Bozo the Clown, RIP
I learned in the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly that Larry Harmon, the man who owned the rights to Bozo the Clown, passed away at the age of 83. After doing a little research, I realize that I may have never actually seen Harmon play Bozo, but I certainly was a Bozo fan. In fact, I have long been fascinated by clowns, which lingers today.
This is probably a minority view. Most people find clowns creepy, and children, when confronted with an actual clown, may find the encounter unsettling. There's actually a term for fear of clowns--coulrophobia. Things were not helped by Stephen King creating the evil clown Pennywise in his novel It.
Clowns were much more prevalent on TV when I was a kid. There was Bozo, who was franchised, which meant there was a different Bozo in every market where he was syndicated. When I was of clown-watching age I lived in suburban Detroit and then in Toledo, Ohio, so I'm not sure who I saw. Bob Bell was the dominant Bozo, who worked for WGN in Chicago and wore the makeup until 1984. While living in Detroit I remember a local TV clown called Oopsy, who dressed in green and wore a flower pot on his head. There was also the Town Clown on Captain Kangaroo, who was silent, in the mode of Emmett Kelly.
I liked clowns so much when I was a kid that I wanted to be one when I grew up. I had a hyperactive imagination and played by myself a lot, so I invented several different clowns, each with his own name and look. My encounters with clowns weren't scary, although they were somewhat awe-inspiring. I remember going to the circus and getting an autograph from a clown, who seemed huge. He was a true pro, though, and referred me to the page in the program that his picture was on for signing.
My interest in clowns today is more theoretical. The only noteworthy TV clown today is the satire of one, Krusty on The Simpsons (inevitably episodes featuring him are my favorites). What amuses me about clowns today are not their antics, but imaging them as sort of a slice of humanity, like Frenchmen, with their own sociology. For example, two of my favorite New Yorker cartoons feature clowns. One has two cannibals finishing up a meal that has obviously been a clown (large floppy shoes and a rubber nose are among the bones lying at their feet). One cannibal says to the other, "Did that taste funny to you?" Another I have tacked up at my cubicle at work. It has a family of clowns--mother, father, child, baby--sitting around the dinner table. The father says, "Something funny happened at work today." And, of course, there's perhaps the funniest half-hour of television ever, the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, where the local TV clown gets killed by an elephant wearing a peanut suit.
I think the world of TV clowns faded out long ago. I would imagine most people under 30 have no memory of such shows, and the only clown they know is probably Ronald McDonald. But there was a time when every TV market had one. Those were the days.
This is probably a minority view. Most people find clowns creepy, and children, when confronted with an actual clown, may find the encounter unsettling. There's actually a term for fear of clowns--coulrophobia. Things were not helped by Stephen King creating the evil clown Pennywise in his novel It.
Clowns were much more prevalent on TV when I was a kid. There was Bozo, who was franchised, which meant there was a different Bozo in every market where he was syndicated. When I was of clown-watching age I lived in suburban Detroit and then in Toledo, Ohio, so I'm not sure who I saw. Bob Bell was the dominant Bozo, who worked for WGN in Chicago and wore the makeup until 1984. While living in Detroit I remember a local TV clown called Oopsy, who dressed in green and wore a flower pot on his head. There was also the Town Clown on Captain Kangaroo, who was silent, in the mode of Emmett Kelly.
I liked clowns so much when I was a kid that I wanted to be one when I grew up. I had a hyperactive imagination and played by myself a lot, so I invented several different clowns, each with his own name and look. My encounters with clowns weren't scary, although they were somewhat awe-inspiring. I remember going to the circus and getting an autograph from a clown, who seemed huge. He was a true pro, though, and referred me to the page in the program that his picture was on for signing.
My interest in clowns today is more theoretical. The only noteworthy TV clown today is the satire of one, Krusty on The Simpsons (inevitably episodes featuring him are my favorites). What amuses me about clowns today are not their antics, but imaging them as sort of a slice of humanity, like Frenchmen, with their own sociology. For example, two of my favorite New Yorker cartoons feature clowns. One has two cannibals finishing up a meal that has obviously been a clown (large floppy shoes and a rubber nose are among the bones lying at their feet). One cannibal says to the other, "Did that taste funny to you?" Another I have tacked up at my cubicle at work. It has a family of clowns--mother, father, child, baby--sitting around the dinner table. The father says, "Something funny happened at work today." And, of course, there's perhaps the funniest half-hour of television ever, the "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, where the local TV clown gets killed by an elephant wearing a peanut suit.
I think the world of TV clowns faded out long ago. I would imagine most people under 30 have no memory of such shows, and the only clown they know is probably Ronald McDonald. But there was a time when every TV market had one. Those were the days.
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