Lessons from Howdy Doody

I can’t remember the last time I thought about Howdy Doody or the Peanut Gallery, which is odd, because for a stretch of my childhood I was convinced that Howdy and I shared a deep and meaningful bond—rare for a relationship in which one party is made of wood. I even asked Santa for a Howdy puppet one year, convinced I was destined to become a children’s-show ventriloquist, until I discovered that throwing your voice is not nearly as easy as throwing a tantrum.

Still, when Howdy wandered back into my mind today, he brought with him a sudden fizz of happiness—like a thousand tiny bubbles rising in a glass of nostalgia-flavored seltzer. And I found myself wondering: What was it about Howdy that lodged itself so sweetly in my emotional archives? After some reflection (and a brief detour Googling whether anyone still has a Peanut Gallery), here’s what I realized:

1. Howdy always looked for solutions—and usually with a smile.
We all know people whose first instinct, when something goes wrong, is to figure out who’s to blame. Ideally it’s not them. Howdy, in contrast, skipped the finger-pointing entirely. He was relentlessly upbeat, the sort of character who made optimism look like a full-time job with dental benefits. Instead of scolding, he rallied the Peanut Gallery into action—problem-solving as group therapy for kids in overalls.

2. He was the patron saint of making people feel included.
Howdy was his own neighborhood Welcome Wagon. Whenever someone shy wandered into the frame—Princess Summerfall Winterspring comes to mind—he made sure they felt like one of the gang. No grand speeches, no moral lessons spelled out in capital letters. Just simple, natural kindness. A reminder that being inclusive doesn’t have to look like a public-service announcement sponsored by your school district.

3. He treated imagination as a superpower.
Whether it was a missing toy or an impromptu adventure, Howdy never took the straight path from Point A to Point B. He asked questions. He prompted us to think. It was practically the Socratic Method, except with puppets, which frankly is how all philosophy should be taught.

So now I’m curious: Which childhood characters shaped the way you see the world? And more importantly—why aren’t they celebrated more often for the quiet, peculiar miracles they were?

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