Today's Video Link

Here's an upgrade — a better copy of a video I linked to here before. It's The Banana Man, a longtime novelty act in vaudeville and television who was kind of like the Gallagher of his day, only funny. The act has a long history that we went through before on this site but briefly: The routine was started by a man named A. Robins. He did it for a long time and he built all the amazing props.

At some point, he got too old and/or tired to go traipsing around the country so he passed the role and the props (there was apparently but one set) to other performers. No one has yet identified all the Banana Men but the one I knew and loved was a man named Sam Levine who did it for 15-17 years beginning in the mid-fifties. Levine died in '74, by which time the props were reportedly in such disrepair that he couldn't even do the act the last few years and couldn't pass it on to someone else.

I saw Levine on every non-animated kids' show and on most of the major variety shows including Ed Sullivan's. The whole act was apparently about fifteen minutes when he did it in a live performance and it took him two-and-a-half hours to prepare for one of those. On TV, he usually did a five minute chunk out of his fifteen — usually the same five minutes.

He was frequently seen on Captain Kangaroo's show, especially after it stopped being a live broadcast and went to tape. He had a big challenge when the show was live because the Good Captain did his program twice — two performances back-to-back for different time zones. The Banana Man had to scramble to reset his act in time to do it again an hour later. When the show went to tape, it was easier. In fact, since he always did the same act, they didn't even bother having him come in and do it each time. Captain Kangaroo would just introduce him and they'd roll the old tape.

But when the show went to color, they had to have him come back and do it again. That's what you'll see if you click below. Cap'n Kangaroo does an intro and then they roll the tape of The Banana Man doing his strange (and in some ways, wonderful) act. You may not enjoy it but it's a memorable image from my childhood…