O Captain! My Captain! The television’s on;
Yet legions of our saddened youth lament that you have gone.
No more the show with Mr. Moose, and no more Bunny Rabbit;
No more the entertainer who became a steady habit.
O boo hoo hoo,
O Captain Kangaroo,
I heard the news today, oh boy
That now your life is through.
O Captain! My Captain! With you and Rogers gone,
The kiddies of America will have to soldier on
Without the seltzer-bottle clown, without good Clarabell;
And now without our Captain? What dreadful news to tell!
Can this be true?
My Captain Kangaroo
Has shuffled off this mortal coil
And left me feeling blue.
My Captain does not say much; his flesh is cold and sere.
Perhaps he’s fallen sound asleep - he cannot see or hear.
O Mr. Green Jeans! Wake him up! Arouse him, please, I pray!
It strikes our deepest fears when childhood icons pass away.
O mourn, my friends! A legend ends!
Our Captain Kangaroo
Is entertaining angels now,
Now that his life is through.
[Apologies to Walt Whitman.]
Not that this has anything to do with current events, but Bob Keeshan’s passing in January 2004 inspired me to write this poem at the time.
I was feeling a bit nostalgic this morning for the television shows of my misspent youth. The Three Stooges, Bugs Bunny, Captain Kangaroo, Miss Frances and Ding Dong School (that one’s ripe for snarky commentary), and, of course, Romper Room. What crap did you like to watch when you were a young Snot-Nose?
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3 comments:
I watched the Captain every morning as a small child.
Did you see where Andy Griffith died? :(
I was kicked off Romper Room on day 3 of my week long stint for antisocial behavior. We played follow the leader, and the leader got to choose which animal to imitate. I was leader, and chose a turtle. So all of those girls in their pretty white dresses got down on the dusty studio floor and wallowed with me. Who knew Miss Margaret was The Man?
Funny, but I remember him as being Captain of a boat. About 25 years ago, Eli hizzownself and my Mom were members of the Long Island Yacht Club in Babylon NY, where we learned that Bob Keeshan was a board member of the LIYC some years earlier. His photo was on the wall dressed like a Commodore. It's odd that there is no reference to this in Wikipedia or the www.liyc.org website. He lived in Babylon NY until 1990.
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