Hugh Brannum

FZ in The Real Frank Zappa Book (1989): "Because I recorded a song called Son Of Mr. Green Genes on the Hot Rats album in 1969, people have believed for years that the character with that name on the Captain Kangaroo TV show (played by "Lumpy" Brannum) was my real Dad. No, he was not."

In the 1940s Hugh Brannum (1910-1987) was the bass player with Fred Waring & his Pennsylvanians.

He created the "Little Orley" stories for Fred Waring's weekly radio programme of the late 1940s and became a scriptwriter for the Waring TV show in the 1950s. While the Orley stories were a weekly feature of the radio programme, the stories were produced less often for the television programme. The stories were collected and released by Decca Records.

He hosted "Uncle Lumpy's Cabin" his own local TV show in New York briefly in 1951.

In 1955 he joined the Captain Kangaroo show as "Mr Green Jeans" where he stayed until he retired in 1984.