Keeshan had portrayed the original Clarabell the Clown on NBC's The Howdy Doody Show, the first kids’ television program, during its early years. The show was conceived by Bob Keeshan, who also played the title character "Captain Kangaroo", and who based the show on "the warm relationship between grandparents and children".
In 1986, the American Program Service (now American Public Television, Boston) integrated some newly produced segments into reruns of past episodes, distributing the newer version of the series to PBS and independent public stations until 1993.
Captain Kangaroo is an American children's television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children's television program of its day.