‘Mr Peppermint’: the long-running children’s TV show Gibby Haynes’ father presented
Amid the circus slime punk and discoloured surrealist nightmares that congeal all over Butthole Surfers‘ classic run of LPs, there always lay a strange cartoon edge to their flayed, inside-out spits of psychedelic hardcore. Like a molten Chuck Jones short or a Saturday morning The Banana Splits style variety show eating itself, a voyeuristic peek inside frontman Gibby Haynes’ psyche probably looks a lot like Arthur Sarnoff’s Fido and the Clowns that adorns the cover of 1987’s twistedly brilliant Locust Abortion Technician.
With this sticky-psych residue that coats the Butthole Surfers’ output, it’s both confoundingly bizarre yet weirdly appropriate that Gibby’s father, Jerry, was a long-running children’s TV presenter. Donning his signature red and white striped coat, straw boater hat and a large candy cane, his Mr Peppermint alter-ego first presented his very own local kids show in 1961 for over 30 years on Dallas’ WFAA-TV.
Reaching its circulation peak in 1993, his cast of puppet characters, including Muffin the Bear, Captain Candy, and Mr Wiggly Worm, endeared him to a generation of north Texan kids.
Dallas born and bred in 1927, Jerry later attended Yale for a short while before joining the United States Air Force between 1946 and ’49 and financed further studies with the GI Bill, taking acting lessons in New York before returning to his hometown and hosting variety and teen dance shows including a local version American Bandstand. Marrying Doris Gibson in ’55, they had three children: Carla, Gibson or ‘Gibby’ as he’s better known, and Andrew.
Jerry also holds the curious distinction of being one of the first broadcasters to report President John F Kennedy’s assassination on local news. Watching the presidential motorcade that day with his programme director Jay Watson, Jerry immediately acted upon hearing the infamous shots: “I ran three blocks back to the station, and Jay got some eyewitnesses and brought them over,” Jerry told Texas Monthly in 1996.
He added: “He and I were the first to go live on local TV and report the terrible moment. I went home that afternoon, and Doris and I gathered our children around and discussed it as best we could. There was no direct discussion about it on Mr Peppermint the next week. I didn’t feel qualified to counsel the viewers on it. We just behaved in a subdued and respectful manner.”
After 6,000 episodes and Peppermint Place’s final retirement in 1996, Jerry continued as a regional treasure. The Lone Star Film and Television team granted him the ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his services to Dallas TV. He also made memorable appearances at the Red River, New Mexico, July 4th parade, riding a striped Jeep Wrangler. He was also embraced by Hollywood, notably appearing in Places in the Heart, Robocop, Boys Don’t Cry, and two episodes of Chuck Norris’ Walker, Texas Ranger.
No stranger to the music business, Mr Peppermint cut a record of children’s songs in ’62, the eponymous LP reissued by underground label Blast First in ’90. With Jerry’s wholesome TV show influence, it’s likely every Butthole Surfers fan has him to partially thank for their unique lysergic splatter that imbues the punk bad dream with their callow jaundice humour as if Mr Peppermint himself is daubing Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac‘s juvenile scrawls over killer Albert Fish’s grim mugshots.
