Smooth Sailing With Sailor Bob

One of the (many) joys of my childhood was The Sailor Bob Show, a locally produced children’s program with puppets, skits, cartoons and (best of all, for me) lots of drawing. The main attraction, though, was host Bob Griggs, a former cameraman who took a job nobody else wanted and transformed it into a local legend, endearing himself to generations of young viewers. If you lived within reception range of Richmond-based TV from 1959 to 1975, the name “Sailor Bob” can’t help but bring a smile to your face.

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What I remember most about Sailor Bob is the kindness and gentle humor he projected on camera, and which from all indications are native to the man himself.  I loved Captain Kangaroo, but it wasn’t the same.  Mr Rogers just gave me the creeps; with his, “Don’t worry, you’re okay just the way you are” routine, it always felt like he was talking to fragile kids with damaged psyches, victims of divorce or abuse maybe.  I didn’t want a social worker, I wanted a pal, and that’s what Sailor Bob was.

The character was created in 1959 for the sole purpose of introducing Popeye cartoons — and filling up the time between them — but in short order Sailor Bob became the real star of the show as far as kids were concerned, bantering with puppet pals like Gilly Gull (a wise-cracking seagull who flew a plane and wore an old-style flier’s cap and goggles), Mr Mouse, Bluebird and Sterling the Sea Serpent, showing off pictures drawn by young viewers and cranking out sketches as music played in the background.

No doubt it was that last part that won me over; for most kids, conjuring a drawing from thin air onto a blank piece of paper is the purest sorcery.  If ever there was a truly “magic marker” it was the one Sailor Bob held in his hand, wiggling it over the page before every stroke as if trying to restrain it from leaping out of his hand with a mind of its own to cover the whole set in drawings.  My own love of drawing likely began with the show, and to this day I’ve yet to meet a kid who doesn’t treat me as something of a magician when I’m able to draw him or her a requested character on demand.  When the Sailor Bob Show was forced off the air (temporarily) by a new station owner, Griggs became the weatherman on the evening news and used his marker to turn the digits in the day’s forecast temperature into cartoon faces and figures.  For years I amused kids by challenging them to give me a number, any number to turn into a picture, and only recently did I realize I’d stolen that trick from Sailor Bob, too.

Around 1974 or so, Sailor Bob made an appearance at the State Fair and my brother and I took advantage of the opportunity to get our picture taken with him, as thousands of other kids had done at fairs and parades and public appearances since the early 60s. That’s me on the left in the groovy vinyl jacket.

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Is that a great smile or what?  Not me, I’ve got a dorky grimace going, and Tim looks like he’s swallowing his tongue, but Sailor Bob always had a million-watt smile, as if sitting there with two kids he just met was the highlight of his whole week.  I’ve seen lots of other people’s pictures with Sailor Bob, and it’s always the same smile; I don’t know how he did it, but it always looks so genuine.  He must’ve seen thousands of kids a day just at the State Fair, and I bet for every one of them he had the same greeting, like you were his best friend and he’d been waiting all day just for you.  Which of course is exactly the reaction every kid hoped for; we were convinced that guy in the little glowing box was talking directly to us every day…surely he’d recognize us when we met in the flesh.  And darned if he didn’t!  Magic.

On January 22 I was lucky enough to attend a premiere of a new documentary on the Sailor Bob phenomenon at another Richmond landmark, the Byrd Theater.  I took the boys along to see what all the fuss was about back in the day, and to experience an 80-year-old movie palace into the bargain.

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I understand the Byrd holds 1300 people, and I can tell you the place was packed.  All around us were 40- and 50-something “shipmates” who’d grown up with the show, a good number of them wearing the souvenir sailor hats they’d acquired as kids at one of Sailor Bob’s many public appearances.

The film itself was a joy.  I had the good fortune to work with director Paul Roberts last year (on another project) and he’d told me there was a treasure trove of vintage clips included, but I was unprepared for just how much there was.  Back when the show first aired, it was practically unheard-of for local programs to be preserved on tape for any length of time — the practice being to re-record over the same tape stock repeatedly — but somehow not only the show itself but also behind-the-scenes footage of the show in production have survived the years, apparently rescued by Mr Griggs himself decades ago and kept at his home for decades.

Another surprise was how well the material holds up.  Nostalgia tends to whitewash reality, but the show actually had remarkably strong production values for one produced for a local market, and on a shoestring budget.  Also, the show was really funny in a genuine and unforced way, and incredibly according to everyone involved, it was all improvised, without a single script.

