Dolls, Puppets, and Ventriloquists

TV in the 50's and 60's was magical, at least to a child growning up then. TV may have been in its infancy, as many say, and the programs may have been simple, but the shows for children were so much fun to watch. In New York City, we had a couple of TV channels that had programming for children (that's cartoons) in the early evening, and on Saturday morning. Back then, we didn't have 500 channels to choose from or networks dedicated to cartoons and children so the time we did have was very special. It didn't matter if the shows were in black and white, all TV's were black and white. My sisters and I didn't care, we stayed glued to the TV set every evening and every Saturday morning. Not only did we have cartoons, lots of cartoons, but we had ventriloquists with their puppets, or dummies as they were called. Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, Lambchop, Danny O'Day, and Farfel the Dog were just some of the puppets around at the time. Like Howdy Doody, they often had their own shows and kids watched them every night. Farfel the Dog was a "spokesdog" for Nestle's Chocolate. Convinced me. Here's a Danny O'Day doll from GrannysCranny.etsy.com shop. Just looking at him makes you want to sing about chocolate milk.