Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2004 | 8:18 a.m.
Long before Barney the singing, prancing purple dinosaur, there was Freddy the Frog, Charlie the Owl and Henrietta Hippo.
If you're older than 30 and you still don't recognize the names, how about this: "It's the New Zoo Revue,' comin' right at you!"
The infectious opening song to the syndicated children's series "New Zoo Revue," which aired between 1971-75, is engrained in the minds of anyone who grew up with the show.
In fact, the new DVD set of the show features the tune as part of its packaging: press the button and the familiar voices blurt out the song.
More than 30 years after he wrote the number, Doug Momary, who played Doug on the show, still recalls how easily the song came to him, penning the piece in one night in his apartment while playing an acoustic guitar.
"To this day, people hear it and they keep singing it," Doug, 57, recalls. "It just happens to stick with people."
But not with him.
"No, because I'm on to the next song," Doug said. "I'm still writing songs."
Doug composes as part of Laguna Productions, a successful Las Vegas high-end film and television production company he co-owns with his wife, Emily Jo Momary, who played "Emmy Jo" on the series.
The couple have called Las Vegas home for 25 years and have three grown children of their own.
But owning a production company is not how Doug envisioned his life decades ago.
Doug wanted to be a rock star. He even played guitar and piano in a band called The Days in Between. But when the chance came to develop a children's series, Doug viewed the opportunity as too good to ignore.
After meeting with Barbara Atlas, a Los Angeles toy designer who wanted to create a children's show about a psychedelic-painted bean-bag frog named Freddy, Doug agreed to help develop the series.
He came up with the idea of Henrietta Hippo and Charlie the Giraffe, which was later changed to Charlie the Owl because the giraffe's long neck wouldn't fit in the cramped television studio in which they filmed the show.
Doug also began writing songs. He considered the show a minimusical in which the songs would advance the plot.
"I was a theater major at Cal State Fullerton. So this was a dream come true that I could do a musical for kids," he said.
The show didn't have a big budget $15,000 per episode with dancers in oversized animal costumes moving the characters' mouths while the voice-over actors read the lines in synchronization offstage.
The hours were long. Doug would spend the summer writing songs and developing storylines.
He would then turn the outlines over to a team of writers, who would write the dialogue.
When filming began, each Monday would be spent choreographing shows.
On Tuesdays the episodes would be videotaped; however, with just one camera available, only a single scene could be recorded at a time.
Wednesdays and Thursdays the process would be repeated. And on Fridays the cast would go into the studio and prerecord all of the songs usually 12 for the following week's shows.
Three decades later Emily Jo still recalls how hard she and her husband worked on the series.
"We were under so much pressure (and) we were newlyweds. That's when I found out how really hard he worked because he didn't have have a lot of spare time," she said in a phone interview from the couple's farm outside of Dallas, where she is spending the next few months planning her youngest daughter's wedding.
"But it's all happy memories. It was just a great experience."
With "Sesame Street" just two years old, children's educational programming was really coming into its own when "New Zoo Revue" debuted.
"As far as academics, nobody does it better than 'Sesame Street,' " said Atlas, 81, from her office in Beverly Hills, Calif. "We went a different route, teaching children how to get along in the world, what it means to be responsible for what you say. We took on every issue conceivable."
The show quickly found its niche, airing on nearly 95 stations to 75 percent of the country.
The "New Zoo Revue" became popular enough that Doug toured the show during the summers in malls and theaters across the country. The show's cast even was invited to the White House for the annual Easter Egg Roll and for a Christmas party that then-first lady Pat Nixon gave for children of diplomats stationed in Washington, D.C.
But by 1975 production on "New Zoo Revue" halted -- even though the show was at the height of its popularity -- as a result of allegations of misappropriation of funds by one of the program's producers. After nearly 200 episodes, "New Zoo Revue" came to a close, much to Doug's disappointment.
"When the play is over, there's a sadness because you want it to go on," he said. "But Barbara, to her credit, has kept it going on."
Atlas said she considers "New Zoo Revue" her "life love."
When asked if she has copies of all of the episodes, she replied: "Do mothers keep pictures of children when they're born? I have all of the tapes."
She also oversees "New Zoo Revue" in syndication, where it still airs on 15 stations nationwide, and helped put together the just-released Season One DVD box set from BCI, which retails for $39.98.
The collection, spread out over six double-sided DVDs, features 59 half-hour episodes, an interview with Doug and Atlas, and a gallery of original production and publicity stills.
DVD sets featuring the remaining four seasons will follow.
There are even discussions of a new animated series, possibly starring two of the Momary children as Doug and Emily Jo's replacement.
But that's still far in the future.
As for now, the influence of the original show -- large, costumed animals that sing, dance and teach morals -- can be found in popular children's shows such as "Barney" and "Teletubbies."
"I don't want to say 'Barney' copies us, but 'Barney's' format was our format, only we had it first," Doug said. "We kind of paved the way."
"New Zoo Revue's" impact can be also be counted by the number of adults who, as fans of the show since childhood, write Doug and Emily Jo, or by those who recognize the couple in the street. Which isn't difficult.
Doug looks remarkably similar to how he did on the show -- only his hair is considerably thinner and lighter, while his glasses are fashionably smaller. And Emily Jo, who asked not to reveal her age, has aged gracefully as well, her hair cropped short and her go-go boots replaced by far more comfortable shoes.
Married during the show's first season, the Momarys served as mother and father figures on the show, though they had no children of their own for most of the series' run.
Thirty-four years later Emily Jo said she and her husband couldn't be happier with their lives.
"I guess that's what I would want people to know," she said. "All our kids turned out great and are independent and are making their ways in the world.
"Doug and I are more in love now than we ever were."
It's an ending from a fairy tale ... or in this case, a children's series.
archive
