Given that we will be voting for President in a few days, I thought it would be fund to revisit this picture. I’m pretty sure it dates to 1956, which had Dwight Eisenhower running for a second term against Adlai Stevenson. The folks at channel 11 felt that Joe the Cook would make a good candidate.
At the time, Chris Wedes had been given his own afternoon show as Joe the Cook called Cartoon Carnival. Roger Awsumb (in the photo with Chris Wedes) would appear on the show as both Casey Jones and dressed as Roo Roo the Kangaroo. The puppet is Tommy the Ticket Taker, a joke telling squirrel that would appear on the Casey Jones show. Roger would also perform as Tommy.
When I interviewed Chris in 2011, he told me he did not know why they chose to run Joe the Cook. He suggested that Casey Jones might have been a better candidate. When Chris moved to Seattle, he would continue to run for President as J.P. Patches.