Rod Coneybeare, former CBC host and Friendly Giant puppeteer, dead at 89

Rod Coneybeare, who enjoyed a three-decade run at the CBChosting, producing and appearing on a variety of shows, including voicing the beloved characters Rusty and Jerome from The Friendly Giant, has died.

Coneybeare, according to an obituary from his family that appeared in the Toronto Star, died in Lindsay, Ont., at the age of 89.

The family said he "leaves behind beloved and everlasting memories of a man with a biting intellect, a dark and incisive humour, an appreciation of art, popular music and classic movies."

Born in Belleville, Ont., Coneybeare was influenced by radio at a young age. After early success as a teen appearing on a CBC radio show and selling a radio program script to NBC, Coneybeare told the Star in 1970 he became a "radio bum," working at Ontario stations in Orillia, Chatham, Guelph and Ottawa, while supplementing his income with work in the theatre world.

Rod Coneybeare on writing for kids

56 years ago

Duration 5:46

The voice of Jerome and Rusty from CBC-TV's Friendly Giant previews his new program, Bananas in 1969.

In the late 1950s, he was selected to voice characters on The Friendly Giant, the children's show created by and starring Bob Homme.

Homme, an American, had first produced the show on public airwaves in Wisconsin in the early '50s, where it eventually attracted the attention of CBC producers.

'Giant' chemistry

The show, which would ultimately air on CBC from 1958 until 1985, featured Homme as the giant Friendly, who tells a simple story to his puppet friends Rusty and Jerome, usually in front of the castle in which he resided.

Coneybeare would tell interviewers part of the show's appeal was that it did not patronize kids. It was "an island of quiet and intelligence, humour, music and books much like a real conversation bright kids might have with a witty adult," he once told an interviewer.

Over the years, both men would attest to the enjoyment they received ad libbing with each other in character.

Homme told Weekend Magazine during the show's heyday that scripts were just a one-page outline due to a "special kind of understandingbetween Rod and me, and instinctively being able to follow each other's thoughts."

For Rusty, the bookwise, earnest but a touch naive rooster, the naturally baritone Coneybeare employed a falsetto.

Jerome, the more boisterous and demonstrative of the two puppets he voiced, was "a bass baritone giraffe doing a Jimmy Stewart impression," he told the Province in British Columbiain 1979.

Additional puppeteers and characters would be added to the show during its run.

Over the years, Coneybeare would be involved in a number of other CBC programs, usually on radio, utilizing a mix of intelligence and whimsy.

The Rod and Charles Show, with Charles Winters, was a science-based show, Yes, You're Wrong a comedy-quiz show and Bananas sketch-based satire. Coneybeare delved into his love of music by producing radio biographies of artists like Fats Waller and Frank Sinatra.

Rewind54:59The Rod and Charles Show

Today, from 1961, the Rod and Charles Show. It was a fast paced, quirky and engaging show hosted by Rod Coneybeare and Charles Winter that became as popular for adults as it did for children.

After leaving the CBC, Coneybeare would earn an ACTRA nomination along with his son, Wilson, for co-writing an episode of the Don Adams comedy vehicle Check It Out, and he lent his voice to animated television series in the 1990s such as X-Men, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and The Busy World of Richard Scarry, according to IMDb.com.

Homme died in 2000, while Daniel McCarthy, a former head of children's programming at CBC who helped develop The Friendly Giant and Mr. Dressup, died in 2013.

Coneybeare, according to the obituary, is survived by his wife Moira, four children and seven grandchildren.