Buckskin Harry, as far as I can tell at this time, was a local television personality here in Fargo. Back in the day, local television stations did a lot more local programming than just the news; a lot of the national kids’ shows like Bozo the Clown had its roots in local TV stations. Even into the 1980s local stations had thematic characters do intros and commercial bumpers for horror movies.
We found this photo in a 1950s magazine, so it gave us a pretty good idea of about when ‘ol Buckskin graced the boob-tube. Our first resource was my grandparents — Grandpa Vernon remembered Harry on TV in the 1950s, but Grandpa was nurturing a new family around that time and wasn’t watching mid-afternoon kids’ programming.
Going through a 1955 Fargo Forum, I found some more specific information: Buckskin was on at 4 in the afternoon, an excellent timeslot lead into by Pinky Lee and Howdy Doody — and Buckskin’s show ran for an hour and fifteen minutes. I’m still doing my digging (my research method consists of doing very little, randomly encountering information…it works pretty well, actually), but if anybody out there remembers Buckskin, I’d appreciate any info.
“Buckskin Harry” was a Great paternal Uncle of our family. His name was Harry Parnell, and his wife was Jenny Parnell, and she ran a chiropractic clinic out of their home in either Fargo or Moorhead. As a kid I remember going to their home very vividly because Jenny had a human skeleton that hung on a stand in the corner that she used to explain the “adjustments” being done. I think they had a name for him, but neither my mom or I can remember it. Mom tells the story that when Jenny retired, someone from Minneapolis bought the skeleton, and when he picked him up he secured him into the passenger seat, (before seat belts I think), and drove him home. Harry had a horse, Crystal Pal, several trick dogs and a monkey that he used in appearances around the Fargo / Moorhead area.
Thanks for the info, Juel!