Who is Bob Keeshan

In writing a comment for this lens's guestbook, I realized that my long winded comment, was really the start of an article I should be writing for this lens. So, here it is:

When I was a kid, Captain Kangaroo was my fave show. I loved it and never missed an episode. There were a load of things I liked about this show, it was way better than Sesame Street and the shows they have for kids today: Barney, TellyTubbies, Magic School Bus.... they can't hold a candle to Captain Kangaroo, not in entertainment value or in educational value.

I loved the animals he often had on his show, and I loved the fact that they came from our own local zoo, White's Zoo in Scarbough Maine, where my dad had years ago supplied the animals.

I loved Mr Green Jeans, and Mr Moose, and Bunny Rabbit. I loved the B's in the mailbox and the T in the teacups, both of which were the letters B and T themselves.

None of those things were why I watched the show however. My favorite segment of Captain Kangaroo was "Picture Pages" when Bob Keeshan and Bill Cosby got together to read children's books. Bob read the books, and Bill would ask the kids in the audience questions about the story as it went along.

I esp liked when he'd read the books. Captain Kangaroo had a book club called "Picture Pages", and every months he'd send out this work book, and you could fill in the answers to the questions as he was reading the story on the show. Than at the end of the month you'd send the work book back to him, and he'd send you copies of the books he'd read that month.

The Captain Kangaroo "Picture Pages" segment was the inspiration for the spin off show CBS Storybreak, which aired after Captain Kangaroo went off the air. I watched this series as well, thus farther inspiring my love of books even more.

I must have gotten a couple hundred books from him over the years that I watched his show. My fave books of the ones I got from him, were The Sweet Pickles books. It was the start of my now massive book collection which has over 10,000 books and 7,000 comic books today.

He was such a great guy, if it hadn't been for him, I might not have been the avid book lover that I am today. He was the best role model any child could wish for, I only wish that children of today had a great role model like him to look up too.