Character of The Week: Bozo The Clown

Bozo, The World’s Most Famous Clown

Bozo the Clown is one of the most beloved characters in America’s history. Unbeknownst to many, Bozo was originally a character in a “read-along” book. In 1946, Alan Livingston at Capitol Records came up with the idea to market a book with a record included. The idea was that children would read along and listen to the record as the narrator, Bozo The Clown, read the book out loud. On these records, the voice of Bozo was provided by Pinto Colvig, a former circus clown who had been doing character voices for Walt Disney. He was best known for the voice of Goofy, but he also did Pluto’s bark and two of Snow White’s dwarfs. The read-along books were a hugely successful venture, and over a million copies of the book, “Bozo at the Circus,” were sold. Fifteen more books were published over the years with similar success.

In 1949, Pinto Colvig became the first person to appear on television as Bozo The Clown. He appeared on KTTV in Los Angeles on “Bozo’s Circus” with a tamer version of Bozo’s now-famous look of red hair, white face, and blue suit. Due to the growing popularity of Bozo the Clown, there was a huge demand for personal appearances. To keep up with the demand, Capitol Records’ Alan Livingston hired more actors to do promotional Bozo appearances in different cities across the country.

One of the actors, Larry Harmon, was interested in much more than just doing Bozo appearances. In the late 1950s, with a group of investors, he bought the licensing rights to the Bozo the Clown character from Capitol Records. And so began the process that made “Bozo” a household name and brought the clown into livingrooms across the country, and the world.

Harmon started his clever marketing strategy by changing the name from “Bozo the Capitol Clown” to “Bozo, The World’s Most Famous Clown.” Next, he altered Bozo’s appearance by creating the orange-red shock of hair that stuck out from both sides of the clown’s head. He also started an animation studio that produced “Bozo, The World’s Most Famous Clown” cartoons, for which he did the voice-over. His next step, in the early 1960s, was to sell Bozo the Clown franchises to local television shows across the country. This allowed each station to choose its own Bozo the Clown, and to tailor the show to fit its unique audience. There were even shows in Mexico and Brazil! In the late 1960s, Larry Harmon thought that creating a national show would be profitable, so he used Boston’s WHDH-TV “Bozo’s Big Top” for syndication. Harmon’s national show was not as successful, since most stations preferred to produce their own local show.

The most successful Bozo show was based in Chicago at WGN-TV, and was called “Bozo’s Circus.” It debuted on June 20, 1960 with Bob Bell as Bozo in a live half-hour show that ran weekdays at noon. The show was so popular that it changed to an hour-long and moved to an early morning time-slot. It went national in 1978 via cable and satellite, and did very well, lasting until 1994. (Joey D’Auria replaced Bell in 1984.) At this time, competition from national and syndicated children’s shows caused WGN to move Bozo to Sunday where it was called “The Bozo Super Sunday Show.” The last episode taped was the “Bozo: 40 Years of Fun!” special, which ran in July of 2001.

Although Bozo the Clown is only seen today on re-runs, specials, and DVDs, he will forever be a part of American television history. His laugh, his face, and especially his hair are immediately recognizable by generations of children who grew up watching the funny clown. Bozo merchandise is still available in many forms, and some have become collector’s items. Check out our website for Bozo the Clown Toys, and relive happy childhood memories as you share the fun of Bozo with your children.