CAN YOU HELP US
WITH PICTURES OR INFO
FROM THESE SHOWS?

Ed McDonell was the man and the voice inside the Feep costume. I was in the school band at the time with a kid that was his nephew and he told me that. - Fooby

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FEEP / Fantasmic Features / Big Brother Bob Emory
Thanks to Robert Deveau & Bob Polio for the pictures!

I stumbled on your website just now during a Google search of "Feep," so my 13 year old son could see what we watched on television in the 1950's, at least in the Boston area. (I grew up in Millis, Ma.) so...

I remember Feep as a weird little alien with a huge head and tiny legs. Not to be fooled so easily, I realized that there was a grown up inside a silver space suit which had a super low crotch - at knee level - and a huge head starting at the guy's mid-section, I think, with a funnel for a mouth (?) He hosted Fantasmic Features, and even was able to magically appear INSIDE the movies! creepy...

I also watched Big Brother Bob Emery. My next-door-neighbor, Jimmy Walker, got to go on the show. We were so-o-o-o-o jealous, until he came home and told us that Big Brother Bob was really mean to the kids when the cameras were not rolling!!! tee hee.

Rex Trailer came to my home town (Millis) one weekend, and my bratty friend Beth Gould and I (we were 13) ran gleefully beside him in the "parade" sarcastically screaming, "Rex! Rexy Baby! WE LOVE you Rexy!!!" and he yelled at us to "grow up!" (which we eventually did, sadly...)

Luckily, I had gotten his autograph on my autograph dog (a stuffed yellow weiner dog...) before the parade, beside Senator Ted Kennedy's. Unluckily, it did not survive my childhood, although I somehow did.

Bozo the Clown was insanely popular in our house (picture seven children crammed into a tiny 50's tract house living room, gathered 'round the set, jockeying for a good position). Wouldn't want to miss the "Magic Bozo Spin", which Bozo energetically performed each time, to choose "Butch for a Day", from the studio audience. Butch (boy or girl) had to wear an ill-fitting ringmaster's costume, and had the important job of announcing things, I think.

Was the "Banana Man" on Bozo? (No, it was Captain Kangaroo. - Editor) A clown who didn't talk in words, just said, "whoah" a lot, and performed magic tricks, the most famous and impossible of which was pulling an endless strand of tied-together silk scarves out of the deepest pockets on planet Earth. He also pulled out millions (at least) of bananas. Wait a minute, I don't think he was on Bozo. One clown per show was the rule back then, probably. What show was he on... hmmmmmmmm...?

We watched all the great TV shows on our bizarre Philco tv, which consisted of a tv head that swivelled on top of a red rectangular metal box. (My dad always managed to buy us the most ridiculous versions of popular cultural icons - we had cars like a Hudson Jet, a Studebaker Lark station wagon, an old Ford "Woody" and then a 1960 Cadillac Fleetwood Limousine, while the next door neighbors would trade in their Chevy Impala every 2 years as we watched in deep envy. So the tv was par for the course.)

I suddenly remember part of the Rex Trailer theme song... didn't it end, "in Boom, Boom, Boomtown! Yahoo!!!" ??? or was it, "Yippee!"? Yee-haw???

Anyway, thanks for jogging my memory (it is good for the brain, you know?) Sorry, I have no images at all. Just memories. Lots of them. So many theme songs, so little time...

- Sincerely, Marietta Rhyne

"My friend Bob Polio spent an entire day searching the microfilm archives of the Boston Herald and came up with the great images on this page."

I've also unearthed two shot-off-the-TV-screen Polaroids from the intro to the post-Feep version of "Fantasmic Features" that were buried in my archives.

And lastly, here is an audio clip of the original "Fantasmic Features" opening, circa 1964, followed by a few words from Feep himself. I'd love to know where this music comes from!

- Robert Deveau

I think the ending to the Big Brother song was:
So long small fry,
it's time to say goodbye,
come back again,
tomorrow night and then,
we'll have some fun,
there's some for everyone,
so don't forget we have a date,
tomorrow night and don't be late,
so small fry, so long.
[yes, that's correct]

The full lyrics for the start of his 12:15 TV show went like this:
The grass is always greener
In the other fellow's yard.
The little row, we have to hoe,
Oh boy, that‚s hard.
Now you always see the fine clothes
That the folks have on their back;
But you never see the mortgage,
That‚s hanging on their shack.
You liked our little roadster,
ŒTill the O‚Days got their sedan.
Now you call our roadster
Just an old tomato can.
Now (And?) if we all could wear green glasses, now
It wouldn‚t be so hard;
To see how green the grass is
In our own back yard.

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