Mr. Moose Hand Puppet: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Mister Moose puppet who starred on the Saturday morning version of the TV series Captain Kangaroo from 1956 to 1965 on the "Treasure House" set. Dark brown puppet with large snout, gray and black plastic eyes, orange felt mouth, and yellow felt antlers. Used by Robert Keeshan. Designed by Cosme "Gus" Allegretti, Mr. Moose was famous for offering riddles or knock-knock jokes to Captain Kangaroo, the gag answer to the latter often being followed by a barrage of ping-pong balls leveled at the naive Captain.

Captain Kangaroo premiered in 1955 and ran until 1984, the longest-running network television children's show and winner of both Emmy and Peabody awards. Robert Keeshan played the title role and Hugh Brannum played his pal, Mr. Green Jeans. After 1984, Keeshan brought the show to PBS where it ran until 1992.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date made: 1955 - 1956
• designer: Allegretti, Cosmo
• user: Keeshan, Robert
• maker: Allegretti, Cosmo
• Object Name: Puppet
• Physical Description: fabric (overall material)
• Physical Description: felt (mouth; antlers material)
• Physical Description: plastic (eyes material)
• Measurements: overall: 36 in x 10 in x 15 in; 91.44 cm x 25.4 cm x 38.1 cm
• place made: United States: New York, New York City
• Subject: Radio and television broadcasting
• Subject: Television broadcasts
• Subject: Puppetry
• Subject: Children's television programs
• ID Number: 1992.0420.03
• accession number: 1992.0420
• catalog number: 1992.0420.03
• Credit Line: Gift of Robert Keeshan Associates
• Data Source: National Museum of American History

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.