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Howdy Doody
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==Custody battle== {{one source section|date=June 2015}} [[File:Howdy Doody 1955 ad - from, The Radio Annual and Television Yearbook, 1955 (IA radioannua00radi) (page 762 crop).jpg|thumb|262x262px|Howdy Doody ad from ''The Radio Annual and Television Yearbook'', 1955<ref>{{Citation|title=The Radio Annual and Television Yearbook, 1955|url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Radio_Annual_and_Television_Yearbook,_1955_(IA_radioannua00radi).pdf|access-date=2021-08-20}}</ref>]] After Bob Smith's death, a fierce legal and custody battle for the original Howdy Doody puppet erupted among his heirs, the Rufus Rose estate, and a museum to which the marionette had been bequeathed. Howdy was in the news once again, with his face and story making headline broadcast, wire, talk show and print news around the world. For a while during the tug-of-war fight, the puppet was held in a bank safe deposit box while the saga played out in the federal courts. During one day of deposition, puppet maker Semok (who had performed various maintenance and repainting of the original Howdy marionette beginning in 1989) was called upon to unseal a trap door on the back of the puppet's head; [[Velma Dawson]], the puppet's original builder, who was 88 at the time of the deposition, was present and given the opportunity to examine the inside of the head in an effort to verify that the puppet in question was the original she created. Despite 50 years of numerous repairs, repaints, and replaced body parts, Dawson eventually declared the head of the puppet to be the one she originally made in 1948. The [[Detroit Institute of Arts]] ultimately prevailed and has custody of the original Howdy.
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