ATLANTA — Captain Kangaroo was America's television grandfather. He danced with a bear. Joked with a moose. And endured the occasional shower of pingpong balls.
Bob Keeshan was 28 when he created the Captain, donning a gray wig in a Dutch-boy hairstyle to become the elderly baby sitter for television's first generation of children.
Thirty years later, gray and portly, he no longer needed the wig.
"I kind of grew into the role," he once told a reporter.
Keeshan, who entertained and instructed generations of children, died Friday in Vermont at age 76.
He died after a long illness at a hospital in Windsor, his family said.
His show debuted on CBS in October 1955 and aired until 1985, making it the longest-running children's series in network history, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications. It was picked up by public television for six more years. Over its course, it won six Emmy Awards and three Peabody Awards. After the show left the air, Keeshan continued to play the role for a time in videos and public appearances.
Most Americans older than 30 immediately recognize the Captain's pudding-bowl haircut, push-broom mustache and red jacket with its oversized pockets — hence the "kangaroo" name.
Atlanta television personality Don Kennedy, 74, who hosted "The Popeye Show" for 15 seasons starting in 1956, said, "There was a gentleness to what he did."
Kennedy compared Keeshan to Fred Rogers, host of the PBS show "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," who died last year. Both hosts adopted a deliberate, easygoing pace, he said. "I think it had a calming effect on kids and maybe created values that are not available on TV today," said Kennedy. "The value of taking time to think and to consider ideas."
"He was not a celebrity to children or to parents. He was a friend of the family. And that's different," said Peggy Charren. Charren is founder of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Action for Children's Television, a nonprofit organization that campaigns against television violence and fights for high standards in children's programming, a cause Keeshan also adopted.
Today children's TV is a mind-boggling smorgasbord. In 1956 there were only a few dishes on the menu. Aired an hour in the morning, six days a week, Keeshan's show played a major role in shaping early television. This is perhaps why memories of that show are so dear to the first generation to grow up in front of the cathode ray tube.
For parents, Captain Kangaroo was a safe haven, said Charren. "When children were in front of it, you knew nothing bad was going to happen."
Keeshan was born in Lynbrook, N.Y. He was a page at NBC while still in school and later joined the Marine Corps.
Keeshan created his program after serving on "The Howdy Doody Show" as Clarabell the Clown, a non-speaking character who communicated by honking a horn.
Fired twice by "Howdy Doody" host Bob Smith, Keeshan portrayed clown characters elsewhere, including a stint as Corny on WABC's noontime cartoon feature "Time for Fun." Even then, according to the Museum of Broadcast Communications, "he exerted pressure to remove from airplay cartoons he felt were too violent or perpetuated racial stereotyping."
Throughout his career, Keeshan promoted toys such as Etch-a-Sketch and Play-Doh, which he thought were educational, but wouldn't accept advertising for what he called war toys.
He educated adults as well as children. Gordon L. Berry, an educational psychologist, studied the show during his long fascination with the effects of media on young children. A professor emeritus at UCLA, Berry remembers his third-grade daughter and her friend catching him watching the show one morning, with pencil and pad in hand.
"Cheryl," asked the friend, "does your father look at Captain Kangaroo?" The daughter answered, "Oh, yes, it's his favorite show."
Berry went on to consult with CBS on all its children's programming, including "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids."
"Keeshan," he said, "was a natural teacher. He had it, Fred Rogers had it, and Bill Cosby has it."
Brigid Sullivan, vice president in charge of children's programming at WGBH in Boston (producers of "Arthur," "Zoom" and "Between the Lions"), said Keeshan was a noble role model for those in the business.
"He dedicated himself to entertaining children in a wholesome way, which is hard to do," she said. "That's a worthy way to spend a life."
Keeshan's wife, Jeanne, died in 1990. He is survived by a son, two daughters and six grandchildren. Funeral arrangements were incomplete Friday.