"Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy" is a phrase that originates from the popular children's television series "The Andy's Gang." The show, which aired in the 1950s, was hosted by Andy Devine and featured a variety of entertaining segments and characters. The phrase itself is often associated with Andy Devine's character, the jovial and eccentric Froggy the Gremlin. Froggy, a mischievous and comical puppet, would appear on the show and engage in playful banter with Andy Devine. "Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy" was Froggy's signature catchphrase. It was a call to action for Froggy to perform a magical trick or create some humorous mayhem.
Plunk Your Magic Twanger!
Andy’s Gang ran on NBC-TV from August 20, 1955 to December 31, 1960. It’s host, the gravel-voiced, portly namesake of the show, Andy Devine (a.k.a. Jingles on the Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok Show – “hey, Wild Bill, wait for me!”), shared the stage with Froggy the Gremlin, Midnight the Cat (who played violin) and Squeeky the Mouse. Squeeky was actually a hamster who sometimes flew airplanes. June Foray, a veteran of Rocky and Bullwinkle shows, was the voice of Midnight and others.
Andy’s Gang always showed cut-a-ways to a studio audience full of loud screaming kids. Oh how I wanted to be one of those kids. Devine sat on a big stuffed chair and read stories to his adoring brood. He would also show movies and skits that illustrated the stories.
Devine was very quotable. Among the most known brand-phrases were “Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy!” (an expression later used by male teenage baby-boomers to suggest carnal engagement). Froggy would appear saying “Hi Ya, Kids, Hiya, Hiya, Hiya!” Andy ended each show with his signature “Yes, sir, we’re pals, and pals stick together. And now, gang, don’t forget church or Sunday school.”
I met Andy when I was six. He was 46, big and imposing. At the time he was playing Cap’n Andy Hawks in an outdoor performance (at Jones Beach) of the musical Show Boat with words by Jerome Kern and book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. I was escorted backstage by a family friend, who played the show’s leading man, Pete. I was so terrified seeing the imposing Jingles/Andy in real life (rather than tiny on the black and white screen), I hid behind my dad’s legs. When I timidly peered around, Andy bent down as far as his girth allowed, and said in his unmistakable gravel, “Hiya Kid! What’s new?”
Still cowering, I managed to squeak out “nnnnnice,” which was Midnight the Cat’s signature catch-word.
Peering down over his trademark stomach, Andy responded: “That’s good, kid, real good.”
(Don’t forget to watch the links, kids.)
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Plunk your magic twanger froggy meaning
When I drove by Outback Jacks’s mythic Main Street store of antiques and collectibles, I did a double take. I was alerted to the concrete frog sitting on his porch by Fate, who growled at it from the car. I called Jack on his cell phone and he picked up right away and i asked him where the frog came from, it felt familiar to me but I couldn’t instantly place it.
He said he wasn’t sure, he said he just picked it up over the weekend, and he thought it was a Disney figure from the 1960’s or later. I started negotiating with Jack for it – something inside of me said I had to have it in my office – and we settled on $150, plus the old table and marble slap it was standing on.
He said he would bring it at noon. Maria and I scrambled to find a space for the frog and I kept trying to figure out how I knew this very strange creature. I said I vaguely remembered a wise-ass talking frog on an infamous 1950’s children’s show called “Andy’s Gang.”
Maria remembered something about an impertinent frog from school, a friend of hers joked about it.
I loved the show for many reasons, one was that the frog, who appeared in a cloud of smoke when the host said “Plunk Your Magic Twanger,Froggy,” also had the habit of putting words in the mouths of pompous and imperious guest lecturers.
There he was on You Tube, in a rare clip of Andy’s Gang, the irreverent and throaty Froggy, driving his know it all guests crazy. I loved this creation when I first saw, but I must have four or five when I saw it, and when I watched the You Tube video, it came flooding back.
It seems a small miracle to me to have this piece of Americana and my own distant childhood come roaring back to – I will never forget that bow tie. I can’t even imagine who might have made a concrete sculpture of Froggy the Gremlin – above, one humiliated guest tried to shoot him – but I loved the character dearly.
He was my first exposure to satire and the idea of puncturing windbags and the pompous, an idea picked up and developed by my love for W.C. Field and the Marx Brothers a few years later. I don’t think Facebook and Twitter can touch it. There is no question Froggy had an influence of my writing and troubles with authority.
