User reviews

Just one of those early morning wonderful kid's TV program from the fifties. A mish-mash of old movies series with Andy providing the 'anchor'. Still remember the show clearly...

Wow, someone else remembers this show. I remembered it as the Buster Brown Show and all my friends thought I was crazy when I described the show. (ditto with Winky Dink) I particularly liked Froggie the Gremlin. There always seemed to be some stuffed shirt lecturer and Froggie would throw out some silly phrase which the lecturer would insert into his speech and then get all frustrated. After all that Froggie would disappear in a cloud of smoke. When you're seven, that was the height of comedy. Who remembers "I've got shoes, you've got shoes, everybody's got to have shoes, and the very best shoes that you can buy are Buster Brown shoes.

This was one of my favorite Sat. Morning TV shows. I always liked Andy Devine in his movies. I was so young that some of the things in this show scared me a little. Especially the movies he showed involving mysterious people in India. I do remember Froggy and the cat, but I never would have remembered the magic words. I hoe you are still out there "ron 1003". It;s nice tosee your review entry. Those were the good'ol days!!!

Two of my favorite characters on the show were a frog and a cat! Someone off camera would say the words, "Pluck you magic twanger, Froggie," and Froggie the Gremlin would appear in a cloud of smoke. He wasn't a real frog, but a rubber frog about 10" high! The other character was a black cat named "Midnight." Andy would say something to the cat and its only response was "Nice"! I've never run into anyone who remembers the magic words, "Pluck you magic twanger, Froggie!" If there's anyone out there who knows what I'm talking about, please say something!

I loved this show, even before Andy Devine, but especially after he began hosting. I heard rumors, as an adult, that Uncle Ed, host of Uncle Ed's Gang(?), the previous host, did a Face-in-the-Crowd stunt and was instantly unemployed, but I have also read that he died in 1955 of a heart attack, at which time Andy Devine replaced him.

As young as I was, I found it confusing that the "new" host appeared to be on a very old show, old set, and with the same children I had seen the week before. The kids in the audience were unchanged over the years--the same laughing and screaming kids appeared with Andy who had appeared with Uncle Ed! I think those children were filmed in the 40s at a movie theater! Every episode featured two (possibly animatronic) animals. One was Midnight, the cat (who did not meow--he/she uttered a long, rising 'Nice,' whenever the camera was close). The other was Squeakie, the mouse (for some reason, I always want to call him Mousie) who generally made life difficult for Midnight, did not talk, but usually did something 'daring' and distracting while Midnight performed some impossible act (playing the violin, while wearing a tutu, was my favorite, all the while circled by Mousie on a motorcycle).

Froggy made me laugh out loud as he usually bested first Uncle Ed and then Andy, appearing in a puff of smoke after the audience was urged to call out, "Froggy, pluck your magic twanger." (After Ed disappeared, Andy made the call.) Froggy stood on a column to bring him to the level of the host, couldn't be made to do anything he didn't want to do, tricked and manipulated the host in every way possible, and then disappeared in another puff of smoke, to my delight.

Every week we were treated to an episode of "Jungle Boy," (I think that's what it was called). The actor looked a lot like Sabu, but I can't remember the actual name of the serial and its actors--two boys who had adventures in the Indian jungle--sometimes dodging wild elephants and tigers, eventually besting the villain--man or animal.

Even the commercials were fantastic--a little boy and his dog who lived in a shoe--Buster Brown and his dog, Tige, (is that how it's spelled?). The dog looked like it might have been a brindle (hence the Tiger in his name) terrier, boxer, bull dog--something like that. His master, his hair cut in the Buster Brown bob, was always dressed in the classic Buster Brown suit for little boys so popular around the turn of the last century, with the ribbon trimmed hat. I hope I'm not making this up--it's so vivid in my memories. We certainly knew what brand of shoes we wanted when school started! I think I still remember the rhyme with which he began the commercial: "I'm Buster Brown. I live in a shoe! Here's my dog, Tige--he lives here, too!"

