Update: A few clarifications! Ron Martens comments that when he saw Dex, his little friend was a dog named Tag-a-long. I'm sure he's right, and I was remembering the little guy incorrectly. Also, it's been assumed that I'm saying Dex and Dr. Max competed in the same time slot. Not so, as far as I remember. Dr. Max was on after school, and Dex was on Sunday mornings. Sorry I wasn't clearer.
For years I’ve
been searching for information on Dexter David Donovan III on the internet and
have found virtually nothing about him. Dex was the star of his eponymous Sunday
morning cartoon show, which he co-hosted with a little bunny whose name eludes
me*. The show was on KCRG, Channel 9 out
of Cedar Rapids IA. Apparently, it ran from around 1966 through the early 1970s*.
The link above shows a picture of Dex
on a TV listing in The Cedar Rapids Gazette. Unfortunately, I could only cut
and paste it here if I spent $20 to subscribe to see old newspapers on the
internet, and I’m too cheap to do it. The Dex pictured here doesn’t look quite the
way I remember him. I remember him as looking more like the wolf in the video above,
but in horn rimmed glasses and a fishin’ hat. Also, he had a different voice
from the one in the above video – it was a sandy, lower pitched voice and quite
mellifluous.
DDDIII was a dog who was a one-handed
piano player. It was on odd choice, since it underscored the fact that Dex was
a puppet whose puppeteer’s use of one hand to operate the mouth left only one
hand remaining for piano playing. Most of the episodes were in black and white,
but eventually some were in color, revealing D wore a bright yellow glove, wore
a dark green coat and played a piano painted bright orange.
My brother and I viewed DDDIII as
something of a hipster alternative to our market’s other cartoon show – the vastly
more popular “The Dr. Max Show”. Max (Hahn) was a ridiculously nondescript
personage. He never actually acted like a doctor in any remote way – he just
seemed to be a middle aged, middle class guy utterly being his own, vastly
unimaginative, undefined self. It was the Looney Tunes, and Max’s friend Mombo
The Clown (Fred Petrick) that kids tuned in for.
Obviously DDDIII was vastly weirder.
My brother and I loved it that he featured Betty Boop cartoons, replete with
their proto- psychedelic sight gags and early hipster music by the likes of
Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway (as the ghost of a walrus, irrationally
enough!) It never occurred to us that he showed them because they were out of
copyright and free to air.
Another haunting image from the show
were the chin puppets – I mainly remember a quartet of them lip – synching to
The Beatles’ “Do You Want to Know a Secret?”
Exactly how ‘hip’ the show actually
was, was debatable, as each show ended with Dex and his bunny friend singing a
super sappy song called “Let’s Go to Church, Side by Side”.
So who was behind all this madness?
His name was Irv Shoemaker, and perhaps his biggest claim to fame was that he
provided the voice for Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent and Dishonest John (“Nya
Ha Ha!”) on Beany and Cecil cartoons.
According to
Ron Marten’s youtube comment on the above video;
“… Irv
Shoemaker … featured in the northern Indiana area from 1962 - 1968. Irv was the
voice of Dishonest John and Cecil in the cartoon series in the early 1960's. He
may be any one of the characters here as I see he is signed in on the credits.
I have been trying to find Shoemaker's trail. He left Elkhart IN. in 1968 with
the Donovan puppet for Cedar Rapids IA. Please help if anyone knows what
happened to him.”
The newspaper article above would
appear to contradict Mr. Marten’s date for the end of Irv’s stay in Elkhart, as
Donovan, strangely enough, was presenting the weather on the 10:00 news in
Cedar Rapids as early as 1966.
According to another internet comment
(which I can’t find back dag nabbit!) Donovan hosted the weather and also a
local teen dance – party show during his time in Elkhart.
According to the Internet Movie Data
base;
Irv Shoemaker
was born on April 7, 1925 in Mishawaka, Indiana, USA as Ervin Eugene Shoemaker.
He was an actor, known for Matty's Funnies with Beany and Cecil (1959) and
Thunderbolt the Wondercolt (1952). He was married to Alberta Borem, Patricia
Reynolds and Mary Louise Curci. He died on December 2, 1988 in Marion, Iowa,
USA, a town adjacent to
Cedar Rapids.
This is a chin puppet;
This is a chin puppet;
*Information not available on the internet, so I don’t know!
