Puppet tears
Look up, look wa-a-ay up… and wave bye-bye. Rusty and Jerome have left the building.
On Tuesday, the CBC Museum held a going away party for Rusty the Rooster, Jerome the Giraffe, and 51 pieces of paraphernalia from Friendly Giant. The items, which were on loan from the family of the late Bob Homme, are being returned to his family.
(According to a story in the Globe, the items were returned after the puppets appeared in a skit on this year’s Gemini Awards. They were portrayed as living in a retirement home, “where a narrator described them as sitting around, drinking, smoking and having sex.”)
None of Homme’s family were present at the farewell party, but there were milk and cookies, reruns of the show, and a duo of recorder players performing Early One Morning.
(Feeling nostaligic? Watch the Friendly Giant opening sequence on this YouTube clip, which includes CBC-TV ads from 1984. Or see the puppets work on the theme music in this YouTube clip.)
Not all the 51 pieces were on display at the museum – they include small objects like guitars for Rusty, hats, and snow covered turrets to use on the castle in winter time. (More photos on my Flickr set. H/T to Elizabeth Bridge for the pictures and headline.)
Also in the crowd were people who worked on the show during its 26-year run. One of them was John McCarthy. He’s now operations manager for the Network Production Centre, but back in 1979 he was a special effect technician working on Friendly Giant. The highlight of his career: lowering the drawbridge on Friendly’s castle each day. (Runner up: making the cow jump over the moon.)
“We did the models for the show, and made the instruments,” McCarthy said. “And we frequently had to repair Jerome’s ‘castle neck’.” The giraffe’s long neck would frequently wear out from rubbing against the wood of his window frame.
McCarthy said everything was “live to tape” back in those days, and believe it or not the musicians played the music live each time, seated behind the set. “Bob was a great recorder player,” John remembers.
What are your memories of the Friendly Giant? Share them here!
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Bob was a professor at Ryerson. Nobody would recognize him until he popped open his briefcase, combed his hair down over his forehead, and pulled out his recorder and did the music from the opening. At that point, you know you were in the presence of Children’s TV royalty.
I remember producing a radio interview with Bob Homme. It was a few years after his show went off the air. He was a gentleman and a sweet guy. What stands out for me, though, was feeling like I was suddenly 5 years old again. I’ve heard colleagues say the same thing about meeting Ernie Coombs.
If the Museum haden’t fired all its staff only one month ago this would not have happened. We pretend to care about our CBC heratige, but in reality this company only pays lip service. I believe all our artifacts will be removed, stolen, gone astray in the next few years. Pity….and I wish someone cared in Senior Management.
Hmmm .. hadn’t seen or heard about any of this. My regrets to the family. The perceived slight against the memory of their father and his contribution to Canadian culture must have been mortifying and disappointing for them. I put myself in their place and can’t say that I blame them from removing the artefacts from the care of those to whom they had been entrusted, once that trust had been broken. In the quest for easy laughs and ratings, we tend to forget that there are human beings behind the people and creations that we consider ripe for satire. In this case, presenting the puppets from a children’s show in this manner is of highly questionable taste (and I’m not an old biddy). I hope the family takes some measure of comfort in the letters of support they’ve received and find an appropriate place of honour for the Friendly Giant artefacts. I’m grateful that the clip you chose to present here wasn’t one from the infamous awards ceremony. I also hope that CBC upper management has extended an apology to the family : justifiable or not, creative license or not, knowing that pain has been caused by the incident should be enough for them to extend their regrets. I would hope that they stepped up to the plate in the name of basic human decency.
*reflects in silence*
As Ouimet points out, the actual skit was pretty tame. Someone just posted it to YouTube.
Rusty and Jerome appear for less than 15 seconds, and are not doing any of the dirty things mentioned in the Globe. Rusty complains about being stuck in a bag, and Jerome pleads for another chance on air. Not so racy. Still, I suppose if the puppets were property of the family and on loan to the museum, the family should have been asked.
Hmmm (again) – just watched the You Tube clip after being told by a friend last night that the skit was the highlight of the Geminis. Definitely tame – I guess it was a rights / broken trust issue more than anything. Too bad.
When I was in my early twenties, I spent a year studying at a college in Israel along with students from around the world. We were a group of about 100, a dozen of whom were from Canada. One day, there was a general meeting in the student lounge and the local radio station was piped in. The song “Early One Morning” (aka the theme from “The Friendly Giant”) came on. While most of the students were completely oblivious to the tune, all the Canadians stopped whatever they were doing when the music hit them. After a pause of a few seconds, we began to look around and exchange knowing glances and smiles with all the other Canadians who were lucky enough to grew up with Friendly.
A magical moment – and a magical show.
I read this post earlier on today, but didn’t look at the Globe article then. The Globe article was passed along to me by a colleague later on in the day. When I realized that the misuse and disrespect of these cultural artifacts was, in part, due to the “redundancy”, and subsequent lay-offs of the museum staff, like Jimmy (above) I was shocked and appalled.
I am generally a huge fan of the CBC and all things Canadian. However, as a student of LIS this situation disgusts me. I would imagine that the CBC has a huge media archive as well. Will your archivists and librarians one day become redundant too? The CBC should be a stalwart of culture – but not only providing access to it through television and radio, but also by providing proper cultural preservation and access. Curators, archivists and librarians – all under recognized – are highly trained professionals. Their roles can not, and should not ever be considered “redundant.”
This is shameful.
FYI, a memo was issued today about the CBC Museum. According to John Bozzo in Communications, “there is no change to the status of the Museum at this time.” He goes on to say that TBC ground floor renovations “will provide opportunities for the public to see and experience even more of our history than is currently available in the CBC Museum.” Integrated display spaces are mentioned, along with an effort to transfer pieces to other museums and special exhibitions.
And an apology.
A proper expansion of the Museum facilities – perhaps into the other Broadcast Centres? – would not be a bad thing to do, I think.
And I hope the apology helps matters…
Why did none of this poop hit Strombo? He was the producer on that show. It seems he’s untouchable.