'It's Howdy Doody Time': Wisconsin man's automaton gave voice to the famed puppet

SHOREWOOD, Wisc., — For Mathew Gruber, it's a window to the past, when television was young and a freckle-faced puppet named Howdy Doody was the star of the biggest children's program around.

Gruber didn't create Howdy Doody, the character and show that ran from 1947 to 1960 on NBC and entertained millions of kids around the country.

Instead, he did something that allowed the puppet to make "personal appearances" on behalf of the show's sponsors.

Gruber manufactured a Howdy Doody automaton, a mechanically driven puppet whose mouth and movements were synchronized to a tape played on a continuous loop.

Back then, you couldn't magically conjure up something like that on a computer screen with a few clicks of a mouse.

You had to build it from scratch, right down to the mechanics of the machine and the intricate colors of the western costume.

It worked then.

And it still works now.

The Howdy Doody automaton is more than 70 years old.

Gruber is 99.

"I was involved in the Howdy Doody show," Gruber said the other day, showing off his pride and joy. "I duplicated the puppet."

Enter Gruber's apartment at HarborChase of Shorewood assisted living and right there is the Howdy Doody automaton.

Play it, and you hear the voice of Buffalo Bob Smith, the host of the Howdy Doody show, talking up the great taste of Welch's grape juice.

There's more. A lot more. Puppets, automatons and memories.

American Pickers came calling but Gruber wasn't selling

So much material that the crew at the American Pickers reality TV show stopped by to take in Gruber's prized collection for an episode that aired in March.

They tried to swing a deal for some items but Gruber wasn't selling.

You see, the puppets and automatons, and there are plenty of them, are a little like his children.

And yes, he has three kids of his own, including two who live in the area.

Gruber's kids remember growing up with the puppets. They also recall that when they would ask their mother where their father was, she would often tell them, "in the basement with those (bleeping) puppets."

Gruber's work with automatons came about because of an off-hand remark someone made to his father, who not only was an artist and cabinetmaker, but also a ventriloquist.

"There was an incident, where my father was demonstrating his ventriloquist act," Gruber recalled.

The man watching the act told Gruber's father: "If you can get rid of you and just have the ventriloquist dummy we can make a fortune."

Gruber tried to make that fortune in the late 1940s and early 1950s with a company he called Soundisplay Enterprises. He created automatons for what was known as point-of-purchase advertising.

The trick was to lure the shoppers with the puppets that talked.

A big hit was the Scamperette puppet, which advertised slips and panties. He made seven of those automatons which would be moved from one department store to another.

It was also during this time that he created the Howdy Doody automaton. Gruber recalled he worked at the NBC studio for around a month just to create molds that he then used to manufacture the automaton.

"If I realized how important Howdy Doody turned out to be I would have spent more time with the TV show," he said.

The problem for the business is that Gruber couldn't scale up.

He eventually closed shop and joined his father's decorative and furniture business in New York, later taking over the firm.

But he never lost his passion for puppet-making and other art.

His apartment is crammed with his works, including paintings and what he calls his "Constructions," geometric shapes made from thin strips of wood. There are also 400 more portraits that were painted by his father, some on the walls others on canvasses still un-stretched.

All of the material was carefully moved from Gruber's former home in New York to Shorewood.

And his family took extra care of the Howdy Doody and Scamperette pieces.

They were buckled in the back seat of a car and driven to the Midwest.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wisconsin Howdy Doody automaton gave famed puppet voice