Frazier Thomas - Garfield Goose

Garfield Goose

Thomas had the idea for Garfield Goose from attending bazaars as a boy. The local Catholic nuns used a sock puppet made into the form of a goose to ask children for charity donations. The children would "feed" the goose their pennies. He came up with the idea to use a goose puppet on his television show for giving prizes to children. The name of the goose was taken from the telephone number of the television station; at the time, all telephone exchanges had names as well as numbers. The name of the telephone exchange for the television station was Garfield.

In 1951, Thomas was hired by Chicago's WBKB-TV (now WBBM-TV) for an afternoon variety show initially called The Frazier Thomas Show. He also put in some time as the host of an evening music program, Musical Nite-cap. Thomas' afternoon show was renamed Petticoat Party; his announcer for it was Ray Rayner. Garfield Goose made his Chicago debut on Petticoat Party. It was not long before the station saw that Thomas and his goose puppet were the most popular parts of the program. On September 29, 1952, Frazier and Garfield went on their own in a show called Garfield Goose and Friend; the show went on the air directly opposite NBC's Howdy Doody.

This was a time of great transition in Chicago television; WBKB, which was broadcasting on Channel 4, changed its management, frequency and call letters to being owned by CBS, broadcasting on Channel 2 and now known as WBBM-TV. The new WBKB-TV was now broadcasting on Channel 7 and owned by ABC. A clause in the contract for the WBKB sale to CBS called for all programs currently on the station to remain on the air for one year after the sale. Before the transition period was over, Thomas and his goose moved to the new WBKB, now under ABC's management. One year later, in 1955, the pair found their permanent television home at WGN-TV, where they would be joined by the other characters, making it Garfield Goose and Friends.

With the show's popularity among young viewers in the Chicago area by 1953, Thomas produced a book for them, Garfield Goose Memory Book. Thomas told the story of Garfield Goose from his youth, including information about his family and his average day in the castle. Roy Brown illustrated the 32-page booklet, which was also intended to be used as a coloring book.

In addition to entertaining, Thomas also educated his young viewers, but never with a heavy hand. His guests were people like Dr. Lester Fisher of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo and J. Bruce Mitchell of the Museum of Science and Industry whose visits were both fun and informative. Thomas also had a Hobby Corner feature where children would talk about and display things they were interested in.

There were also subtle moral messages when Thomas needed to explain to Garfield why something he had done or wanted to do was wrong. During the holidays, Thomas sang "Jingle Bells" in Latin, teaching the words and their meaning to his television audience. Children and their parents were invited to write for a copy of the words; it took Thomas weeks to mail all the replies. On occasion, Thomas would take his Jew's harp from his pocket and begin to play. His goose friend would respond to the music by either retreating to another part of his castle or hitting Thomas on the head with his beak. He also visited local schools to perform magic shows. The Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences did not begin awarding local Emmys until 1958; Thomas was the first winner of the award for Male Best Children's Performer, and won the award again in 1964 for his work with Garfield Goose and Friends and Family Classics.