Boston TV The Bozo franchise appeared on two separate Boston-area stations from 1959 to 1974.
WHDH-TV Boston The local
WHDH-TV Boston production of ''Bozo's Circus
, with Frank Avruch playing Bozo, aired daily from 1959 until 1970. In 1965, Larry Harmon became the sole owner of the Bozo licensing rights after buying out his business partners, and produced 130 episodes of the Boston-based Bozo show between 1965 and 1967 and syndicated them to local U.S. television markets that did not produce their own Bozo shows. The half-hour syndicated shows were retitled Bozo The Clown
(on episodes with a 1965 date) and Bozo's Big Top
(on episodes with a 1966 date). Caroll Spinney (billed in the credits as Ed Spinney) appeared as various characters which included Mr. Lion and Kookie the Boxing Kangaroo. He later went on to portray Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street''. Carl Carlsson also appeared as Bozo's sidekick Professor Tweedy Foofer. Ruth Carlsson also appeared in several 1966 episodes. Del Grosso played Clank the Robot in a few episodes. Harmon personally supervised the taping of these episodes, with Harmon-approved characters added, some based on characters in Harmon's classic 1958–1962 animated
Bozo cartoon shorts which also aired in each episode. These were the only Bozo shows Harmon fully owned. Bozo's frequent exclamations on the show included, "Whoa, Nellie!" and "Wowie Kazowie!" and always ended the show with, "Always keep laughing!" The Boston show also occasionally featured Nozo the Clown, the brother of Bozo, played by
Bill Harrington. Nozo was used to fill in for Bozo on occasion when Frank Avruch was unable to appear on the show. Nozo did not wear the red ball on his nose that other Bozos wore. Instead, his nose was Harrington's nose in makeup. In 2003, Harmon released six of these shows on DVD and, in 2007, 30 of them in a DVD box set titled ''Larry Harmon's Bozo, The World's Most Famous Clown, Collection 1
. A second box set was released later that year, also containing 30 of the half-hours; the second box set (Collection 2
) includes the six episodes previously released on the two earlier single DVD releases, and also repeats one show from Collection 1
, for a grand total of 59 episodes released on DVD altogether. Although the shows included on the two single-disc DVDs had contemporary computer-animated characters superimposed over some scenes, the 59 episodes included in Collections 1 & 2'' are presented in their original form. On March 20, 2018, Frank Avruch died of heart failure in Boston at the age of 89. McNea's Bozo became popular, expanding to two shows a day, and becoming the first children's program in Detroit to switch to color. However, there was friction with Larry Harmon. McNea played the character in a more genteel and subdued way than Harmon's playbook required, and McNea did the show without a live audience. After years of increasing the franchise fee, WWJ-TV ended the contract with Harmon in 1967. WWJ-TV kept McNea, who created his own clown character Oopsy, which continued on WWJ-TV until 1979. McNea then took Oopsy to
CKCO-TV in Kitchener, Ontario where he continued for another 15 years. Meanwhile, across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario
CKLW-TV channel 9 picked up the Bozo franchise in 1967. Popular local talent Jerry Booth was tapped to play Bozo, but he only did the role for a few months. Also on the show was piano player Mr. Calliope, played by Wally Townsend. Unlike WWJ-TV, CKLW-TV included a live audience, but they also did things that were not sanctioned by Harmon. CKLW-TV quickly phased out the cartoons, increasing the entertainment on ''Bozo's Big Top''. After a taped opening in which Bozo runs through the streets of Detroit calling kids to his Big Top, and on set singing and dancing to the "Bozo is Back" theme song, with the illuminated, flashing Bozo sign superimposed over in a slightly psychedelic way, Cervi would preside over an hour long variety show that included local dance troupes, singers, musicians, live animals, and national celebrities. In between, kids would play games to win prizes (one of the most plentiful being a six-pack of
Orange Crush), Mr. Whoodini would pick kids to assist him in magic tricks, and of course Bozo would provide comedy. Cervi was also a good singer, and one of the highlights were two or three times per show, Bozo would sit next to Mr. Calliope at his piano and sing a song, most of the time in Cervi's own voice rather than his Bozo voice, with all the kids in the audience clapping in time to the music. The shows would usually end with Bozo and Mr. Whoodini going into the audience and letting kids tell jokes and riddles. At one point ''Bozo's Big Top'' became so popular, that it aired twice a day. In 1977, after the station's conversion to
CBC Television-owned
CBET, the Canadian border protection and labor rules forced the station to cancel ''Bozo's Big Top
because most of the cast and staff were American. Bozo's Big Top'' moved to
WJBK-TV channel 2, where it lasted for two more years, and was syndicated to other markets such as New York, Las Vegas, Wichita, and Los Angeles. In 2014, a memoir of Art Cervi's Bozo years,
I Did What?, co-written by Herb Mentzer, was published. On February 5, 2019, Larry Thompson, who played Mr. Whoodini, died at the age of 76. On February 15, 2021, Art Cervi died at his Novi, MI home at age 86.
