Remembering Cousin Cliff Holman of Birmingham, Alabama

By Tim Hollis

Probably no children's show host in Birmingham, Alabama, went through as many different formats as Cousin Cliff Holman, yet it was his own genuine, real-life personality that was the mainstay of all of them. For this reason, most of his now-adult fans remember Cliff more than his changing series titles and features.

Cliff had been performing magic tricks since his early teenage years, and by 1944 had joined the International Brotherhood of Magicians. (Read more)

By the time he graduated from high school in 1948 he was beginning to make a reputation for himself in Birmingham's nightclub circuit.

His first television experience would not be related to magic, however. Loveman's department store was going to be presenting a television series on Channel 13 for the Christmas season of 1950. The show was to star Mr. Bingle, a character originated by Loveman's parent company, City Stores of New York. (Bingle had first appeared at the Maison Blanche department store in New Orleans in 1949.)

Cliff was employed by Loveman's to be the voice of Mr. Bingle and operate the large marionette from the top of the puppet bridge. The program aired from Thanksgiving until Christmas; then Cliff had to turn his attention to other matters besides television.
After a stint in the Korean War, Cliff returned to Birmingham and held down a variety of jobs, including owning a grocery store, while seeking permanent employment as an entertainer. That opportunity came when the Ward Baking Company, makers of Tip Top bread, cooked up a fifteen-minute kids' show called The Tip Top Clubhouse and bought airtime on Channel 13 three days per week. After many auditions, Cliff -- with his magic and puppeteering talents -- was chosen as host of the new series. Because he was only twenty-five years old, he did not fit the "uncle" image of so many other kids' hosts. To accommodate his youthful appearance, Ward Baking came up with the name, "Cousin Cliff."

The Tip Top Clubhouse premiered in March 1954, with the newly named Cousin Cliff and his homemade puppet pals Kim and Corky. Cliff provided their voices while either operating the characters himself or, when he had to appear on-screen with them, having an assistant provide their movements. Kim was the smart one and Corky was dumb. With Kim, Corky, and Cliff, The Tip Top Clubhouse became extraordinarily popular with Birmingham youngsters.

After a couple of years, internal problems at Ward Baking caused them to withdraw sponsorship, and for a while it looked as if Cliff were going to be back behind the counter at the grocery store. However, Channel 13 knew a good thing when they saw it and in 1956 expanded the show into Cliff's Clubhouse, with a daily audience of children celebrating birthdays and a wider variety of cartoon features. This evolved into Cartoon Clubhouse in 1958, paving the way for Cliff's most popular format yet.
The Popeye cartoons had been released to television in 1956, and Channel 13 finally took the bait and booked them for Cliff's program. Now it became The Popeye Show, and the unbeatable combination of Cliff's personality with the timeless appeal of Popeye soon eclipsed anything he had done previously.

Whereas for Tip Top Clubhouse Cliff had worn an outrageous magician's outfit consisting of a battered top hat with a protruding stuffed rabbit, a swallow-tailed coat, striped shirt, and giant artificial flower in his lapel, once he switched to Popeye, his attire changed to fit the occasion. Most of his now-grown fans remember his yachting cap and dark blue nautical jacket, and his set painted to resemble a dockside scene. (Cliff's father was art director at Channel 13 during this period and painted this memorable scenery.)

Sometimes it seemed there was hardly any time for cartoons on The Popeye Show because of the number of sponsors. They peaked at eighteen per hour in the mid-1960s. The two most identified with Cliff were Pepsi-Cola and Jack's Hamburgers.

Around 1968, WAPI took The Popeye Show out of its traditional afternoon slot. The show was taped in the afternoons and shown the next morning, when most of the kids on the program were in school. This crippled the intended audience, and soon the program was reduced to Saturday and Sunday mornings only.

Cliff was not happy with the way things were going, so when the opportunity arose for him to be publicity director for new station WHMA in Anniston, he sailed away from The Popeye Show in September 1969. He began The Cousin Cliff Show -- the first time he had received star billing over the sponsor or main cartoon character -- the next month, and continued until the summer of 1972. In the interim, Jack's Hamburgers decided to drop its children's show sponsorship, and Cliff immediately switched over their rival, McDonald's.

After the Anniston series ended, Cliff worked in publicity for McDonald's for a while, then held down a number of other positions, including playing easy listening music on radio station WCRT, acting as manager of the Parliament House hotel, and finally becoming the local public relations man for the American Lung Association ("the Christmas Seal people"). He did not return to television until 1985, when he revived his magic act for public access cable, and this led to Channel 6 launching a full-scale comeback known as Cousin Cliff's Clubhouse on Saturday mornings beginning in June 1990. This series lasted until late 1992, when Cliff and WBRC parted by mutual consent and Cliff went back to cable television for his longtime sponsor, Jack's Hamburgers.

Cliff continued to make personal appearances until the summer of 2007. For several years he had suffered from the early effects of Alzheimer's disease, which affected his ability to communicate as well as he once had. Finally, his daughter gently convinced him that it would be better to let people remember him as he was in his prime, and Cliff reluctantly agreed.

As the illness got worse, he frequently still believed that he had bookings to fulfill. Toward the end, when he no longer recognized his wife or children, Cliff proved that there was a part of him that could not be defeated by any disease. His son would say, "Hey, Dad, if you found five dollars in one pocket and ten dollars in the other, what would you have?"

Cliff would pause a moment and then respond, "Somebody else's pants."

The jokes finally stopped on the night of September 8, 2008, but the outpouring of love and sympathy from the Birmingham community showed that Cliff would never be forgotten. He often liked to crack that he made a comeback every few years after having been the subject of "whatever happened to --" questions. The attention his passing drew could perhaps have been considered his last and greatest comeback.

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How did I get to know Cousin Cliff? I had watched his television show since I was old enough to hold my head up, but we didn’t meet in person until 1982. At the time, I was making appearances as a puppeteer, and Cliff needed someone to accompany him on personal appearances. Another performer had seen my puppet act on a local telethon, recommended me to Cliff, and we worked together from that time on.

When his television show was revived in 1990, I became the regular puppeteer for that series and then continued in the role after he moved back to cable television. In 1991, I wrote his biography, Cousin Cliff: 40 Magical Years in Television. The fact that anyone was that interested in his career delighted Cliff tremendously.

Editor’s Note: The book is still available for twenty dollars postpaid from Campbell's Publishing, Post Office Box 310727, Birmingham, Alabama 35231.

This article is reprinted from The Linking Ring, the monthly publication of the International Brotherhood of Magicians. For information on joining the I.B.M., click here.