Apparently, I was one of very few children who watched early Saturday morning television--I have almost never met anyone who knows what I'm talking about, and I see a lot of disbelieving looks when I describe the show. Only one older adult, who revealed the mystery of Uncle Ed's disappearance, was at all familiar with the show.

I wish they'd show it once more or put it on DVD. The show was the same era as the Susie Snowflake animation that hasn't been seen (by anyone I know) since the 50s--I wonder if these shows exist anywhere.

The song went (I think)

I got a gang, You got a gang Everybody's got to have a gang. But there's only one real true old gang it's Good Old Andy's gang.

Pluck your magic twanger Froggy (a cloud of smoke) Hiya Kids Hiya Hiya Hiya

Does your shoe have a boy inside? what a funny place for a boy to hide. Does your shoe have a dog there too? A boy and a dog and foot in a shoe. Well the boy is Buster Brown and the dog is Tige his friend and its really just a picture but it's fun to play pretend. So look look look in your telephone book for the store that sells the shoe with the picture of the boy and the dog there too so you can put your foot into, a Buster Brown shoe.

Saurday morning line up

1.Crusader Rabbit and Rags the Tiger 2.Andy's Gang, 3.Howdy Doody,4.Roy Rogers, 5.Fury, 6.Sky King, and 7.My Friend Flicka

The golden age of television

I loved Andy's Gang and watched it with my older brother frequently. After reading the comments above, I thought I would straighten out some of the lines used on the show. Theme song: I've got a gang. You've got a gang. Everybodys gotta have a gang. But there's only one real gang for me. Good old Andy's gang!!!

I still remember the tune and can easily sing it.

Froggy the Gremlin: (He lived in a big clock) Andy: "Plunk your magic twanger Froggy!" Flash and puff of smoke. Froggy: "Hiya kids, hiya hiya!" Andy: "Now Froggy, you're gonna behave today right?" Froggy: "I'll be good, I will, I will. Ha-ha, ha-ha; ha-ha, ha-ha!" (The ha-ha's were almost croaked and sounded more like ahh-ahh, ahh-ahh)

Froggy would then proceed to totally harass who ever the guest was, as well as Andy and would finally vanish in another puff of smoke.

As someone said earlier, he could have been the inspiration for Bart Simpson.

Midnight the cat (niiice!) was also a great character. The show was definitely strange. That's probably why my brother and I loved it so much.

When the Gunga Rama elephant boy shorts were running, the groups of beaters or other groups engaged in communal activity would always chant the same song, but I don't remember what it was. Mungoolay, poolulay, ookabolakonga. You get the idea. I hope someone can fill in that blank.

Someone above mentioned the Winky Dink show. Winky Dink and me. Winky Dink and you. We'll have lots and lots of fun together. Winky Dink and me. Winky Dink and you....I don't remember the rest of the second line. Talk about interactive media. It presaged video games by decades.

How about Colonel Bleep the alien and his side kick Scratch the cave man? Or Tom Terrific with his funnel hat.

I always thought Crusader Rabbit and Raglin T. Tiger were the inspiration for Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Fun to remember this stuff.

I watched this show as a kid from 55 to 60 ... LOVED IT ESPECIALLY froggy and Andy together

To coin a phrase "Those were the days my friend I thought they'd never end"

First of all, this is one "Spinoff" that seems to get more write ups and remembrance than the original. ANDY's GANG was the filmed continuance of the old Radio-TV Series hosted by Smilin' Ed McConnell. It had been known as The Buster Brown Show for some time dating to its earliest days on Radio.

The name was not because it featured old Comic Strip Character, BUSTER BROWN by cartoonist Richard Fenton Outcault, for it did not. But rather, the name came from the Sponsor, The Brown Shoe Company of St. Louis, Missouri. They were manufacturers of The Buster Brown Shoes, the company using the Buster Brown name under license from the copyright owner of the Comic Strip Characters, Buster Brown and his Dog, Tige.

