Garfield Goose and Friends was a children’s show that aired at 8:00 on weekday mornings on WGN in Chicago from 1955 until 1976. It was the longest running TV puppet show until Sesame Street broke the record.
The show’s human host was Frazier Thomas, who also produced and wrote the series. He was the only character on the show to speak. He also occasionally played a mouth organ, after warning kids at home not to try it because they could break their teeth. But the star of the show was Garfield, a delusional and irascible goose who believed he was the king of the United States. Garfield spoke by clacking his bill (the actual sound was an offstage typewriter). Frazier Thomas couldn’t understand Garfield but former magician’s assistant Romberg Rabbit could, so he whispered an inaudible translation into Thomas’ ear, who would then paraphrase what Garfield had said in his response. Other characters included Beauregard Burnsides III, a narcoleptic bloodhound, and Macintosh Mouse, who was in charge of the mailroom. One oddity about the show was that people would make and send gifts for the puppets, i.e. a scarf for Romberg or a blanket for Macintosh that Frazier Thomas would display on the air. God only knows what they did with all that stuff. In addition to the live action segments the show also showed low budget cartoons like Clutch Cargo and a seemingly endless live action serial called Journey To the Beginning of Time featuring four teenage boys who ride a boat into a mysterious cave and find themselves floating down a river going further and further into the prehistoric era.
I loved this show when I was little. Sadly, only a few episodes still exist, as WGN reused the videotapes it was recorded on. Frazier Thomas also hosted the Family Classics movie show on Sunday afternoons, another favorite of mine, which featured films based on books, like Robin Hood and Treasure Island. He suffered a stroke in the WGN studios in 1985 and died a few days after.