I remember thinking that people in power had to learn to laugh at themselves, and other people had to make a point out of keeping them humble, a major reason I became a reporter.
Froggy has a permanent home in my study, in a corner where I can keep an eye on him. When I start to pontificate or get windy, he will poke and let all of the hot air out, as he did so brilliantly so many years ago.
I wouldn’t dare try to re-paint Froggy, he is sacred history. Jack thought I would put him outside, but he belongs near me and my work.
Twang your magic Twanger, froggy.
Plunk your magic twanger froggy meaning
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Bumps in the Night
- Bumps in the Night
To say that my dad’s sense of humor was dry would be like saying water is wet. Every Saturday morning for a half dozen years or so, I met my dad at Pleasant Run Golf Course for 18 holes of golf. Robert Eugene Hunter was an Arsenal Technical graduate and all-city center on the Tech Titans football team in the early 1950s — 1954 maybe? I’m surprised I can’t remember the year date because he never lost an opportunity to tell me all about. Now that I’m older and a parent myself, I know that dads do that sort of thing. Seems he was always getting things wrong: TV and movie titles, people and place names, year dates, directions. After awhile, I learned to tune most of that stuff out. He died in 1997.
Last week, my wife and I were out searching an antique mall on a cabin fever diversion when we came upon something that looked very familiar to me. It was a little 6″ tall soft rubber frog in a waist coat and bow tie posed with his arms outstretched and his mouth agape. I turned it over and saw that it was dated 1948 and made by the Rempel rubber company out of Akron, Ohio. It also had the trademark of J. Ed McDonnell on the back. I held it up turned to my wife and exclaimed, “Hey Rhonda, it’s Froggy!”
During those Saturday golf outings, whenever I made an extraordinary shot (which was in my opinion more often than not wink, wink) my dad would yell out “Plunk yer magic twanger ,Froggy.” I recall once, while hitting my second fairway shot on the par 4 hole number 4, I hit the metal guardrail that runs alongside Arlington Avenue on the fly and the ball bounced miraculously back towards the green about a foot from the hole. Sure enough, Dad yelled out that line and I finally asked him what the heck he was talking about.
Just so happens, we were stacked up on the hole 5 tee waiting for the fairway to clear, so he explained what the saying meant. He told me that it was a line uttered on the “Smilin’ Ed’s Show” children’s radio (and later TV) show by a character named “Froggy the Gremlin.” Dad said Froggy was terrifying. “He would appear in a puff of smoke, and grumble in a low, gravely voice, ‘Hiya kids, Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!’” Apparently Froggy was a troublemaker with no respect for adults, known for pulling pranks, practical jokes and generally disrupting the show and presentations of other guests. Dad said that Smilin’ Ed would always call out “Plunk your magic twanger, Froggy” to make him appear.
I really hadn’t thought much about those days until I found Froggy in that antique mall. Although I often found myself using the expression whenever I thought it appropriate to do so, which always elicited quizzical looks from my wife and kids. Knowing my dad’s penchant for getting things wrong, I went home and googled Froggy the Gremlin and was astonished to find that my dad’s recollection was bang on.
According to Wikipedia, “Froggy the Gremlin was a character created by Smilin’ Ed McConnell and brought to radio in the 1940s and television in 1950s on the Smilin’ Ed’s Gang show. Froggy was a troublemaker. Disrespectful of adult authority figures, Froggy played practical jokes and disrupted the presentations of other guests. If a guest were to demonstrate how to paint a wall, they might say, ‘And now I’m going to take this can of paint…’ Froggy would chime in, ‘And dump it over my head.’ And the confused guest would proceed to do so. On radio and the early TV shows, Froggy’s voice was frequently supplied by Arch (“Archie”) Presby, who was also the program’s announcer.”
Smilin’ Ed was born James McConnell in Atlanta, Georgia in 1882. The son of a minister, McConnell began to sing at age three and soon learned how to play drums and the piano before he started school. He was an athletic teenager and later became a professional boxer before enlisting in the U.S. Army during World War I. According to an NBC press release, “A troop train on which he was traveling was wrecked in Arkansas by a German sympathizer and Ed wound up in a river. When he was pulled out, an Army surgeon pronounced him dead, but a buddy finally revived Ed with artificial respiration.”
