I think one of the best things I've ever come across in this age of computer enlightenment has been "Facebook." This one computer application has allowed me to learn more, contact more old friends, and have more pleasant memories come to the forefront of my mind more than anything in recent memory. Sure, there are those out there who absolutely hate Facebook, and that's ok. No one is going to like everything, ya know. But as for me, I love it, and that's all there is to it.
About a week ago I got a suggestion from a childhood friend of mine from the Richmond area about a group on Facebook I should join, and I didn't even have to go to the page before I decided to join it. Just the title of the group made up my mind for me.
The name of the group was "Fans of The Sailor Bob (aka Bob Griggs) Show."
Anyone from the Richmond metropolitan area of the early 1960's through the 1970's knows exactly who Sailor Bob was. He was the host of a locally-produced children's TV show that specialized in two things: Popeye the Sailor cartoons, and Sailor Bob's cartoon-drawing ability. Bob Griggs was a cartoonist, and a damned good one - he would regularly draw cartoon characters freehand on the big pad on his set. And when he wasn't drawing cartoons and hosting his show, he was the weatherman on the local TV station, WRVA Channel 12 (which later became WWBT). Bob would later move on to other, more significant "regular" broadcasting jobs and in 1999 was inducted in the Virginia Broadcaste's Hall of Fame, but to me and thousands of other kids of that era, he was then and always will be "Sailor Bob."
Sailor Bob wore a Navy uniform without any insignia; when the show started out in 1959 he wore either a Navy blue "crackerjack" uniform or a white summer uniform of the same style. As the show progressed, he ended up wearing the "dungaree" uniform consisting of a white sailor hat, blue chambray work shirt, Navy bell-bottom dungarees, and black shoes. That's the outfit I remember him wearing when I watched the show. His show took place on his boat, the TV Schooner, and the entire set consisted at first of just one room with a door on the right, a porthole on the left, and a drawing easel with a stool in front of it from which Sailor Bob hosted the show and drew his cartoons. He had two main puppet sidekicks, those being Gilliver Gull (or "Gilly" for short) who would appear at the porthole, and Mr. Mouse who would appear out of a large mouse hole on the wall behind Sailor Bob. Later on in the show they introduced two more characters, a sea serpent whose name escapes me and a bluebird, named "Bluebird" (duh), but I don't really remember them. Gilly and Mr. Mouse I remember very well, though.
One of the things they'd do on the show was announce the names of the kids who had sent in their birthdays, and I clearly remember the day my name was read on Sailor Bob's show! Fame and fortune at only seven years of age! Yee-haa!
It was watching "The Sailor Bob Show" when I was a kid that made me a fan of Popeye the Sailor, and I'm still a Popeye fan to this day.
Checking out the Facebook group, with all of the pictures from other fans on it, was a very pleasant trip down memory lane which took me the better part of an hour. Along with that, there are also two clips from the show which REALLY brought the memories flooding back! Sadly, for the first four or five years of the show, it was done LIVE and was not taped, so those shows are lost to the ether forever. But some of them have been preserved on tape and hopefully they'll be presented for us to view in the near future. But in the mean time, if you want to get a look at this fantastic example of an early, local kid's show, then go to YOUTUBE.com and do a search for "The Sailor Bob Show." The clips of which I speak are there.
As far as I know, Bob Griggs is still with us, although his show is long gone and he's long since retired. But as long as now-grownup kids have the memories of his show firmly in their heads, and as long as the tapes of the show are available, "The Sailor Bob Show" will live on.
As Sailor Bob said at the end of each show, "Fair Weather and Smooth Sailing!"
IHC
No comments:
Post a Comment