Washington, D.C. Willard Scott played Bozo on
WRC-TV from 1959 to 1962.
Dick Dyszel played the character on Washington, D.C. broadcast TV,
WDCA channel 20, in the 1970s to millions of viewers. Dyszel also played TV horror host "Count Gore de Vol" and hosted "Captain 20" afternoon kids' TV shows in D.C.
Chicago TV Chicago's 1960s cast of ''
Bozo's Circus''. From left: Ringmaster Ned (
Ned Locke), Mr. Bob (bandleader
Bob Trendler), Bozo (
Bob Bell), Oliver O. Oliver (
Ray Rayner) and Sandy (
Don Sandburg). The Chicago Bozo franchise was the most popular and successful locally produced children's program in the history of television. It also became the most widely known Bozo show as
WGN-TV became a national
cable television Superstation. WGN-TV Chicago's "Bozo" show debuted on June 20, 1960, starring Bob Bell on a live half-hour program weekdays at noon, performing comedy sketches and introducing cartoons. The series was placed on hiatus in January 1961 to facilitate WGN's move from Tribune Tower in downtown Chicago to 2501 West Bradley Place on the city's northwest side. WGN-TV's "Bozo's Circus" debuted on September 11, 1961. The live hour-long show aired weekdays at noon and featured comedy sketches, circus acts, cartoons, games and prizes before a 200+ member studio audience. The program began airing nationally via cable and satellite in 1978, and studio audience reservations surpassed a 10-year wait. In 1980, the series moved to weekday mornings as "The Bozo Show" and aired on tape delay. In 1994, it moved to Sunday mornings as "The Bozo Super Sunday Show" and became "education and information" in 1997 following a Federal Communications Commission mandate requiring broadcast television stations to air a minimum three hours per week of "educational and informational" children's programs. The final Bozo show, a primetime special titled "Bozo: 40 Years of Fun!" was taped on June 12, 2001, and aired on July 14, 2001. Reruns of "The Bozo Super Sunday Show" aired until August 26, 2001. Cast members throughout the program's 40-year run included Bob Bell as Bozo (1960–1984) (Bell's voice was later the pattern for that of
Krusty the Clown on
The Simpsons),
Ned Locke as Ringmaster Ned (1961–1976),
Don Sandburg as Sandy the Tramp (1961–1969),
Ray Rayner as Oliver O. Oliver (1961–1971),
Roy Brown as Cooky the Cook (1968–1994),
Marshall Brodien as Wizzo the Wizard (1968–1994),
Frazier Thomas as the circus manager (1976–1985),
Joey D'Auria as Bozo (1984–2001), Andy Mitran as Professor Andy (1987–2001) and Robin Eurich as Rusty the Handyman (1994–2001). Bozo returned to television on December 24, 2005, in a two-hour retrospective titled "
Bozo, Gar & Ray: WGN TV Classics." The primetime premiere was No. 1 in the Chicago market and continues to be rebroadcast and streamed annually during the holiday season. Bozo also continues to appear on the WGN-TV float in Chicago's biggest parades. Allen Hall, the long-time producer, died of
lung cancer on September 6, 2011, after an 18-month illness, at the age of 82. Hall worked at WGN for 40 years. He joined the station in 1961, a year after "Bozo" debuted on WGN, as the show's director until 1966 and returned to the program as producer in 1973 until 2001. Few episodes from the show's first two decades survive; although some shows were recorded to videotape for delayed broadcasts, the tapes were reused and eventually discarded. In 2012, a vintage tape was located on the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection Web site archive list by Rick Klein of
The Museum of Classic Chicago Television, containing material from two 1971 episodes. WGN reacquired the tape and put together a new special entitled "Bozo's Circus: The Lost Tape," which aired in December 2012. On October 6, 2018, Don Sandburg, "Bozo's Circus" producer and writer from 1961 to 1969 and the last surviving original cast member, died at the age of 87. Four months later, WGN-TV paid tribute to Sandburg and the rest of the original cast with a two-hour special titled "Bozo's Circus: The 1960s." As of 2021, WGN stated that it was still maintaining its license to use the Bozo character from its owners, even after it had stopped producing new episodes 20 years earlier. In 2017, the film
Bingo: The King of the Mornings premiered, being a biographical film inspired by the life of Arlindo Barreto. During
Jair Bolsonaro's
government as president between 2019 and 2022, Bolsonaro was notably referred to as Bozo by many of his opponents as a way of belittling him as a joke. The 2019
Batman comic "The Dark Knight Returns: The Golden Child" made a reference to president Bolsonaro with the name "JM Bozo". In 2020, a samba school in
Rio de Janeiro made a float with a doll representing president Bolsonaro dressed as Bozo for the carnival parade. However, Wandeko Pipoca came to president's defense, claiming that calling him Bozo was a compliment and speaking out against demonstrations against him.
