Captain Kangaroo was a children's show which aired weekday mornings on CBS from 1955 until 1984, then moved to PBS until 1987. The show was produced and the title character played by Bob Keeshan, who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and children."
Other actors in the show included:
- Hugh 'Lumpy' Brannum, who played Mr. Greenjeans and other, less-frequent characters, like the New Old Folk Singer;
- Cosmo 'Gus' Allegretti, who created and performed several regular puppet characters, including Bunny Rabbit, who always tricked the Captain's into giving him carrots, and Mr. Moose, whose riddles and knock-knock jokes ended with dozens of ping-pong balls hitting the Captain in the head; he was also the actor portraying the Dancing Bear and Grandfather Clock characters;
- John Burnstein, who joined the show in 1980 as Slim Goodbody, a man wearing a bodystocking which showed the organs of the body painted on it;
- Bill Cosby was a regular on the show in the 1980s; he did a "Picture Pages" segment.
Other regular features included The Magic Drawing Board and the Captain's "Reading Stories" sessions, which introduced kids to classics such as Curious George and Make Way for Ducklings.
The show was live for its first four years, and was in black-and-white until 1969. In 1981, CBS shortened the hour-long show into a half-hour.
