Bob Keeshan, known for three decades as television’s gentle, patient Captain Kangaroo, and before that as the original Clarabelle the Clown on the old “Howdy Doody Show,” died yesterday. According to a statement released by his family Keeshan died of a long illness. He lived in Quechee.
In a 1999 appearance on VPR’s Switchboard program, Keeshan spoke about the importance of imagination as a child grows up.
(Keeshan) “We all call upon this imagination every day. In getting through every day, we call upon our imagination to make life a little easier, and so it’s not just the writer that needs imagination, or the actor, the performer, but it’s the physician, the scientist, the Einstein who thinks of things that were never thought of before. Imagination must be cultivated early on. Please, please, as a parent, cultivate that imagination in very young children.”
(Host) Bob Keeshan was 76 years old.