[vollmann]

The marionettes of puppeteers Bil and Cora Baird performed in this CBS saga of life in the Old West.

Snarky Parker was the deputy sheriff of the town of Hot Rock. He was in love with the local schoolteacher, Miss Butterball; rode a horse named Heathcliffe; and fought with local villains Ronald Rodent and Blackie McGoo.

Other characters seen regularly in the series (which was broadcast live to air) were Slugger, the piano player in the Bent Elbow Saloon; Paw, the father of Butterball; sultry siren Cuda Barra, Noose Noland and Fluffy Webster.

Yul Brynner, later more successful as a performer, was the producer and director of this show.

Link to the book: Life with Snarky Parker 1

[crashryan]

You have unwittingly solved a puzzle that has perplexed me for ages. Back in the day I haunted thrift stores looking for odd and obscure LP's. On one expedition I found the disc "Slugger Ryan Plays Ragtime," with a cover photo showing a marionette playing a piano. I had never heard of the TV show and there was precious little info on the album sleeve. At last I know what that was about. The record itself was a collection of ragtime standards played in typical pizza-parlor style. By the way, the art here is, shall we say, not of the best.

[Robb_K]

You have unwittingly solved a puzzle that has perplexed me for ages. Back in the day I haunted thrift stores looking for odd and obscure LP's. On one expedition I found the disc "Slugger Ryan Plays Ragtime," with a cover photo showing a marionette playing a piano. I had never heard of the TV show and there was precious little info on the album sleeve. At last I know what that was about. The record itself was a collection of ragtime standards played in typical pizza-parlor style. By the way, the art here is, shall we say, not of the best.

Quite an understatement.  This art is some of the worst I've ever seen in a standard commercial comic book.

[dwilt]

The art is not very good, but I'll offer 3 slightly mitigating factors.
1. It's very deliberately stylised rather than attempting to be realistic.
2. The puppets in some cases actually look like puppets, as opposed to living creatures.
3. It's a Fox comic and some of their comics are FAR worse (because those stories are supposed to be "realistic" and the artists are mostly incapable of achieving that).

[Robb_K]

The art is not very good, but I'll offer 3 slightly mitigating factors.
1. It's very deliberately stylised rather than attempting to be realistic.
2. The puppets in some cases actually look like puppets, as opposed to living creatures.
3. It's a Fox comic and some of their comics are FAR worse (because those stories are supposed to be "realistic" and the artists are mostly incapable of achieving that).

Having known all the facts you bring up as "mitigating", I still contend that the art is "terrible" in comparison to what it could have been, had the artist just attempted to make the puppets look similar to how the physical puppets looked on the TV show (as was done with Avon's Sparky Smith in "TV Puppet Show", Howdy Doody, Charley McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd (backgrounds and other characters were drawn in a much more eye friendly style, which would be a LOT more enjoyable to most readers that I know.