Time for Beany
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Time for Beany was a television series, with puppets for characters, which aired circa 1949-1955. It was created by animator Bob Clampett, who later reused its core characters in the animated Beany and Cecil series. The principal characters were Beany, a plucky young boy who wears a beanie, the brave but dimwitted Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, the cowardly Captain Horatio Huffenpuff (whose name is a play on Horatio Hornblower), and the villainous Dishonest John with cape and mustache. Cecil claimed to be 300 years old and 35 feet 3 inches tall.
The principal voice actors were Daws Butler and Stan Freberg. The puppets, created by Maurice Seiderman, were presented against simple sets or crude background drawings.
The stories were presented as serials, allowing more extended plots than in the later Beany and Cecil cartoons. Some of these stories contained topical references; one episode portrayed President Harry S Truman in puppet form, accompanying Cecil's singing.
Albert Einstein was reputed to be a fan of the show. On one occasion, the physicist interrupted a high-level conference by announcing, "You will have to excuse me, gentlemen. It's Time for Beany."[1]
Anamaniacs Pinky and the Brain paid homage to the show by having a puppet show called "The Meany Show". It also references Albert Einstein being a fan of the show, as Pinky and the Brain are mice in his 1954 laboratory.
[edit] Videography
- Bob Clampett's Beany and Cecil: The Special Edition (Image Entertainment, 1999) (4 episodes)
[edit] References
- ^ It Only Hurts When I Laugh, Stan Freberg, Times Books, 1988. ISBN 0812912977
