Edward George Kean was an American television pioneer and writer who helped create The Howdy Doody Show

Howdy Doody

Howdy Doody is an American children's television program that was created and produced by E. Roger Muir and telecast on NBC in the United States from 1947 until 1960. It was a pioneer in children's television programming and set the pattern for many similar shows...

and wrote over 2,000 episodes of the program.

Early years

Kean was born on 28 October 1924, in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

. As a child, he started writing songs while at summer camp. Kean served in the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and earned degrees from Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 and Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

.

Howdy Doody

A song he wrote when he was in his 20s attracted the interest of Buffalo Bob Smith

Buffalo Bob Smith

Buffalo Bob Smith was the host of the children's show Howdy Doody.-Biography:...

, then hosting a radio show, and Smith hired Kean as a writer. When Smith was invited by NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

 in 1947 to create a television program for children, Kean came along to create "something that will keep the small fry intently absorbed, and out of possible mischief, for an hour" as he told Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

. The show debuted as Puppet Playhouse on December 27, 1947, as a Saturday morning program and was aired as a half-hour program five days each week at 5:30 PM from 1948 through 1956 on 200 television stations nationwide.

Stephen Davis, a historian who wrote the 1987 book Say Kids! What Time Is It? that chronicled the history of The Howdy Doody Show, credited Kean with writing the show's theme song as the program's "chief writer, philosopher and theoretician". In his eight years with the show, he scripted "almost every line spoken and every note sung", created characters such as Clarabell the Clown

Clarabell the Clown

Clarabell the Clown was the mute partner of Howdy Doody.Three actors played Clarabell. The first was Bob Keeshan, who later became Captain Kangaroo. Keeshan was succeeded by Robert "Nick" Nicholson, who also played the character of J. Cornelius Cobb on The Howdy Doody Show. Lew Anderson was the...

 and Princess Summerfall Winterspring, and conceived of Howdy Doody's 1948 run for President of the United States. Kean coined the word "kawabonga" as a greeting for the character Chief Thunderthud, which was later adopted by surfers as "cowabunga" and popularized by Snoopy

Snoopy

Snoopy is an fictional character in the long-running comic strip Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz. He is Charlie Brown's pet beagle. Snoopy began his life in the strip as a fairly conventional dog, but eventually evolved into perhaps the strip's most dynamic character—and among the most recognizable...

, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a fictional team of four teenage anthropomorphic turtles, who were trained by their anthropomorphic rat sensei in the art of ninjutsu and named after four Renaissance artists...

 and Bart Simpson

Bart Simpson

Bartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...

 among others.

Later years

Kean left the show in 1955 and went to work in the public relations field and as a stockbroker along with writing a newspaper column called The Consumer Madvocate for a number of years. He was also a lounge pianist in Detroit and Miami. Kean had previously scripted many of the Doody Dell comic books and children books and did further work for Dell (comics and books, both non-Doody) after leaving the show.

A resident of West Bloomfield Township, Michigan

West Bloomfield Township, Michigan

West Bloomfield Charter Township is an affluent charter township in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan, within the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the township had a population of 64,690. As of 2008, West Bloomfield Township was ranked the 8th highest income city in the...

, Kean died at age 85 on 13 August 2010, at a health care facility there due to emphysema

Emphysema

Emphysema is a long-term, progressive disease of the lungs that primarily causes shortness of breath. In people with emphysema, the tissues necessary to support the physical shape and function of the lungs are destroyed. It is included in a group of diseases called chronic obstructive pulmonary...

. He was survived by his wife, Vivian, as well as by a son, a stepdaughter, a stepson and seven grandchildren.