The Captain

Originally published June 27, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1232

I remember the first and only time I saw him in person.

It was at the earliest point in my career… indeed, it was before I even had a career. At the time I was still considering the notion of trying to break into news writing. Obviously, it was long before I wound up with a career in fiction (although some reporters produce work which clearly falls into the category of fiction.) And I’d had a job interview at CBS News. The job basically involved sitting and transcribing news broadcast into hard copy. Someone’s got to do it, after all; you didn’t think that those transcriptions they’re always telling you that you can send away for wrote themselves, did you?

It was described to me as “entry level,” but as I asked around it seemed to me that a more appropriate description was “dead end.” It simply wasn’t something I could see going anywhere. I’d pretty much made up my mind that I wasn’t interested in it…which worked out fine, because as it happened, they didn’t offer it to me.

But I remember standing in the lobby, looking at some picture on the wall. My back was to the receptionist. And I heard her say, “Good night, Mr. Keeshan.”

And a voice as familiar to me as that of my own parents said, “Good night.”

I turned and there he was: the Captain. The Captain.

When Bob Keeshan was twenty eight years old, back in October of 1955 and just embarking on a series that would run nearly three decades, he had to wear make-up and a wig to put across the character of an avuncular, slightly befuddled, out-of-the-loop caretaker by the name of Captain Kangaroo.

Not anymore. He stood not three feet away from me and he looked exactly as he always had. Life imitated art.

I couldn’t say anything. My jaw was frozen. I just stared with what was no doubt an extremely doofy expression. What could I say? “Pleasure to meet you?” “I watched you every day when I was a kid?” “Thanks for reading me all those great stories?” “What’s Mr. Moose really like?” “What was the deal with Mr. Greenjeans, anyway, and was there a Mrs. Greenjeans?”

None of it. Just the tongue-tied, doofy expression.

And he looked at me and smiled gently, as he always did when he looked straight at me through the TV screen, and I had a feeling that he knew everything that was going through my head. He probably got it all the time.

He said, “Hi there.”

I nodded slightly and managed to articulate, “Hi.”

And then he was gone.

And now he’s gone again. Because Saban Entertainment, a soulless, gutless corporation… an outfit which fired three actors from the Power Rangers (whose likenesses were showing up on toys and dolls generating millions in revenue) because the actors asked to be paid–get this–scale (as opposed to the below-scale wages they were earning)… Saban Entertainment is producing 26 half-hour episodes of the show. One that will “contemporize the show and give it the sense and the look of a kids’ show in the ’90s,” according to spokesman Barry Stagg.

Gee, Barry, which kid’s show would that be? Reboot? Or Barney? The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest? Or The Magic School Bus? Wow, how about those hip, contemporary shows like Bananas in Pajamas or Shining Time Station? No, no, “It will be interactive, computer-related, high-tech with an MTV-style approach,” says Stagg.

No, Stagg. We have computers for that. We have MTV for that. What we had the Captain for was an oasis of quiet, of silliness, of… well… doofiness.

Saban blew off Bob Keeshan. Keeshan told the New York Daily News, “I didn’t think, and I still don’t think, they understand what this property is. They’re finding a Captain for the ’90s, but the Captain was cool because he wasn’t hip. They don’t know that. They can’t grasp that,” and went on to say, “The Captain made it because he talked to the minds and hearts of children. This is what made it great. This is what 200 million Americans remember of the Captain… I really think they believe that kids are different today than they were in the ’60s or ’70s. That’s nonsense. They’re still the same, still asking the same questions: ‘Who am I? Am I loved? What does the future hold for me?’”

Oh, they offered him a title of “Executive Producer,” but they balked when Keeshan said he was going to want to have the power of… well… executive producer. He wanted creative veto, the ability to say, “This piece of material is not appropriate to this audience and we’ll have to do it another way.” And Saban told him to forget it. Of course forget it. After all, what would Bob Keeshan know about children? About kid’s programming? About the character.

Stagg claimed, “We are making every effort to produce a quality series for kids which embodies the spirit, the tone and the respect for kids of the original.”

But why call it Captain Kangaroo, Barry? It ain’t him. No matter how sweet a guy the new “Captain” may be, or talented, or charming, he ain’t Captain Kangaroo. The name will have no meaning to kids today, and the parents to whom it does have meaning will just look at him and say, “But… that’s not the Captain.”

What’s next, I wonder? Is Diver Dan going to make it with the mermaid?

One could argue that that is simply the way of corporations. The way of heartlessness. The tendency to consider everyone and everything eminently disposable.

I think it comes from the fundamental arrogance of youth and the refusal to believe that anyone who is old can be vital or contributive. That and simple lack of gratitude. Keeshan’s character helped put children’s programming on the map. He created the franchise exploited by Saban now and CBS in the past, and neither of them gives a damn. I mean, October 23, 1995, was the forty year anniversary of the Captain’s first broadcast. Where was CBS? Where was the retrospective? Where was one lousy prime time special? A week of special programming? Something? Anything?

Nope. Dead silence from CBS. Why should they care? What’s Bob Keeshan done for them lately? What have they asked him to do?

It’s similar to the recent abomination perpetrated by the Village Voice. Jules Feiffer made his debut in the Voice nearly a year after Captain Kangaroo first showed up, jingling the keys to the Treasure House. For forty years, Jules Feiffer defined the Voice. He was the Voice, the single most identifiable aspect of the paper, and the years have done nothing to diminish his skill or bite.

