A few years ago, on the Internet, several discussion groups and my e-mailbox were filled with questions and vague recollections of one of the most memorable and odd novelty acts from fifties television. It was a gent called The Banana Man, who appeared often on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Mickey Mouse Club, Howdy Doody and (most often) Captain Kangaroo. The act basically consisted of this clownlike gent coming out on stage and taking things — mostly bananas — out of his pockets. He'd pull an amazing number of items out of his baggy coat. Sometimes, they'd be musical instruments which he'd "play," actually supplying the sound with his mouth. Other times, they'd be odd props which he'd use in little routines, then dump them along with all the bananas and the occasional watermelon into a steamer-type trunk.
Throughout the act, he would constantly be changing his costume. He'd wind up as a railroad engineer and he'd somehow turn the trunk into a small, multi-car choo-choo train which he'd ride off the stage. It was a delightful, haunting little routine that some of us vividly recall. (I can still "hear" his little la-la singing, which he'd punctuate with a loud "Wow" every time he found some new bit of paraphernalia in his wardrobe.)
Folks my age and older kept asking about him. Apparently, video of him performing the act is hard to come by, and facts about him were even more elusive. From an old book on vaudeville, it was known that his name was "A. Robins" (or maybe "Robbins") but that was about it.
Well, thank God, facts are finally emerging. Apparently, one reason it was so hard to track down info about the guy was that he died after passing the act and name on to at least one other Banana Man. But diligent fans have ferreted out a lot of data and more seems to be on the way. Over at this site, Bruce Johnson (aka Charlie the Juggling Clown) has an impressive amount of biographical data. And over at this site, a gent named Rhett Bryson is building a whole webpage full of photos and facts about the various Banana Men. This is one of the many reasons we love the Internet.