Alfriend Review of Andy's Gang

Andy's Gang (1955–1960)

A fond memory of a silly and funny kid's show of the 50's

[8 April 2006]

I was born in 1955 and loved "Andy's Gang" along with "Howdy Doody" too. The show ended in 1960, but for years afterwords there were Saturday morning reruns in syndication. The show was absolutely silly, but well-loved by children of the time. Especially Andy's banter with Froggy, not a gremlin, but a Frog puppet. His husky, "froggy" voice and his constant getting the better of Andy always brought a laugh. Most of the skits were fillers in between commercials for the films shown on the show. As far as the earlier mention of it being a "weird" show, I'd have to disagree at least as far as memory serves. The 50's and early to mod-60's had some quirky but very funny shows for children with some very talented and quirky hosts like Zacherly, Soupy Sales, Sandy Becker, Chuck McCann to name a few. I miss many of the shows of the time. TV was new and there were some great experiments from live theatre, Twilight Zone, terrific variety shows and sketch comedy shows like "Your Show of Shows". A great time. Too bad that the TV execs of today are so one dimensional in their view of what is good entertainment.