Photo of the Howdy Doody Show from 1948 when the puppets used on the program were those created by Frank Paris. Howdy Doody is seen on the photo's right.
In this same year, Paris and Bob Smith had an argument, with Paris leaving the NBC studios with his puppets.
This had happened before, leaving the live children's program without its star and forcing Smith to improvise excuses. The network decided to let Paris stay away permanently. They quickly came up with a storyline that Howdy Doody was on the campaign trail for the 1948 elections, as he had been running for president. NBC also put together a map so Howdy's whereabouts could be tracked on television.
NBC then used the time to hire a puppet maker named Velma Dawson to create a more photogenic Howdy Doody, which is the one most people remember.
A search for copyright renewals was done in publications for the years 1975 and 1976. There was only a listing for a title of "Radioland and Television", which is a different magazine published by a different company. On this basis, there's no evidence Macfadden continues to assert a claim on this material.
Note that it may still be copyrighted in jurisdictions that do not apply the rule of the shorter term for US works (depending on the date of the author's death), such as Canada (70 years p.m.a.), Mainland China (50 years p.m.a., not Hong Kong or Macao), Germany (70 years p.m.a.), Mexico (100 years p.m.a.), Switzerland (70 years p.m.a.), and other countries with individual treaties.
{{Information |Description=Photo of the ''Howdy Doody Show'' from 1948 when the puppets used on the program were those created by Frank Paris. Howdy Doody is seen on the photo's right. In this same year, Paris and Bob Smith had an argument, with Paris...