Jason and Scott seemed suitably impressed with the theater, and while they were prone to squirming in some of the interview segments — 90 minutes is a long time for a kid to listen to old folks reminisce —  whenever a clip from the show came on, they were on the edge of their seats, hanging on every word, laughing at every joke and gawking wide-eyed at the cartooning segments, just as all the former kids seated around them had done all those years ago (and did again, on Saturday).

For us geezers in the audience, there were glimpses of the Richmond that used to be…Southside Plaza, the Tobacco Festival parade down Broad Street, Nolde’s Bread, Kelly’s Restaurants, a Colonial Store supermarket and TV horror-movie host Bill Bowman (aka “The Bowman Body”).  And, best of all, Mr Griggs himself, waving down to us from the balcony with the same smile we remembered.

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Photo swiped from the Sailor Bob Fan Club Facebook page, as taken by shipmate Bryan Pilati)

After the show, I posted my praise for the film on Facebook, and that Monday a co-worker approached me and said he’d seen my comment; he was there, too, he said, and he went on to gush for a good 15 minutes, beaming, “I’m still pumped up!” And he was.  There’s got to be something positive to a show that can get us former kids so excited forty years on.

All in all, it was a great trip down Memory Lane, and all the more enjoyable for being able to share it with the boys.  I wish there was a show like Sailor Bob on today for them to watch, but for now maybe I’ll settle for just taping up the “12 Rules for Good Shipmates” and hoping they follow a few.

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7 Comments

  1. Great show , quality , wholesome entertainmnt for the young , our generation followed the 12 rules & grew up with fair weather & smooth sailing ;^) brother , sister & I watched every day .

    Charles P.

  2. I was there at the Byrd Theatre that Saturday…..it was I who started the chant “Sail-or Bob! Sail-or Bob!” when we saw him on the balcony.

    You’re soo right – all the magic was still there – thanks to Bob Griggs.

    I like to think that Saturday we gave him back a **LITTLE** bit of what he gave us all those years ago.

    And it WAS nice to see how it had stuck with us all these years.

    The WHOLE audience (before the show) was reminescing about Sailor Bob – strangers were talking with each other – all of us little kids again. It was a MOMORABLE day….

  3. Does anyone know of a way to contact Bob Griggs to see if he’s willing to sign another hat? I lost mine back in the ’60’s and would love to have another and one for a friend whose mother never took her to get one!

  4. I don’t know of a way to reach Mr Griggs directly (and my inclination would be to leave him in peace, anyway!) but his son Tom is pretty active on the Sailor Bob Fan Club Facebook page. If you contacted Tom through that venue, I suppose it’s at least possible he could get the message to his father and maybe grant your wish. But even then I bet he’d swear you to secrecy, or the hats would start arriving on Mr Griggs’ doorstep by the truckload!

  5. I too was there in that vast sea of “shipmates” at the Byrd that Saturday. As I read the article here, I remembered a woman standing in the middle of the theater, seeing Bob Griggs in the balcony, and shouting (for all of us), “We love you Sailor Bob!” It still makes me tear up as it did that day. For someone that you came to know on television to affect so many people so deeply is a near miracle, but then, we’re talking about Sailor Bob.

  6. I remember sending a drawing in and then seeing it on his show! That was fun! Quick question: Was there any other kids’ show in Richmond in the late 60s? My Brownie troop went on a show. We were all on some risers and the host introduced all of us. I don’t think it was Sailor Bob but a guy called “Ranger” Something. Does this seem familiar?

  7. I’m not aware of a “Ranger” show during that time period and the history of local kids shows on American TV seems spotty, at best, so I haven’t found anything about it on the web, either. The only other shows I remember coming out of Richmond were a local version of “Romper Room” and “Dandy Beagle and Sooperdog,” the latter of which has almost no footprint on the web despite being popular enough to air twice daily for over a decade (by some accounts, it was the highest-rated Richmond-produced show in history!). It did seem to air with a live audience of kids on set, unlike Sailor Bob, and it was shot at the WTVR studios on Broad Street, if that helps (Here’s a Facebook page with photos that may or may not jog your memory). I also found a listing for a show out of Roanoke hosted by “Cactus Joe,” so if you mean “ranger” in the Western sense, maybe there’s a connection there, though that would have been a long trip for your Brownie troop to make.

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