionally catches Buffalo Bob mouthing Howdy's lines (Smith would later tape Howdy's lines). But there's an energy in these earliest shows that makes "Howdy Doody" succeed despite the technical and budgetary limitations; you can sense that the performers and behind-the-scenes technical crew are really giving it their all.

The audio/visual presentation is about what one might expect for one of television's oldest series, particularly as these live shows were recorded using the kinescope process. While kinescopes simply do not look as good as modern videotape or film, the episodes contained in this collection are very watchable. Audio is generally solid, but occasionally the microphone placement misses some of the performers' lines. Considering that some of these episodes are nearly 60 years old, most viewers will recognize the technical limitations of the era.

The only nit that I have to pick with this collection, and it's a small one, is that it begins with a show from 1949. It would have been nice to see some earlier examples. While I have no idea as to whether or not the December 27, 1947 debut show still exists, some of the shows produced in 1948 are still in existence. If Mill Creek releases additional episode collections of "The Howdy Doody Show," it would be interesting, from a historical perspective, to see the earliest surviving episode from the series.

For those of a certain age, the mention of "Howdy Doody" instantly takes one back to the simpler times of their youth. "The Howdy Doody Show" remains not only a landmark series in children's television, but also a landmark series in live television production. Thank you, Mill Creek Entertainment, for releasing a fascinating and entertaining glimpse back in television time.

What to expect of this DVD set
I want to say up front that this fine DVD set is best suited for the people who originally watched Howdy Doody and not for today's kids. To test this theory, I showed some episodes to a half-dozen kids of appropriate age (one at a time at different times so they would not influence one another) and, to a soul they universally said it was "dumb". It's difficult to market Howdy Doody to today's children against contemporary, more sophisticated productions.

Here you will get FOUR DVDs plus a BONUS DISC, nicely packaged. The discs contain 40 of the NBC show's favorite episodes (of the thousands of episodes, most were in black and white), including sponsor commercials, (these were chiefly conducted by the stars of the show). The Bonus Disc contains three "anniversary shows," the last one (in color) being the final episode where Clarabell the Clown finally speaks! The quality and sound of all the prints are quite good.

Also on the bonus disc are interviews with Buffalo Bob Smith, "Clarabell," and the producers as to how the program emerged and evolved from radio in 1949, a time when most of daytime television was nothing more than a test pattern. The set additionally includes a 32-page "Howdy Doody Memories Book" (softcover booklet) which features black-and-white photos, many of which were from behind the scenes such as a view of Clarabell applying his clown made up.

I have to confess that my favorite character on this beloved program was Chief Thunderthud ("Cowabunga!" -- now politically incorrect!) but you'll also see Princess Summerfall Winterspring, Mayor Phineas T. Bluster, and all the other Howdy Doody regulars. For the uninitiated, this western flavor program was a pairing of real people alongside marionette puppets, all portrayed before a live audience of children which was called "The Peanut Gallery". The program was incredibly primitive by today's standards but reached an astonishing level of both educational and slapstick entertainment for children.

In all, Howdy Doody ran for 13 years over 2,543 episodes. Programs sometimes included guest stars such as western movie sidekick Gabby Hayes. The total time of these discs runs for about 21 hours and the set is distributed by Mill Creek Entertainment.

I much enjoyed this terrific and nostalgic DVD set a great deal more than I had anticipated that I would. I hope you do too.

I Was Born in 1990: I Still Enjoyed This Release
The fast snappy pacing and clever dialog do help, but what also kept me watching was the little historic moments in each episode. Some examples include:
In the first episode of disc one, they announce what cities the show is telecast live, and also note that some markets recieve the show "on film" (kinescope film to be exact, in fact the only reason these episodes exist is because the cable which connected the NBC-TV network stations together could only reach so far, so ''kinescope films'' were made for stations across the USA. Many other programs of the time were simply broadcast live and never recorded like "The Oscar Levant Show").
In other episode on the first disc, they also announce that, just a few weeks later, the program is now being shown in many more parts of the USA, an example of just how fast TV was growing.
The first 3 episodes or so episodes on disc one are complete and unedited, yet, they contain no commercials, which I find to be quite remarkable (29 minutes of show with no commercials? Could you imagine NBC-TV doing that today?).
Along with that, the commercials are for products which range from Three Musketeers Chocolate Bars (The jingle: "Three Three Three/Big Big Big/Let's Give Three Cheers/For the Three Big Musketeers"), Rice Crispies (complete with snap, crackle and pop puppets), Colgate Dental Cream (a lot more interesting than it sounds), and yes, those giveaway offers for Howdy Doody toys.
Closing logo fans will be glad to hear that many episodes feature the original opening and closing logos, including the famous "NBC Chimes" on several episodes, and the "NBC Presents" kinescope ID occasionally.
Picture quality is quite good, considering how these shows were recorded. Since video tape wasn't invented until 1956, these shows were recorded via "kinescope" or "kinephoto", which basically meant literally filming the TV monitor with a 16mm cinematic camera!