It's a long road from Casey to HIV-positive Muppet

St. Paul Pioneer Press ^ | 7/19/02 | Joe Soucheray

[rhema]

Casey Jones died the same day that a news story came across the wires about "Sesame Street'' developing an HIV-positive character to hang around with Bert and Ernie and the rest of the gang. In the introductory stages, the HIV-positive Muppet will be seen only in foreign markets but might be introduced to the kids in the United States, too.

There has been a bit of a sea change between Casey arriving every day on Track 11 and "Sesame Street'' introducing the kids to the dangers of AIDS. It would have been interesting to ask Roger Awsumb what he thought of such a development, but by all accounts he was a gentleman and probably would have kept his nose out of it.

Put another way, it seems unlikely that we will ever read letters to the editor from adults who want to remember with happiness how they raced home from school and ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while following the adventures of a sick puppet.

Now, every time somebody of my generation is tempted to point out that there used to be good old days, we are reined in with the more realistic probability that the old days weren't all that special. Why, there must be something wrong with us to exercise a kind of longing for simpler times. Especially in this business, the ink-stained wretch business, you are easily branded as a crank if you pine for, say, convention. Convention in anything, institutions, child-rearing, All-Star games that actually had a score. You name it.

But read the letters to the editor! In both papers! The minute the news broke from up in Brainerd that Roger Awsumb died at 74, the letters started pouring in and they were all the same. Every letter — I bet there were thousands to each paper — was almost exactly the same. We ate lunch with Casey. If our parents were particularly on the ball they would have sent in our names for Casey's birthday tribute and we would see our names scrolled across the screen.

What we had for lunch was peanut butter and jelly. Better yet, we came home from school for lunch. There was mom. There was the lunch. And there was Casey, with his sidekick, Roundhouse Rodney, whose specialty was an illusion in which he appeared to be upside down and making his clenched fist into his jaw. He was a kind of precursor to a Muppet in that regard, only there was no AIDS and apparently very few allergic reactions to peanuts.

Do I personally remember any of that? Yes, of course. It was real, and it happened. Truthfully, I don't remember going home for lunch, but I guess a lot of kids did and maybe I did, too, because I sure remember watching Casey.

I also remember once going to downtown Minneapolis to be in the live studio audience for Axel, a guy in real life named Clellan Card. Casey and Axel were on rival stations. Axel's sidekicks were puppets, a dog, Towser, and a cat, Tallulah. But there was also a nurse, Carmen.

I think you can find people around today who remember Axel as fondly as they remember Casey, although Axel might have slipped a little wink in there, especially when he was on the set with Carmen the Nurse, if you know what I mean.

Carmen was a babe, and I think there were a few exchanges between Axel and the nurse that went over our heads.

Casey played it straight. The memory of his gentleness is not exaggerated.

For the past 20 years or so Casey puttered around his lake place and did a daily radio show in the Brainerd area.

I got a call the other day from a guy who remembered that as a kid his family got a cabin on the same lake as Casey — Bass Lake; where else for Casey? — and that every so often he and the other kids would row across the lake to wave at Casey and Casey always returned the favor, playing it straight, his gentleness not exaggerated.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 2 to 5 p.m. weekdays on KSTP-AM 1500.

[rhema]

See the FR-posted article Roger Awsumb, star of the ''Casey Jones'' children's shows on Twin Cities television from the 1950s into the early 70s, died

[yendu bwam]

Sure, but let's also add the failed abortion muppet (the muppet whose mother didn't succeed in having him aborted), the lesbian mothers' muppet (the muppet whose father abandoned him through selling his seed to a lesbian mom and her sexual partner), the deadbeat dad muppet (who never knew his dad), the divorced parents muppet and the swingers' kid muppet.

[Holding Our Breath]

Reality has just gone overboard - just like the overabundance of "reality" shows on TV!