And what did the Voice do to show their appreciation? How did they handle their mainstay? They offered him a seventy-five percent pay cut.

Let me say that again.

They offered him a seventy-five percent pay cut.

One more time, just in case you still can’t quite believe it: Forty year veteran. Pulitzer Prize winner in 1986. The voice of the Voice. Hey Jules: That dollar we gave you last week? Twenty five cents now. Take it or leave it.

He left it. That is not a shock.

What is shocking is that such an insult was offered in the first place. What is shocking is that the management of the Voice held Feiffer in such contempt that they dared to suggest it and act as if it was something other than a slap in the face.

The obvious question becomes, of course, what were they going to do with the money they wanted to take away from Feiffer? Well, according to Don Forst, editor of the Voice, they’re planning to use the salary to hire new cartoonists. Read: Young cartoonists. After all, if you guys at the Voice want someone with a track record, with a name, with clout, with experience, why… there’s always Jules Feiffer, you clods! So it’s not too much of a stretch to suppose that they’re going to go for young, new, hot talent at the expense of the old.

It is a pernicious world that we live in. An insane world. How in God’s name can people be biased against their seniors? Prejudice comes from one group despising another group, but old age is across the board. White man hates Black Man, Jewish Man hates Arab Man, and vice versa, but they’re all going to be old men (grumpy or not). The baseless stupidity of prejudice is bad enough, but this is stupidity squared.

I think of comic book conventions where people who are the true pioneers of the industry sit at tables, ignored by the vast majority of the fans. No interest in them whatsoever. While fans lionize the writers and artists who have done the latest rehashing and rethinking of characters (which will likely be tossed onto the scrap heap within a few years anyway when the new flavor-of-the-month comes along with his definitive version), those who actually created or shaped those characters and made them into the icons that fire the imagination to this day… those creators, well, you can hear crickets chirping in front of their tables.

It could be argued that fans of today don’t care about creators of yesterday. Fair enough. But they should care. They should make it a point of caring. When I was first getting into comics, I read everything I could about the history of the medium. I read Steranko’s History of Comics, two humongous volumes (humongous more in the physical dimensions than anything; they were oversized tabloids) with more promised that never materialized. I read The Great Comic Book Heroes by—guess who—Jules Feiffer.

But instead, in our society, it’s out with the old, in with the new. “This isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile,” proclaim the ads. Very likely. And I’ll never forget when I saw a car made in the 1950s go tooling past me one day on Northern Boulevard in Queens, and it had a sign in the back window that proudly claimed, “This is your father’s Oldsmobile!” And you know what? It was still running fine forty years after its manufacture, and it looked a damned sight cooler than the latest models.

New is not necessarily better. Old is not necessarily evil. What is it about our society that automatically assumes that lack of experience is a good thing? Can we forget Ron Perelman and his cronies, marching into Marvel and stirring the same feelings in the industry that the residents of Pompeii must have felt when they noticed that Vesuvias didn’t look right that morning. And Perelman boasted in interviews that his greatest strength was his ignorance of the way things had been done before. He knew nothing and therefore couldn’t be bound by loyalties or the “old” way of doing things.

And boy, Ron showed us exactly how to get the job done, didn’t he.

Let me quote Voice publisher Don Schneiderman who, when presented with the notion of offering Feiffer a seventy-five percent cut, offered the following assessment to the press: “I said I had no problem with it.”

Don Forst and Don Schneiderman: A couple of Dons making an offer that had to be refused. It’s like a Bizarro Mafia.

Well, you know what, Don? I have a problem with it. I have a problem with Jules Feiffer being shunted aside as if his contributions meant nothing. And Saban and CBS–I have a problem with Bob Keeshan being shunted aside as if his contributions meant nothing. And I have a problem with comics greats being treated as if they were invisible.

It’s as if what is truly important is completely out of whack. Loyalty is non-existent. Appreciation is a joke. And the fact that to grow older is to become wiser in the ways of the world rather than more oblivious of them is a truth so simple that, like other obvious things such as “common sense,” it cannot be taken for granted.

It’s as if we’re animals, really. The old are assessed not on the basis of their intellect, but instead as if they were being judged on their ability to hunt. To provide food for the pack. And if they cannot do so anymore… if they cannot keep up with the pack… then the youngsters of the pack challenge them, knock them aside, banish them. Or predators catch up with them and tear them to shreds because that’s nature’s way. They have nothing more to offer.

Well, these days the predators wear fancy suits and expensive watches. They pronounce judgments based on dollars rather than sense, and snicker and smile confidently to themselves, shunting aside those who can help them in favor of those who will do as they’re told. And they are oblivious of the fact that, sooner or later, it’s going to be their turn. Secure and unaware of their own mortality, they live in a fool’s paradise. If their minds were open, the gentle captain might tell them a story about how such attitudes don’t pan out. Or the acerbic Feiffer could produce a cartoon that would cut to the bone.

But only their mouths were open, while their minds are closed. And those who are older, and wiser, and more talented than they will ever be, shake their heads in disbelief at how they’re not appreciated. And secure, at least, in the knowledge that–sooner or later–time gets us all.

Even the suits.

They’ll learn. They’ll learn. And they’ll try to tell the generation following them… and the irony is that no one will listen to them because, of course…

…the new guys know better.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)