Bob Clampett, Boy Wonder
Of Stage C
by Robert
Story
Editor's Note: Everyone
knows the Bob Clampett of Termite Terrace, but what about the Bob
Clampett that grabbed headlines and received 3 Emmies for one of
television's first daily live puppet shows, Time for Beany.
Robert Story was there and tells us this and other stories.
PART I
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Time
for Beany. Beany and Cecil puppets
from the early 1950s. All photos are courtesy of the Bob Clampett
Collection. © 1999 Bob Clampett Productions LLC. All
rights reserved, including the right to reproduce in any form.
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Time for Beany
It's 1954 and KTTV's Stage C is crammed full of flats, props, lights,
scrims, ladders and scaffoldings, tables, chairs, cables and wires,
cameras, and a 6 foot high by 12 foot long "set." Behind
it, Time for Beany puppeteer-actors prepare to manipulate
their hand-puppets while reading from scripts.
It's a juggling act for "actors," Stan Freberg, who plays
Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent and Dishonest John, and Daws Butler,
who plays Captain Horatio Huffenpuff and Beany, the little kid with
the propellered beany atop his head, who, with his Uncle Cap'n Huffenpuff
sails the seven seas in search of adventure each day, Monday through
Friday, from 6:30 to 6:45 pm. It's moments before their air-time,
and the actors wait expectantly as Dick Aurant, the staff organist,
sits at the Hammond organ listening over earphones for the director's
cue to begin playing opening music and later, incidental and closing
music for the pre-prime time kid's show, Time For Beany.
Color television is far in the future, so Beany art direction
is a matter of coordinated shades of gray: each prop and set-piece
is color-keyed to emphasize its various, and essential, parts. Leakin'
Lena's hull is one shade of gray, while the trim around the good
ship's combings, the hull's uppermost ridge, is another. The mast
is yet another shade of gray, and the crow's nest is a medium gray.
The Leakin' Lena's cabin is gray, but the sails, the whitecaps on
the foreground sea and the puffy clouds air-brushed on the backdrop
behind the "set" are an off-white. Early television cameras
do not take kindly to white's tendency to "flare" or "bloom"
on TV screens.
"One minute," the director's voice announces over a PA,
in preparation for the countdown to that moment when the show goes
out over the airwaves to TV-Land. Carpenters hammer the last nail,
the set designer makes final adjustments, an artist from scenic
touches up a scrape on Lena's hull, writers scratch out and scribble
replacement dialogue on mimeographed scripts, one massive DuMont
television camera on a telescoping dolly is focused on the first
shot, while a second is pointed at an easel where an assistant waits
to flip white-letters-on-black title cards to be superimposed over
the opening scene. "Standby..." the voice says. The gaffer
switches on key-lights. The racket is deafening. In short, chaos
reigns.
"Ten....nine...eight..." a voice over headsets counts
down the seconds until air-time and cameras are "hot."
A hush falls over the studio. It is the dawn of commercial television.
"...Seven...six...five..." continues the stage manager,
and with his index finger, continues a silent count: four...three...two.
Over his headset, the director signals the stage manager, the talent
and organist.
FADE IN: to shot of Beany and Captain Huffenpuff on the Leakin'
Lena.
MUSIC CUE: "Blow The Man Down" starts.
SUPER TITLE: "Time For Beany."
ANNOUNCER: "It's time..."
...says Jimmy McGeorge, somewhat stridently so as to differentiate
his announcer voice from later character voices, "...for...BEANY!"
The picture fades up on the half dozen studio monitors. Videotape
is a dream, so Time for Beany is going out over the airwaves
the only way possible -- live. Every problem, every error may be
apparent to the viewer, while if the show goes along smoothly, except
for the actors and the people in the booth, the smoothness will
go unnoticed. The Beany actors are trying very hard to provide
yet one more flawless performance and the energy level in Studio
C has never been higher.
