Bob Homme

While working at WHA radio, Homme would regularly drive from Madison to Chicago to watch rehearsals of a pioneering network television variety show called, The Dave Garroway Show. From these trips, Bob had developed an interest in programming. In 1953 as he was driving back from Chicago to Madison, he imagined creating a children's program.[9] Bob recognized that giants were usually portrayed as frightening. It was his wife, Esther, who came up with the idea of a "friendly giant." Bob recognized that taking what is usually associated with a scary character and making it nice makes it doubly nice. Casper the Friendly Ghost is all the more friendly because that is not how ghosts are imagined. A friendly giant, therefore, becomes an even more friendly giant when compared to the Jack and the Beanstalk variety giant.[10] Homme approached the program director of WHA radio, which was in the process of developing a television station. While continuing to work full-time on radio, he began developing the new children's television show.[11]

The Friendly Giant began on WHA-TV in Madison on May 8, 1954.[2][12] National Educational Television carried it in the United States from 1955 to 1968. Kinescopes of early episodes caught the attention of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and production of the program moved to CBC Television's Toronto studios in 1958. CBC produced and aired The Friendly Giant until 1986, and it was later run in syndication on Canada's YTV.

The show was outlined but never scripted. Homme's dramatic style was minimalist. He recognized that television was a "hot medium" so that it was easy to exaggerate any actions or dialogue. Consistent with his personality, he tended to underplay his performances. This was in contrast to other high-energy early television programs such as Howdy Doody. Bob and his puppeteer partner (originally Ken Ohst in Wisconsin and then Rod Coneybeare in Canada) used the comfortable repartee of old radio programs Bob had enjoyed like Vic and Sade, Burns and Allen, Bob and Ray, and the Easy Aces.[12][13]

One of his television production innovations was to change the perspective of the camera. Instead of the normal camera angles, raise the miniatures to camera height and place the human being as the unusual shot above the set. Suddenly, the person became the giant. Using a tight cover-shot and a loose close-up seemed to violate the newly established rules of television but it worked perfectly in creating the sense of a large giant. This countered the Godzilla effect where viewers watched a full-size monster walk around a miniature set. He always kept the giant character somewhere in the shot to emotionally reassure his preschool audience and to minimize any jarring effect.[10]

Growing up in a musical family, they enjoyed singing together and performing for the extended family each other on a Saturday night. Young Homme and his father had a little vaudeville act that was available when needed in the community.[14] He later joined the school band at the University of Wisconsin. While Bob is best known for playing the recorder, his first instruments were the clarinet and the saxophone. He first purchased a recorder while stationed in New York City during his military service to give him an inexpensive and portable instrument during his travels. The recorder would become his signature instrument. On each episode of the show, he played three different recorders to match the pitch of each to the desired tone at that stage of the show.[15]

An image of Homme, his wife, Esther, and their dog, Molly, during retirement.

Bob Homme was the model in a number of paintings by his friend and Canadian artist, James Lumbers. Lumbers' "Moments in Time" paintings often featured images from the present together with a faded image of a person and things from the past at the same location. Homme's likeness was used in the images of grandfather types in these paintings such as "Lucky Strike" and "Gone Fishing." The Springer spaniel in "Old Friends" was the Homme's dog, Molly. In one painting of a honky-tonk piano player called "Billy Nine Fingers," Bob and Esther are one of the couples sitting at a table in the foreground.[16]