The Gabby Hayes Show

Like the other posters, I, too, recall Gabby Hayes. I watched him on probably a 12" screen in the apartment my parents moved into after they were married, down the block from my grandmother's.

People remember Gabby shooting the Puffed Wheat from a canon, but I don't. I do remember one thing very distinctly. One day Gabby had a full bowl of Puffed Wheat in his hands, and he stretched his arms forward and put the bowl out of camera range. When he brought the bowl back into camera range it was empty.

Well, I can only guess how old I was, four maybe, and I was fascinated. I asked my mother what happened to the cereal. "The cameraman ate it," she told me.

It's nice to look back at those simple days of youth.

I fondly remember Gabby from the numerous westerns I watched on early TV as a child and from his TV show. I remember well the conclusion where he used the cannon that Shiloh spoke of that visually depicted the Quaker Oats claim that their puffed wheat and puffed rice was "shot from guns".

Gabby was always amusing to me, and I wished I could have met him off camera as the man described as an erudite well-appointed gentleman as opposed to the unwashed appearing but lovable western derelict that he portrayed in film and on TV.

There were occasions that I remember when Gabby went to shoot the cannon that would turn grain into puffed cereal at the end of his TV program when the cannon would comically miss-fire. If the miss-fire didn't conclude the show, Gabby would mumble under his breath as he often did in the movies and somehow rig it up again until he got it to work.

Gabby made the most of his fifteen minute time slot. He would begin my welcoming all the buckaroos to his show. Anytime he made a broad statement about a subject he would always say, "...in the United States AND Texas." That was before Alaska came into the Union. So Texas was the biggest and to Gabby the best state in the nation (even though George Hayes was actually born in New York). As I recall (I was about nine years old at the time) the fifteen minutes were mainly devoted to Gabby's tall tales of the Old West and commercials. The tall tales, Gabby's magnetic personality and his amazing gift of gab were very appealing to youngsters of all ages, most of whom had seen him in action on the big screen.

As a child of 8 years in Baltimore, Md I can distinctly remember watching Gabby on that small b&w screen warning us to "back away from your television areal sets" whereupon he would shoot a cannon full of Quaker puffed wheat or rice at the camera. Even to this day I feel an indescribable, unexplained aesthetic attraction to the Quaker Oats puffed rice cereal box, which may explain why the company has not changed their graphics is 60 years. My recollection of the show is that it was longer than 15 minutes. I recall him introducing a western movie. It could very well be that the local station used his show as a lead in then ran a western.

It is said that Gabby had all his teeth pulled so as to more authenticate his character as a western sidekick.

I remember this show quite well from the early fifties. Gabby was exactly as he appeared in countless westerns with everyone from John Wayne to Randolph Scott and Roy Rogers. The most fun came every day at the end of the show when Gabby advertised his sponsor in a most unusual way. He faced a cannon toward the television camera and filled it with grains of "wheat." Then he warned us to "stand back away from your televisionary sets 'cause here comes Quaker Puffed Wheat....shot from guns!!!!!" The cannon went off and the contents blew towards us as the screen went black.

I still miss him and remember him with warm fondness.