Captain Kangaroo – Backstage Flasher!
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If you’re a media junkie looking for a juicy summer read, you might want to look no further than longtime CBS backstage honcho Daniel B. Morgan’s delicious memoir “Last Stage Manager Standing” – even if it does dish on some X-rated antics by one of TV’s most beloved kiddie show hosts:
[Bob “Captain Kangaroo”] Keeshan, before going on stage, used to flash his sidekick, Hugh “Lumpy” Brannun, aka Mr. Green Jeans.
Morgan writes how one day “Lumpy” responded by taking things a step further.
“Unbeknownst to the little viewers, Cap’n Bob would take it upon himself to take out his ‘weenie,’ put a pencil under it, and wave it at Lumpy,” Morgan reports.
He goes on: “Then the Captain would come through the door, greet everyone, and hang the keys on the key hook. On with the show! So now, at the end of the program (which probably included credits), Bob was backstage reading the final voice-over…(and) during Bob’s final read, Lumpy pulled out his penis and began to pee on Bob’s leg. Thus another pee-on story. HR would never allow this to happen today.”
Eew.
Eew indeed!Keeshan also had a short fuse – but also a generous side to the people who made his show tick:
‘I came back from lunch one day and I noticed he’d gotten angry and annihilated this bird cage, Morgan wrote.
‘I said to a stagehand, “Should we call the ASPCA?” He said, “Don’t worry. It was a plastic canary.’
Despite his tantrums, Morgan said Keeshan was always generous at Christmas time.
‘Each year he would find a hot gift for everyone,’ he wrote. ‘Like a Texas Instruments calculator or a Casio watch.’
To the surprise of many in the public (but few in the broadcast industry, where rumors and tales have circulated for a few decades), Morgan also reveals that legendary newscaster Peter Jennings was, to put it very mildly, a hit with the ladies:
Beloved late ABC anchor Jennings had no problem when it came to women, Morgan wrote in an excerpt obtained by the New York Post.
‘In between wives and girlfriends, he did very well,’ wrote Morgan, who revealed Jennings required the studio to be 48 degrees at all times.
‘He was a good-looking guy – tall, intelligent, well-spoken.’
Morgan recalled one memory when Jennings, who had just recently returned from a trip, was talking about how country singer Barbara Mandrell was ‘naughty’, his smile ‘like the Cheshire cat’.
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