After leaving the Army, McConnell was a barnstorming gospel singer and sometime evangelist. He got his big break on an Atlanta radio station in 1922 when the scheduled performer failed to show up. He married in 1928, and four years later joined the CBS network. In 1936, McConnell starred on the Acme Sunshine Melodies radio show on WMAQ in Chicago. The Sunday afternoon program was sponsored by Acme White Lead and Color Works. In 1937, he moved to NBC as their “Sunshine Melody Man,” offering hymns and uplifting messages in his rich, distinctive baritone voice.
But McDonnell’s biggest break came in 1944 when he invented Froggy and became known as “Smilin’ Ed” and hooked Buster Brown shoes as his title sponsor. By 1948, 145 ABC stations were subscribing to his “Smilin’ Ed’s Buster Brown Gang” program. Smilin’ Ed’s humor, songs, and music transformed Buster Brown from a dated comic strip character into one of the most widely recognized advertising mascots in the country. The show aired on NBC radio every Saturday morning at 11:30 through April 11, 1953.
The show opened with an adventure story and was peppered throughout by ads for Buster Brown shoes. In between songs and stories, Froggy would magically appear, laughing, hopping from side to side, to sing a song in his low, gruff, Popeye-like croak or annoy regular guests like Shortfellow the Poet or Alkali Pete the Cowboy.
A character named Midnight the Cat spoke a few lines every show and Smilin’ Ed would sing a novelty song or two. Midnight was voiced by the legendary June Foray whose name might not ring a bell, but the characters she supplied voices for surely do. They include Rocket J. Squirrel, Natasha Fatale and Sweet Nell (Bullwinkle & Friends), Cindy Lou Who (The Grinch), Betty Rubble (Flintstones), Jokey Smurf, Granny (Tweety Bird) and the voice of Mattel’s original Chatty Cathy doll. Smilin’ Ed not only promoted Buster Brown shoes but also the comic books that featured little stories involving the “Buster Brown Gang” of Midnight, Squeaky and Froggy.
In 1950, Smilin’ Ed brought Froggy and the whole gang to television in shows that were some of the earliest to be filmed in color. He cut the mold for a long line of children’s television’s jolly fat men to follow; he was six feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds. Smilin’ Ed McConnell died of a heart attack on July 23, 1954 at Newport Beach, California. King of the Cowboys Roy Rogers’ sidekick Andy Devine took over the show. Ironically it is “Andy’s Gang” that most people now remember.
But who was Froggy the Gremlin? Was he a ghost, a creature from outer space, a leprechaun or maybe a short human with an oversized frog’s head? He was dressed in a smart looking red jacket, white shirt and black tie, but he wore no pants. Was he a frog that became a gremlin? A gremlin that had become a frog? And where exactly was his “twanger” and how did he “plunk” it? Nobody really knew much about the magical, mysterious Froggy the Gremlin, but he managed to make my dad shudder a full generation after he left the air. So, Plunk Your Magic Twanger, Froggy and rock on!
Al Hunter is the author of the “Haunted Indianapolis” and co-author of the “Haunted Irvington” and “Indiana National Road” book series. His newest book is “Bumps in the Night. Stories from the Weekly View.” Contact Al directly at [email protected] or become a friend on Facebook.
It was a call to action for Froggy to perform a magical trick or create some humorous mayhem. Froggy would respond by grabbing a small wooden mallet and striking a metal slab, producing a distinctive "plunk" sound effect. The phrase and Froggy's antics became beloved by children and added an element of whimsy and charm to the show.
Froggy's character was known for his contagious laughter, mischievous pranks, and his willingness to help his friends, making him a fan favorite. Over time, the phrase "plunk your magic twanger, Froggy" has become a nostalgic symbol of the show and a pop culture reference. It is often used to evoke a sense of lightheartedness, silliness, and playfulness. In summary, "plunk your magic twanger, Froggy" is a catchphrase associated with the character Froggy the Gremlin from the television show "The Andy's Gang." It represents the character's mischievous and magical nature, and continues to be remembered fondly by those who watched the show during its original run..
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