Friendly Giant
| The Friendly Giant | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Children's television series |
| Created by | Bob Homme |
| Starring |
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| Opening theme | "Early One Morning" |
| Ending theme | "Early One Morning" |
| Country of origin |
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| No. of episodes | 3,000+ |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Daniel McCarthy |
| Running time | 15 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network |
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| Original release | September 30, 1958 – March 1985 (Canada) |
The Friendly Giant was a popular Canadian children's television program that aired on CBC Television from September 30, 1958 through to March 1985. It featured three main characters: a giant named Friendly (played by Bob Homme), who lived in a huge castle, along with his puppet animal friends Rusty (a rooster who played a harp and lived in a book bag hung by the castle window) and Jerome (a giraffe). The two principal puppets were manipulated and voiced by Rod Coneybeare.
The program started in 1953 on Madison, Wisconsin radio station WHA-AM, a station owned by the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Shortly thereafter, the show was moved to its sister television station, WHA-TV. Kinescopes of these shows were distributed to a few other non-commercial stations, and some of them made it to the CBC headquarters in Toronto. At the invitation of Fred Rainsberry, the head of Children's Television at the CBC, in 1958 Bob Homme moved the show to Canada, where it became a staple show for several generations of young viewers. In the United States, National Educational Television carried both WHA and CBC versions from 1953 until 1970, when NET ceded the network to the Public Broadcasting Service.
The Friendly Giant was produced by Daniel McCarthy, who would later become the head of children's programming at the CBC.
The short, 15-minute show was perhaps most famous for its opening sequence. Each episode would begin with the camera panning over a detailed model of part of a village as Friendly could be heard observing the goings on in the town below. The pan would continue until the Giant's great big boot would come into view at the edge of the village and Friendly would ask the viewers to "Look up … waaaaay up … and I'll call Rusty" and the Giant would thus invite everyone to come visit his castle. The traditional tune "Early One Morning" would then be heard being played on harp and recorder, while the camera slowly zoomed into the Giant's castle, whose drawbridge and doors opened wide in welcome. Once inside, The Friendly Giant would put out miniature furniture for his viewers beside his feet (with only his feet and hands visible), saying, "One little chair for one of you, and a bigger chair for two more to curl up in, and for someone who likes to rock, a rocking chair in the middle." Then the camera would pan up, as the Giant gave his iconic invitation to "Look up, waaaaaay up." Typically, Jerome the Giraffe would visit, poking his head in through a high window. Rusty the Rooster, who lived in a book bag hanging on the wall by the window, would emerge and produce, from the bag, books to be read and other props, some seemingly larger than could fit in the bag.
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