RIP Clarabell the Clown III, but who's counting?

[lsanderson]

Lew Anderson, 84, Clarabell the Clown and a Bandleader, Dies
By DOUGLAS MARTIN

Lew Anderson, whose considerable success as a musician, arranger and bandleader paled before the celebrity he achieved as Clarabell the Clown, Howdy Doody's sidekick on one of television's first children's shows, died on Sunday in Hawthorne, N.Y.

He was 84, but always felt he was around 25, his son Christopher said. His father died of complications of prostate cancer, he added.

"Well, his feet are big, his tummy's stout, but we could never do without," Buffalo Bob Smith and the Kids of the Peanut Gallery sang in appreciation of his character, in a baggy, striped costume, who communicated by honking a horn for yes and no, Harpo Marx style. More