The term "spinoff" is really not appropriate for describing ANDY's GANG as it was essentially the very same series.Let's elaborate on that premise.

Smilin' Ed McConnell had proved himself to be a giant in, not only the Radio Broadcast Business, but also as a Force on Madison Avenue. It has been written elsewhere that from 1942 on, after sponsoring McConnell created and hosted kiddie show, Brown Shoe Company grew at a phenomenal rate. At one point they even designated all of their advertising budget to Smilin' Ed's Show and related items, like comic book give aways of Buster Brown Comic Books, featuring Ed, Midnight, Squeaky and of course, Froggy the Gremlin.

When Smilin' Ed passed away in 1955, what was Brown Shoe to do? Well, for a few seasons anyway, they kept the show going. The answer was simple. They simply cast Andy Devine as new M.C., and inter-cut footage of Andy doing the same old business that Smilin' Ed had done before. The updating was very successful, mainly because so much of the 'Old Show' footage was done in the same way, editing the human M.C.'s on stage action with the audience, or the 'animal' characters (you know Midnight, Squeaky, Froggy).

They even changed the name on the big thick story book from "Smilin' Ed's Stories" to "Andy's Stories". Hence, Andy Devine was shown as leading into the On Going Stories, like Gunga the Elephant Boy*, by 'reading' the intro.

The series continued in reruns on local stations for some time after the deal with Brown Shoe Co., Buster Brown and company had expired.

In retrospect, the replacement of Ed McConnell with Andy Devine, and the celluloid surgery performed has to go down as one of the slickest maneuvers in Broadcast History. And to think that it was an adjunct to one of the greatest advertising/selling giants in History, in our own, nearly forgotten, Smilin' Ed McConnell.

* BUSTER BROWN by R.F. Outcault was a popular comic strip, beginning in 1902 and lasting to 1921. By the time of the show's hey day, Buster Brown was known as a Shoe Brand, the Comic Strip having passed into obscurity.

** The on going story of Gunga Ram (Nino Marcel) and his friend Rama(Vito Scotti) has been called a "Serial", which it wasn't in the usual sense, in that it had chapters with cliff hanging endings. The same Characters were featured in the Movie SABAKA (1954) along with Boris Karloff, Victor Jory and Reginald Denney. It also had the same Writer, Producer and Director in Frank Ferrin.

There was also Grandee the Talking Piano! This show's pedigree goes back to 1902 when the Brown Shoe Company purchased the rights to Buster Brown comic strip in The New York Herald. It progressed through to radio and then TV.

Ed McConnell was the front man who transferred from radio to TV. He worked a live kid's audience, but as his health faded, he found it easier to work in a dead studio with taped audience. When McConnell died and Andy Devine took over (he was a famed sidekick in some matinée movie westerns), he carried on with the taped audience. Trouble is, it was the same footage, the same audience week after week. Devine had more gimmicks and less natural laughs, but it was still fun and a little anarchic, especially with the Froggy the Gremlin, a cross between Bart Simpson and the Crazy Frog.

More information at Bygonetv.com

I am glad to see that there are already 18 reviews of the ramshackle production that was Andy's Gang, since nobody I describe it to can ever get what it is that I am talking about unless it was part of their youthful TV diet, too. Once in a while "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggie!" will get the appropriate reaction of "I'll be good, I will, I will, I will" in the dialect of B. S. Pulley, but trying to explain what Midnight the Cat was all about is really not possible (what was with the violin and "niiice" anyway and was't there also a Squeaky the Mouse; there certainly should have been if there wasn't?). Reading some other review descriptions, it is interesting to see that I was unaware that the screaming bunch of kids was canned (more likely,embalmed) from some other decade old show, but it was early Saturday morning and I was, like, six or seven so I'll give myself a pass. I feel like the serial that that was part of each show was called Rama the Elephant Boy or Raymar of the Jungle, but that may be just what formulated in my febrile brain. Froggie's tormenting of Billy Gilbert was especially haunting. To this day, I can mentally recreate GIlbert's personification of a prissy French (or maybe Italian) chef whose recitation of his recipe for a chocolate cake is skewered by Froggie jumping in when the recipe gets to "and now you take an egg.." saying "and you break it on your head", which, of course, the chef does, causing him to sputter and bewail the egg now dripping down all over his face. Froggie croaks his obscene sounding "ha ha ha". Comedy, pathos and a bit of horror in equal portions.

