O Captain, My Captain: ROBERT J. (BOB) KEESHAN, 1927-2004

A children's television friend who created a safe place for growing up

If I had known as a child how good for me Robert J. (Bob) Keeshan intended Captain Kangaroo to be, I'm sure I never would have watched it. Keeshan, who died last Friday at 76 from a long illness, meant his children's show to counter TV's violence and hyperstimulation--all of which, of course, I consumed greedily on other programs. But like the orange-and-black "helping hand" signs in the windows of my 1970s Michigan neighborhood (telling kids to which houses they could run to escape from bad adults), the Captain's Place was a kind of haven in a sometimes seedy media landscape....

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