From Prop To The Private Market
Prior to sale, Roger Muir, executive producer of The Howdy Doody Show, owned the puppet. In 1983 Photo Doody was mutilated by vandals who broke into the New York NBC office of Muir. Puppeteers successfully repaired the damage but Photo Doody still bears neck "scars" where the vandals pulled his head off.
Photo Doody sold at Leland's auction house in 1997 for $113,432 to a private collector. The Howdy Doody sale made international print and broadcast headline news. Following the 1997 auction, Art and Antiques Magazine named Photo Doody one of the world's "Top 100 Treasures" for 1997. In 1998 the Palm Beach Daily News (The Shiny Sheet), a Palm Beach Post newspaper, identified TJ Fisher as the Photo Doody high bidder. A "Howdy Doody Comes to Town" front-page feature story profiled Fisher taking Howdy around town in a convertible and dining out with him at local restaurants.
Photo Doody is the only original Howdy Doody prop-marionette to ever be privately owned. The other two screen-used Howdy puppets are museum property — the one used in the show remains on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts; and the other ("Double Doody") is on permanent exhibition at the Smithsonian.
Read more about this topic: Photo Doody (Howdy)
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