Saturdays in front of the big box Zenith started early in the AM. Sometimes the test pattern was still on, sometimes just snow, when I settled in down in the knotty pine (actually it was something called pecky cypress, but you probably never heard of it) paneled basement. The lineup began at 6:30 or 7 with "The Big Picture" (WWII stuff with lots of B-17s, things being blown up and troop ships landing somewhere or other) and then came the Farmer Gray cartoons that must have dated from the silent movie era. I guess my local station didn't have the budget for Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies or maybe they thought that kids watching at that time of day will watch anything if it was on the only channel broadcasting at such an hour. Mostly they were just a bunch of chickens and cows running around with old Farmer Gray chasing them or threatening them with his pitchfork, or at least that is all I remember. According to wiki, he was named Farmer Al Falfa in the original Terrytoons starting in 1915, but had become Gray by the time of Andy and his gang, probably due to some copyright business. These cartoons were my first exposure to classical music, though. Bizet's Jeux d'enfants and Mendelssohn's Midsummer night's dream are what still stick with me.

So, when I finally heard the melody that accompanied the immortal words "I've got a gang, you've got a gang, everybody's got a gang", it was the culmination of an already eventful and overstimulating couple of hours or so. From the vantage point of the final year in the second decade of the 21st century, it all seems a surrealist fantasy. The total illogicalness and non-sequitur is what sticks with me.

I was very young when "Andy's Gang" was on TV, but it was a great favorite of mine. I always liked Gunga Ram and his elephant, "Teela," but I always especially remember Froggy saying, "I'll be good, I will, I will!" However, Froggy was very seldom "good." I thought it was really great when Froggy appeared, or vanished, in a flash of light or smoke or whatever-it-was. It is only now that we can see that Froggy was the precursor to Bart Simpson, and that Froggy was subliminally brainwashing us Baby Boomers into rebelling against our parents and the whole Establishment, which came to full fruition in the Vietnam era with all those street demonstrations we remember so well. Oh, come on! Don't believe this? Get some tapes of this show (they have been made and sold) and see if I'm not right! (Also, check out "Froggy the Gremlin" on eBay--those rubber Froggy dolls are selling for hundreds of dollars!) A wonderful nostalgic memory!

froggy would appear and say, HI-DEE, HI-DE, HI-DEE! billie gilbert would appear as the prof. and give voice lessons.. something would happen ( maybe froggy would spray sneezing powder? ) and he would sneeze uncontrollably and leave.. also remember the magic twanger.. from my dim memory, i thought it was froggy's way of triggering a practical joke.. the scenes of the kids in the audience struck me as strange.. i remember that they always were doing the same exact movements, as if the same film was used every episode.. why not, what do kids know? there was a song andy sang with the audience.. only remember the ending-- good ol' andy's gang!

Andy's Gang was wild, something like a Saturday-morning Tonight Show for kids, with a rowdy audience howling with laughter or excitement -- although the kids weren't really there. The audience seen at the beginning was stock footage that was constantly reused.

I remember the audience singing a Buster Brown theme song to start the show.

I think it ended, "There's only one kind of gang for me, good old Andy's Gang!"

Andy Devine hollered "Hey kids!" and the crowd roared back. Froggy the Gremlin, a rubber toy, always said, "Hiya, kids, hiya hiya hiya!" He also brought on the film or cartoon when everyone yelled, "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!" There was usually a film episode of adventure with Gunga Ram, the mahout (Indian elephant wrangler) or the same actor as a Native American.