Mexican TV In 1961, Mario Quintanilla, chairman of
XEFB-TV Channel 3 obtained the local rights of the Bozo Cartoons, including the authorization of the Bozo characterization.
José Marroquín (who later became famous with his
Pipo character) was chosen as the first Mexican Bozo. He portrayed the character on local
XHX-TV Channel 10
Monterrey television shows until 1963, when the licensing rights ended. After that, José Manuel Vargas Martínez, under sponsorship by Antonio Espino (famous comedy actor of the late 1940s and 1950s, known by his nickname,
Clavillazo), portrayed the character. He was the most famous Bozo in Latin America and created his own version of Bozo's Circus, which traveled all along Latin America for decades. He started as a television artist participating in a dance marathon he won dressed as Bozo. After his success as Bozo, he traveled to several countries representing the Bozo character. He made special presentations in Italy, Greece, Spain, Hawaii and Canada with his circus. In 2000, he received the ANDA's Arozamena Award for 50 years of uninterrupted career. He died one year later, October 19, 2001, due to a lung disease. In Mexico, television star, comedian and political commentator
Víctor Trujillo created the character "Brozo, El Payaso Tenebroso" (Brozo, the Creepy Clown) in 1988 as a parody of Bozo for a
TV Azteca program with Ausencio Cruz called
La Caravana (The Caravan). He pleased the audience with double-entendres and adult humor, telling sarcastic and sometimes obscene versions of classic children's tales. Bozo once appeared as a guest in
La Caravana. He became so popular that TV Azteca asked him to join the reporters and anchors during coverage of the
FIFA World Cup in
1990,
1994 and
1998, also doing the same with
Televisa for the
2002 World Cup. He also gave his commentary on the Olympics, starting with the
1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain until the
2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. From 2000 to 2004, Trujillo as Brozo was the anchor of a popular and successful television news show,
El Mañanero. It was first broadcast on Canal 40
XHTVM-TV and later Televisa's
4TV from 2001 onwards. Trujillo discontinued the Brozo character following the death of his wife, producer Carolina Padilla, but brought back Brozo in a new television program that began in early 2006 on Televisa's
Canal de las Estrellas, "El Notifiero." He is considered an influential political commentator in Mexico.
Ronald McDonald Immediately following
Willard Scott's three-year-run as WRC-TV Washington, D.C.'s Bozo, the show's sponsors,
McDonald's drive-in restaurant franchisees John Gibson and Oscar Goldstein (Gee Gee Distributing Corporation), hired Scott to portray "
Ronald McDonald, the Hamburger-Happy Clown" for their local commercials on the character's first three television "spots". McDonald's replaced Scott with other actors for their national commercials and the character's costume was changed. One of them was
Ray Rayner (Oliver O. Oliver on WGN-TV's ''Bozo's Circus''), who appeared in McDonald's national ads in 1968. In the mid-1960s, Andy Amyx, performing as Bozo on
Jacksonville, Florida, television station
WFGA, was hired to do local appearances of Ronald McDonald periodically. Andy recalls having to return the wardrobe to the agency after each performance. ==Actors==