Argyle The Snake

[cleusk]

For those who are interested, you can still watch the guy who did the show featuring Argyle the Snake at SFOT. John Hardman performs the Buford Buzzard Show at the State Fair Of Texas. It's located near the kiddie section of the Midway. He's also in charge of the World On A String show and occasionally performs there as well. During the holiday season, he performs an Ebeneezer Scrooge show at North Park Mall near Central Expressway in North Dallas.

[cleusk]

Just a little info about John Hardman and Argyle.

 

Hardman grew up in Wichita Falls, Texas. I lived there for four years. It's half college town and half military town. Anyway, Hardman got interested in puppetry at an early age, started when he saw a marionette show at the Barnum and Bailey Circus. His father bought him some marionettes and John started performing shows in the garage for the neighborhood kids. He spent his years at junior high and high school doing puppetry and magic. During college, he worked at the Channel 3 TV station. After graduating from Midwestern State University, where I also graduated, he moved to Dallas. He spent his time doing cabarets in Uptown Dallas. It was during this time that he created a puppet character called Argyle Asp.

 

When SFOT started building its Boom Town section in 1963, some executives asked Hardman to audition for a Punch and Judy show which was being planned for park. Hardman did so and got the job. He performed Punch and Judy twenty times a day. In an effort to break the boredom, he brought along Argyle to interact with the people between shows. When Angus Wynne Jr. saw what John was doing, he demanded Hardman to chunk the Punch and Judy show and do Argyle full time. As a result, Argyle Asp became Argyle Snake.

 

Hardman worked for San Antonio's HemisFair in 1968. Argyle had become so popular, he served as one of the unofficial mascots. The primary mascot was a dragon named Luther. He was later renamed H. R. Pufnstuf.

 

When Sid and Marty Krofft came on the scene, they took him under their wing and taught him how to do large scale shows. When they left Six Flags, he took control of all the SFOT puppet shows. Later, he would be producing all the puppet shows of the Six Flags chain.

 

John Hardman left in 1991 when Time Warner started to get involved with Six Flags, complaining that the atmosphere created by the corporation no longer made his job fun.