Howdy Doody's Mom Dies

Velma Dawson, the creator of the Howdy Doody marionette that was used from 1948 to 1960 has died at her home in Palm Desert. Here's the story of Howdy's creation from Remember When We Lived in a Howdy Doody World?

"...The first Howdy was very ugly. It was a fast job that this Frank Parris did, and I guess the kids accepted him because it was practically his voice and what he said that made him sort of lovable in an ugly way. But then we got into an ownership dispute. ...[Parris] was ill-advised, I guess, by some attorneys, and he thought he should share in the ownership of the property even after he was paid a good sum for making it. NBC told him, "No, this is Buffalo Bob's character. This is Buffalo Bob's voice, Buffalo Bob's idea, his name and everything." So anyway the thing was settled out of court, the original Howdy was actually incinerated, and we ...found this puppeteer, this lovely gal by the name of Velma Dawson, who was not only a puppeteer, but she also made puppets. Now Frank [Parris] walked out of the studio with his puppet at about 2:00 in the afternoon, and we had to come up with a story on why Howdy wasn't here.... We had to stall on the show, and this was 1948, the year that Howdy was running for President of All the Kids in the United States, and we wrote in the body of the show that Howdy was out campaigning in, I think it was Portland, Oregon. We picked the farthest place we could and he met his adversary, Mr. X, who was very handsome, and he knew that Mr. X would get all the votes from the kids. [Howdy wondered] what could he possibly do to get the votes from the girls, particularly? So he decided to have a face lift, but don't worry kids it's not 'gonna hurt... it's not any worse than having your tooth fall out, it's nothing, he's just 'gonna have a face lift.... So to get on with what we did about Howdy, we got on the telephone, I talked with Velma Dawson, and [they] said, "Now here's Bob and he'll tell you what Howdy sounds like." I gave her the voice, and what do you think he should look like? Within a couple of days she sent along several drawings, and the minute we saw that face we said, "Oh my Heavens, that's it, that's Howdy, that's it. Good. Make him immediately." And she did, but in the meantime we're stalling for the Howdy to come back and then the sponsors said, "We 'gotta have Howdy on the air to do commercials with you, Bob." So we just took any old puppet and we wrapped him in bandages, and for the next week or so we had a puppet wrapped in bandages and it was supposed to be Howdy Doody, and "Don't you worry kids, I'm fine, everything is great. I'll get these bandages off in a week or so." Finally we got the puppet from California. The body, I think, was made in New York, the head was made in California. We put the two of them together, wrapped him in bandages, and did the unveiling on the air. I'll never forget, we took the big scissors, cut off the bandages and there was Howdy as we know him today."

There's a good biography of Velma Dawson here. There's much more to her story than just Howdy Doody. Consider her husband, John Dawson:

An interesting aspect to Velma was her marriage. Velma married John Dawson, a prominent amateur golfer, in the early '40s. Her husband found it remarkable that a resort like Palm Springs had no 18-hole golf course. He got into golf development and is credited with making Palm Springs the golf capital of the world. John Dawson bought an old, failing dude ranch in Rancho Mirage, a place called the Thunderbird that was losing $35,000 a year and up for sale. It became Palm Springs first golf club. (That's when the desert town was four-hour drive from L.A.) The last country club Dawson created before his death was the Marrakesh in the '70s. By then the Dawsons had divorced after 32 years of marriage.

Here's an undated article about legal disputes over the creation and ownership of Howdy Doody.