Cookie Bear - Before there was the Cookie Monster on SESAME STREET, there was the Cookie Bear, a recurring character featured on THE ANDY WILLIAMS SHOW/NBC/1969-71. Usually as Andy Williams was about to sing his signature song, "Moon River" the Cookie Bear came onstage and asked for a cookie. And the bear was prepared to beg, borrow, steal or do just about anything to get the crunchy sweetness of a cookie snack. But try as hard as he might, at the end of each sketch host Andy Williams would always say "No cookies! Not now, not ever...NEVER!!!'  Dejected, the Cookie craving bear would fall down in frustration or walk off stage. But there was always next week when once again the bear would frantically plead for his heart's desire. Janos Prohaska (who dressed in a heavy furry bear costume) performed the role of the Cookie Bear from 1969-71.

In 1992, the Andy William's $12 million state-of-the-art  Moon River Theater in Branson, Missouri resurrected the Cookie Bear act during the Christmas season.

TRIVIA NOTE: Janos Prohaska died March 13, 1974 at the age 51 when his Sierra Pacific Airlines flight (802) crashed at 8:28 PM near Bishop California. The twin-engine Convair CV 440 aircraft (N4819C) was carrying the production crew for a segment of the ABC TV series "Primal Man." All four members of the flight crew and the 32 passengers on board were killed in the crash including Prohaska's stuntman son, Robert.  

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