Thanks for the research update to my earlier posts on you tube. You are correct that Dex left Indiana by 1966 as the newspaper article shows. In Elkhart, he had a dog friend named Tag-a-long instead of a bunny. Irv's second wife Patricia created and did the puppet of Tag. After they divorced, the role became filled by a woman named Penny. There is a 50th anniversary dvd from the station in Elkhart channel 28 WSJV-TV that has a number of Dex's greatest hits. I have a copy of this and would love to upload the segments to youtube. I just don't know how to do it. If you can score a copy of this dvd, it also features Irv as a reporter and doing TV commercials for the station. A very talented guy but had many personal demons. If anyone would like more info, I would be glad to answer anything else I can. My email address is galeekas@gmail.com I also have a picture of Dexter if you have a place here to download it to. Thank again for keeping this alive. Ron Martens
ReplyDeleteSorry, I forgot to mention that the wolf in the Clampett video is NOT IRV or DEXTER. However, Irv is in the commercial middle as Cecil the serpent. This is why the voice of the wolf is different. Dexter was modeled from this wolf puppet's character later on to create D.D.Donovan.
ReplyDeleteThe theme song for the show was "Piano Roll Blues" I grew up in Cedar Rapids, I remember watching the show.
ReplyDeleteI watched DD po n WSJV, South Bend-Elkhart. Check archives of The South Bend Tribune and The Elkhart Truth for stories and photos. DDIII had stories about the puppet characters. One got Irv in trouble and he had to go on TV late at night to assure parents he wasn't destroying kids' psyche. He made fun of the TV station, calling the studio a broom closet. He played the piano (with one hand) and had a partner,va puppy named Tag A Long. One bad dog puppet was a bulldog that talked like Edward G. Robinson. One time DD and Tag's adventure began as a balloon ride. DD also did sports on the 11 pm news and one time Irv showed up on the 6 pm news drunk. After the intro he wasn't seen the rest of the broadcast. The photo on your page is NOT DD but his predecessor, a wolf that was used by Bob Clampett in a Red Riding Hood sketch. See it on YiuTube. BTW, Irv voiced Cecil s d Dishonest John on the ABC network's Beany and Cecil cartoon show. Those cartoons are still available. Irv also filmed interviews with victims after twin tornadoes destroyed much of St. Joseph and Elkhart counties.
ReplyDeleteI should have said Irv was drinking from a brown bottle on the air. I have no way to verify if he was drunk.
DeleteDid he ever do the news broadcast? I remember the man who voiced for Beany and Cecil presenting the news drunk. He left the station because his drinking became a regular problem.
DeleteWSJV 28, had a 25 yr Anniversary special with a lot of D D Donovan information.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Fox Station took over 28, I'm sure that footage was saved somewhere.
Is there a TV Museum?
Supposedly the ending credits piano playing was done by then Carma Lou Cox) who recently died as Carma Lou Beck.
ReplyDeleteI was in my early 20s when I first met Irv. He was a fascinating man. He worked at Carma Lou's House of Music in Waterloo, Iowa. And Irv was loved by the musicians that would frequent Carma Lou's music store. We would all gather at the music store and take Irv out for a beverage within the mall. He was always nice to all around him, I never thought of him being a heavy drinker in comparison to some of the musicians that surrounded him. I was not uncommon for any one of us to buy him a mug in exchange for some Cecil, Dishonest John, etc rantings. We would just smile in awe, he could capture everyone's attention in just a few words. He was a cherished memory for myself and others. Thank you for the info in the site. I hope to hear more.
ReplyDeleteI remember Dexter doing the weather on KCRG when I was about 4 years old but it seems like such a odd memory that I was never sure if I dreamed it or not. I do remember his sign off song, “Let’s go to church each Sunday morning. Let’s go to church side by side.” I also remember very clearly a skit in which he acted out the Stan Freberg recording of The Banana Boat song (Day-o). I don’t really remember him being any competition for Dr. Max because when I was watching he was only on in the morning while Dr. Max was on in the afternoon.
ReplyDeleteErv Schumacher also seems to have been known as Irv Shoemaker. He died in Marion, Iowa in 1988. He did start out with his puppets in South Bend, Indiana around 1960, moving to Cedar Rapids around 1966. He did the weather with DDDIII until 1969 or so, but remained the the station as a production manager until he left to open an ad agency in the early 70s. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0794714/?ref_=nmbio_bio_nm.
ReplyDelete