Featherman

***Featherman*** is the fifth episode of Howdy Doody’s 2nd season on March 16, 1949. This episode would have aired in the afternoon on NBC, and is available to view on YouTube. The episode starred “*Buffalo*” Bob Smith as both himself and the voice of Howdy, with Bob Keeshan appearing as an Indian chief instead of his typical role of Clarabell. The series was created by Smith and E. Roger Muir.

## Plot

We open on Buffalo Bob, in Old West garb, yelling at an off-screen “*Mr. Indian*” to come back and not be afraid of them. Apparently they’re in the midst of a Western adventure, looking for the Sigafoose Indians or “*feather men*” or some similar nonsense. Bob says that he doesn’t know why the “*Indian*” would be afraid of them, apparently having not read much American history. Howdy also now has a horse***/***giraffe hybrid puppet, Flubbadub, that’s extremely annoying.

The goal of the storyline, it would seem, is to prove that Buffalo Bob deserves the moniker. If not, Buster will become Kid’s President. This is a baroque political system. Bob hears an airplane flying overhead and stumbles onto a cactus. The pain in his side causes him to dig around in his pockets and find a strange rock that looks like half of a symbol. They debate how the rock got there for a while.

We hear the Indian coming back following some surely historically-accurately drumming and chanting. He comes on screen, and apparently doesn’t mind being called Mr. Indian. **(***Presumably because it’s actually a white guy.***)** He turns out to be the feather man they’re looking for.

Not stereotypical enough yet, the Indian decides to have a “*pow-wow.*” He and Bob both show off their matching Sigafoose “*souvenirs.*” They play the drums and Howdy does an “*Indian dance.*” They then make Mars “*cocoanut*” bars, because you got to keep the sponsor happy.

After this, we get back to the plot. Buffalo Bob’s grandfather, Buffalo Tom, married a Sigafoose princess, so apparently this tribe will have the proof that he comes by his nickname honestly. The Indian decides to think on this while they play an “*old-time movie*”, claiming that he hasn’t seen a movie before. The film is another silent comedy about Eddie Lyons trying to marry a police chief’s daughter. **(***It really is an old movie — Lyons died in 1926.***)**

The Chief uncovers a Clarabell handpuppet. He has problems with clowns, understandably so, and runs off in fear. Bill then pitches the puppet to the audience, falsely assuming that they aren’t scared of Clarabell. You need to send in a Mars Cocoanut Bar wrapper and a dime to get one. Buffalo Bob goes off to find the Indian again, while Howdy and Flub—ba—dub wave goodbye.

What I thought: It’s been about eight months of historical time since we last checked in on *Howdy Doody*, and sometime during this period the series made its transition from a circus theme **(***hence the clown***)** to a Western one, as that was popular with the kids. The actual contents of the show — the opening sing-along, the old silent comedy shorts, the product placement — haven’t changed, but now everyone is dressed like it’s the 1850s for tenuous plot reasons.

And, if you want to be a Western, you clearly need to include a racist caricature of a Native American. “*Mr. Indian*” or “*the feather man*” has all the faults Indigenous authors have found in Tonto magnified: his ridiculous broken English, his simpleminded subservience to the white man, and added on a childish fear of clowns. At least Tonto has a name and a real tribe, instead of whatever racial epithet the white cast wants to call him by.

It seems particularly significant that this character emerges as part of a plotline where Buffalo Bob needs to prove the legitimacy of his ancestry. The Native American’s chief utility is acting as evidence of the white man’s rootedness in some kind of authentic, rustic frontier and not his current sedate life as a host of children’s television. Even as actual Indigenous peoples and cultures are erased, their mythic bloodline needs to be kept around in safely-diluted amounts to spice up the pasty heritage of white people. **(***Hi, Liz!***)**

There are further aesthetic changes to the new version of *Howdy Doody*. Instead of sitting on Bob’s lap, Howdy and Flubbadub are in their own stage area, manipulated by more–visible strings from above. This makes them mostly commentators on the action between the human characters. There’s also no interaction with the Peanut Gallery outside of the opening theme song. I’m not sure how typical or permanent these changes were of this era of *Howdy Doody*.

Perhaps the most striking thing about this episode is the strange acting of Bob Smith. He seems exceptionally belligerent, -Buffalo Bob seems extremely belligerent, contriving circumstances that allow him to yell in a familiar self-pitying way. Smith had something of a reputation of being short-tempered when the camera wasn’t rolling, and I wonder if some of that was beginning to seep into his on-screen performances.

Of course, anyone can seem aggressive when they begin the episode hollering at the screen. This creates a dissonant moment for the **(***presumed white and urban***)** viewer: they are visually being hailed, but Bob’s address of “Mr. Indian” is clearly not meant for them. Combined with Bob’s aggressive, angry tone of voice and it’s a very bracing way to start the show off. Smith sounds not so much like a rambunctious, hollering cowboy as your pissed-off manager.

The whole episode has a strange chronological lapse. The story is part of an ongoing serial, beginning and ending in mid-conversation, and the timeline makes us think that the events of this storyline happen over the course of an evening. But at the same time, the real-world calendar is acknowledged, with Howdy noting that there are only four days left in the month. This is a typical kind of double-consciousness familiar in serialized media, but it’s rare that it’s as specifically **(***and incoherently***)** stated as it is here. How did 50s kids keep all this straight?