Andy’s Gang with Froggy The Magic Gremlin was my favorite TV show, which aired soon after I could walk around and watch TV in the 1950s. I loved Host Andy Devine and his film segments of Gunga Ram, an Indian boy, and his best friend Rama.
Starring in the series was a devilish and irreverent frog named Froggy, who poked fun at everyone from police officers to mayors. This has always been my favorite TV show, and I can’t imagine an eight-year-old watching it now.
I am thankful to Froggy for my first exposure to challenging authority smartly.
If you wish, you can see a recording someone sent me that is on YouTube.
My story about Froggy doesn’t end here. I wandered into a local antique and oddity store just a few miles away. I saw this enormous statue of Frogie, and the owner had no idea who Froggy was, so he sold it to me. I was a couple of hundred pounds and was hand-pointed.
I fell in love with it, bought it, and made it my primary muse. I write about it once a year in memory of this very bright spot in a complex life.
Froggy sits a few feet away from me by the window, and I smile whenever I look at him and remember his taunt to the famous and influential – “Plunk your Magic Twanger, Froggy,” his then famous jeer.
Kids and the world have changed, but I’ll never forget Froggy, and I am grateful to have him in my writing place. I take my museses seriously. Stories were more straightforward then, but Andy and Guna Ram know how to win children’s imagination.
Jon – I remember the Andy’s gang radio show from when I was a kid too, but I think it was “Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy” – if I’m wrong please forgive me
Judith, you are right, thanks! I fixed it.
Buster Brown shoes. I remember too.
The original host was Smilin’ Ed McConnell. He died in 1954.
Andy Devine is from KIngman, AZ. In KIngman, a main street is named “Andy Devine Blvd”.
Full disclosure is required for this posting. The cat in the show was Midnight the Cat, who liked to say “nice” in a falsetto meow. Squeeky (cq) the Mouse, who was in reality a hamster, drove the Conestoga wagon. Gunga’s Ram’s elephant was named Teela, of maybe Telia, an uncomplaining beast of burden who did all the heavy lifting, but got little credit from the show’s producers. Andy Devine took the show over in 1955 after the original host, Smilin’ Ed McConnell, died of a heart attack in 1954. It only took me 83 years of living, Jon, to store all these facts in my head.
Thank you I forgot midnight
This was fun to watch Jon. I remember loving this show too and had forgotten all about it. I cringed, though, at the killing of the “bad Indian” and all the kids laughing and cheering.
Me too.
Thank you, Gossamer Wump, for a fun trip down memory lane. I’m 81 but confess I only remember Andy Devine as the host. I had a rubber Froggy toy, can’t remember if it made a noise tho it seems like it did. Probably just a squeek.
I love seeing a thread about Andy’s Gang. Froggy was unforgettable, and I loved the short films with the two boys-and now I know their names! Thank you☺️