Monday, January 14, 2013

Rex Trailer, 1928-2013, R.I.P.


Bit by bit, pieces of my childhood are dying. I guess it's only natural, as my childhood was so blasted long ago, but still...! 

On January 9th, a man named Rex Trailer died. That name may not mean much to you -- if anything -- unless you're roughly my age and grew up in New England, but Rex was, among many other things, a cowboy TV star who hosted a Boston kiddie show called Boomtown. (Boomtown ran on weekends from 1956-1974.)


I actually got to meet Rex Trailer -- born Rexford Traylor -- in 2006, at the comic store I used to work at, That's Entertainment.


While there, I got Rex to sign one of my favorite eBay finds, a coloring book featuring Rex and another kiddie show host of my childhood, "Big Brother" Bob Emery.

Rex was a "real" cowboy, born in  Texas, no less. He'd worked the rodeo circuit while still a teen, and was an expert rider who was skilled with a bullwhip, a pistol, or lasso. He was a television pioneer who ended up running his own show in Philadelphia before landing in Massachusetts in 1956... the same year I "landed" here, actually.



Yes, that's Jayne Mansfield. Lucky Rex!


Here's a photo of Boston kiddie show hosts from the three main channels, WBZ-TV
(channel four, Rex's channel), WHDH-TV (channel five) and WNAC-TV (channel seven).


And here's a relatively recent photo of Rex. The gent on the far left
is Frank Avruch, who was our local Bozo when I was a boy.

I'm just going to throw a few more photos at you before wrapping this up. There's not much more I can add without giving a full biography of the man! And if you want that, click here!





This shot is of my sister Kathy on Rex's horse, Gold Rush.
I, too, had a photo taken that day, but it's long gone!


Adios, Rex...
And thanks for your time.

25 comments:

  1. Your sister didn't look all that happy about being atop Gold Rush. Every time I managed to get a ride on a horse I was thrilled. Interesting post about Rex. We of a certain age are all watching our childhoods disappear.

    Love,
    Janie

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  2. It's odd that my sister looked so uncomfortable. She was an accomplished rider, who won ribbons and trophies in various horse shows!

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  3. Lovely pictures David and this sounds like a really sweet man (and handsome) !

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    1. Yeah, he was really... well, not sure I'd use the word "sweet," haha... But he did a lot for handicapped children, as the Wikipedia article I linked to tells.

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  4. I was waiting for this post from you...I'm so glad we were able to tell Rex how much he meant to us!

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  5. Yeah, he was one of the last of the kiddie show hosts I remember. It was great to meet him. He was just as personable as I hoped he'd be!

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  6. Okay... in that group shot, let's see how many I can remember. Top row L-R: Rex Trailer, Major Mudd
    Second row L-R: Bozo, Pablo, Miss Jean, Willie Whistle
    Front Row L-R: Big Brother Bob Emery, Captain Bob
    Do I win a year's supply of "Rice-A-Roni, The San Francisco Treat?"

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  7. Very impressive! Even I wasn't sure of whether or not those two in the middle row were Willie Whistle and Romper Room's Miss Jean!

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  8. pretty cool flash back in this...pretty sad to see our heroes of days gone by move on....it was a tough year this last year as well...seemed like so many passed on....

    good to see you today fox...

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  9. Silver, I think it's about time you started writing again. I'm challenging you to post within a week. Are you game? That's one post between now and June 5th.

    And I love that gazebo on your sidebar. Just sayin'. :)

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  10. Hm. A challenge for me to come out of my early retirement? Oh my! And I have a week to answer? Oh gosh...

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    1. early retirement? Is that what this was?? ha. :)

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    2. I can just see you sitting there, giggling at the thought of that...

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    3. Actually, I thought maybe you died, since there wasn't a mushroom soup can posted. :)

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    4. Actually, I have such a writer's block lately, I haven't even had the motivation to post a can of soup!

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    5. I see. Well, it was worth a try anyway....no pressure.

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    6. I didn't say "no," did I, doll?

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  11. Is it okay if I start out "small?"

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  12. Did you know that I was once the winner in one of the contests on the Rex Trailer Boomtown show? The contest the particular Saturday of my visit was a ‘potato sack’ race. In case you have forgotten, in a potato sack race all the contestants step into burlap bags and, holding onto the top of the bag with your hands, you hop and jump to a finish line, trying not to fall over on the way. Well, that Saturday morning I WON the potato sack race! Boy was I proud -- knowing that mom was home watching tv, and seeing me, her son, the big winner of the contest on the famous Rex Trailer Boomtown show! But the best was yet to come! Or so I thought. Because it was time for me to accept my prize from Rex himself, standing in front of all my fellow cub scouts and with the tv cameras pointed at me. You see, every week the winner of whatever Boomtown contest received some really cool prize. One week it might have been a Daisy bb rifle, the next week it might have been a pair of cap-firing cowboy six-guns in twin holsters. So I was really looking forward to a great prize for my stunning victory in the potato sack race. And do you know what I won? Do you know what the prize was that week? Are you ready for this? It was a package of Hostess Snowballs! In pink marshmallow, no less! That’s right -- Hostess godamn Snowballs. Those awful sticky-marshmallow disgusting cupcake things -- I never liked Hostess Snowballs. Now I hated them. But that was my prize. What a disappointment! From time to time I have sat at the table on some dark nights with a glass of bourbon in my hand and looked back through the gauzy haze of time and wondered how could this have happened? Why was there no good prize for the contest winner that week? The likely scenario that I have settled on is that some production assistant screwed up. For whatever reason, she did not have one of the usual terrific prizes on-hand and ready to go. Maybe she slept late the day before because she was up all night having sex with her boyfriend. Maybe she was hung over. Perhaps both. Anyway, she had completely forgotten to get a prize ready for the Boomtown contest winner that Saturday morning! So she had to improvise. She performed a last-minute and desperate search around the studio to quickly grab whatever was at hand -- a package of Hostess Snowballs that happened to be on the table in the staff break room. "Damn! I forget to get a fabulous Daisy bb gun for the contest winner this morning! Oh well, fuck it. I’ll just give the kid a package of Snowballs.” Hostess was one of the sponsors of the show, so I imagine they probably always had a basket full of Hostess Cupcakes and Twinkies and Snowballs in the break room. Oh well.....

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    1. This comment just showed up in my emails this afternoon. Strange, innit? I mean, the comment is a couple of weeks old. Anyway, very funny story. :)

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    2. Great story! Hostess Snowballs. Yuck!

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  13. Replies
    1. Betsy, the comment showed up a few weeks after it was written because I moderate comments after a post is two weeks old, and I don't always think to check what's been commented on recently. That was your advice, by the way, to avoid spam comments, remember? ;-)

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