Amazing true stories from a pioneer of children's television — a remarkable mix of hilarity, melancholy, irony, and warmth … For 32 years, he was a six-foot-tall elf named Barnaby. That was the character Linn Sheldon played on Cleveland television, to the delight of three generations of children―and many grownups, too. The role made him a celebrity and defined an entire era of local TV. Barnaby was a masterful storyteller who spun imaginative tales out of thin air. But no story Linn Sheldon ever invented for Barnaby even compares with the real-life script he lived himself. He was caught in a Texas tornado, trapped in quicksand, and survived an airplane fire. He was accused of bank robbery and performed stand-up comedy at the point of a gangster’s gun. He was fathered by a drifter, orphaned at birth by his mother’s death, and later abandoned as a small, lonely child to fend mostly for himself. He quit high school to hitchhike across the country with little more than a banjo, and landed among the glitter of Hollywood with a job on the lot of MGM studios. He fell in love―again and again. He broke into stage acting, helped invent television programming in the earliest days of Cleveland’s first TV station, and became a celebrity. He made a lot of money―and lost most of it, as he drank away his health and the love of the people he cared about the most. He sobered up, fought ill health, and fell in love again. In these 29 stories Linn Sheldon, master storyteller, shares his most intriguing tale yet: that of his own extraordinary life. Behind Barnaby’s bold-striped jacket, bow tie and straw skimmer is an autobiography with a wealth of good humor, funny adventures and enough dirty linen to dismay a less optimistic personality. -- Craig Wilson ― Akron Beacon Journal Published On: 2000-07-30 [Sheldon] is a masterful storyteller whose turbulent and rewarding life is told in 29 stories in this fascinating memoir. A revealing and hilarious look at his career, which blossomed along with TV itself. The anecdotes are endless. -- Fran Peskind ― Sun Press Published On: 1999-12-02 A revealing and hilarious look at [Sheldon’s] career, which blossomed along with TV itself. The anecdotes are endless. -- Mike Lesko ― Sun Press Published On: 2000-07-06 Linn Sheldon has no peer as a storyteller. Accordingly, “Barnaby and Me” is anything but a traditional biography. Rather, it is a series of true stories told by a master, and from those stories emerges a compelling portrait of a very complex and very, very funny man . . . Sheldon’s stories and insights about early television and the people who pioneered the medium are as delightful as they are unique. -- Ed Freska ― Star Beacon Published On: 1999-12-21 An entertaining account of one of the more significant and enduring Northern Ohio TV pioneers. -- David Budin ― Northern Ohio Live Published On: 1999-11-01 Linn Sheldon was a pioneer in the early days of television and a groundbreaking children’s television host. His character Barnaby was a fixture on Cleveland television for decades. He has won many awards for programming, including two Emmy awards. Let’s take a long look at Cleveland as I knew it when I began my career in earnest. During World War II and into the early ’50s, Cleveland probably had more nightclubs than any other city in the country outside of New York and Chicago. The city also became a launching pad for a number of successful orchestras―Guy Lombardo and Sammy Kaye, to mention two. That’s because at the time, when radio was still king, Cleveland had a 50,000-watt radio station, WTAM, and the networks asked all 50,000-watters to program two to three hours of network feed from their call letters. Thus quality orchestras would come to Cleveland just to get on the radio in order to sell themselves to other cities throughout the country. There were nightclubs up and down Euclid Avenue and on side streets from downtown to East 107th Street. I had some favorites: the Cabin Club, which had Redd Foxx as emcee and great bands and a lot of dancing; Lindsey’s Sky Bar, and Chin’s Chinese, both of which featured such legendary jazz pianists as Art Tatum and Fats Waller, and boogie-woogie masters Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons. Moe’s Main Street offered the song stylings of Tony Benedetto, whom you know as Tony Bennett, and later Johnnie Raye, who wept his way through “The Little White Cloud That Cried.” Dean Martin was singing at the Hollenden Hotel. Borselino’s Restaurant also booked nightclub acts, and I worked there with a trio called “The Three Sons” and a short, baby-faced singing star named Bobby Breen. One night he and I went over to the Statler Hotel at East 12th and Euclid. There, a singer named Karl Brisson was holding forth with George Duffy’s orchestra. Very tall, very handsome, and suaver than suave in top hat and tails, he would serenade the ladies at the tables and make them wish they had never married. On the way back Breen said he thought he could