Lew Anderson, who died Saturday at 84, was known most recently for his big band's regular Friday night gig at Birdland, but in the 1950s, he burned his way into the psychic landscape of millions of boomer kids as Clarabell the Clown on the "Howdy Doody Show."Dressed in a striped clown suit, big clown shoes, and a clown nose, and armed with a trademark bottle of seltzer to facilitate carbonic interplay, Anderson was a jolly, unpredictable presence on the Howdy Doody set, and a foil for the more rational, reassuring Buffalo Bob.
Clarabell did not speak, and like another silent clown, Harpo Marx, he was fond of communicating via squeeze horns. It thus came as a shock when, on the show's final day in September of 1960, Clarabell turned to the camera, and said, "Goodbye, kids."
| Goodbye, Clarabell. |