There was a black cat named Midnight who purred "Niiiiice" (voiced by June Foray) and a mouse named Squeaky who was played by a hamster. There were also comedy or variety sketches. Vito Scotti often appeared as some kind of "expert" who would do a demonstration for the audience. As Scotti narrated what he was doing Froggy would suggest wildly wrong things, which Scotti would repeat and do and then get upset about.

It was very low-budget, but hey, I was five or so and I loved it.

I was born in 1971....so ANDYS GANG is not something I remember from childhood. I am a very nostalgic person who treasures most old '70s & '80s things. I read a great book called BAD TV (written by Craig Nelson) and he gives a review of ANDYS GANG as being one of the most bizarre childrens shows ever created. In the list of reasons WHY the show was strange was Midnight the cat who could somehow be maneuvered into dancin a mean hula and purring "Niiiice" and Froggy The Gremlin who they described as being "evil". I would love to get my hands on a copy of this...but do they even have tapes of shows from that far back???

It was totally chaotic and raucous. It was like living in a nightmare, but I enjoyed it. Andy Devine did very little except stand and laugh like a carnival laughing lady, rocking back and forth. I most liked the cat with the fiddle. It never played a tune, just scraped the bow across the strings. I'm 64, and that show is stuck in my mind like glue.

I can't remember much about Froggy the Gremlin except for his entrance. I remember Buster Brown's role. "Hi, I'm Buster Brown, I live in a shoe. That's my dog Tige, he lives there too." Makes me wonder if they still make Buster Brown Shoes. I don't remember much else about the show. Did they show cartoons, movies, or what?

I have been somewhat haunted by this bizarre show for a half century. In the '50s there was no other kids' program like it, to be sure. I think lots of us were drawn to its rather twisted, surreal aspects. The little mouse (Squeaky) and the black cat that always meowed "Nice" were odd enough, but Froggy the Gremlin lived in the clock and always mocked whatever guest showed up. We '50s kids just loved the little fellow. He was so nasty and such a smart-ass. I had a bright green rubber Froggy from Woolworth's and was so fond of him. I wish I still had it. The transition after Smiling Ed died of a heart attack was rough and odd for us. Of course, we children were not told he had passed away. Just suddenly gravel-voiced character actor Andy Devine was in his place. But we knew and liked Andy as "Jingles" on the WILD BILL HICKOK show--with Tony the Tiger selling cereal. Shows usually had one key commercial that was hyped at several points, whether it was cereal or shoes--Buster Brown's. I would love to see some of the old serials of the Indian boy Rama (or was it Gunga?) who had a way with elephants. There were always savage tigers threatening the village and hordes of native "beaters" would go out into the bush making noise to drive him out. I remember once there was an evil maharajah and Rama helped two beautiful young women run away from him. It was quite the thrilling episode. The show had such a surreal quality that it still seems fresh to me. I would love to see a videotape, if one exists. The same few seconds of a wildly enthusiastic audience of kids leaping up and down and screaming with joy and approval was cut in between every major moment. Even as a kid fifty years ago I knew that was too weird.

Go to YouTube at Andy's Gang to see a lot of clips from the show. I remembered some the characters but with the exception of Andy, I didn't remember most of the human actors who were on the the show until I watched the clips. Once I saw them, I recalled them immediately. I was surprised I didn't remember them on the show until I saw them because, like Andy Devine, they were busy character actors who I've seen many times.

Loved that show, few remember it. He always managed to get the commercial plug in, though, not surprisingly given the show's heritage. One line has stayed with me from those days, I even use it in conversation (hoping someone will recognize it from the show), but no one ever recognizes what some of you may now remember. Flashback: "Friends stick together like Scotch Brand cellophane tape." My brother and I used to imitate Froggy to each other, always trying to come up with appropriate evil suggestions for what the other might do. Andy was the funniest kid show host back then, always laughingly and alarmingly on the verge of disaster. Other posters have tried to describe Froggy. My attempt is to say he was an amphibiously puppetized Bugs Bunny.