Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dies at 83

[trekz 7]

Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dies at 83 By JOHN ROGERS, Associated Press Writer

Fri Jul 4, 1:48 AM ET

 

 

 

LOS ANGELES - Larry Harmon, who turned the character Bozo the Clown into a show business staple that delighted children for more than a half-century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure. He was 83.

 

His publicist, Jerry Digney, told The Associated Press he died at his home.

 

Although not the original Bozo, Harmon portrayed the popular clown in countless appearances and, as an entrepreneur, he licensed the character to others, particularly dozens of television stations around the country. The stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos.

 

"You might say, in a way, I was cloning BTC (Bozo the Clown) before anybody else out there got around to cloning DNA," Harmon told the AP in a 1996 interview.

 

"Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us," Harmon said.

 

Pinto Colvig, who also provided the voice for Walt Disney's Goofy, was the first Bozo the Clown, a character created by writer-producer Alan W. Livingston for a series of children's records in 1946. Livingston said he came up with the name Bozo after polling several people at Capitol Records.

 

Harmon would later meet his alter ego while answering a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records.

 

He got that job and eventually bought the rights to Bozo. Along the way, he embellished Bozo's distinctive look: the orange-tufted hair, the bulbous nose, the outlandish red, white and blue costume.

 

"I felt if I could plant my size 83AAA shoes on this planet, (people) would never be able to forget those footprints," he said.

 

Susan Harmon, his wife of 29 years, indicated Harmon was the perfect fit for Bozo.

 

"He was the most optimistic man I ever met. He always saw a bright side; he always had something good to say about everybody. He was the love of my life," she said Thursday.

 

The business — combining animation, licensing of the character, and personal appearances — made millions, as Harmon trained more than 200 Bozos over the years to represent him in local markets.

 

"I'm looking for that sparkle in the eyes, that emotion, feeling, directness, warmth. That is so important," he said of his criteria for becoming a Bozo.

 

The Chicago version of Bozo ran on WGN-TV in Chicago for 40 years and was seen in many other cities after cable television transformed WGN into a superstation.

 

Bozo — portrayed in Chicago for many years by Bob Bell — was so popular that the waiting list for tickets to a TV show eventually stretched to a decade, prompting the station to stop taking reservations for 10 years. On the day in 1990 when WGN started taking reservations again, it took just five hours to book the show for five more years. The phone company reported more than 27 million phone call attempts had been made.

 

By the time the show bowed out in Chicago, in 2001, it was the last locally produced version. Harmon said at the time that he hoped to develop a new cable or network show, as well as a Bozo feature film.

 

He became caught up in a minor controversy in 2004 when the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee took down a plaque honoring him as Bozo and formally endorsed Colvig as the first. Harmon denied ever misrepresenting Bozo's history.

 

He said he was claiming credit only for what he added to the character — "What I sound like, what I look like, what I walk like" — and what he did to popularize Bozo.

 

"Isn't it a shame the credit that was given to me for the work I have done, they arbitrarily take it down, like I didn't do anything for the last 52 years," he told the AP at the time.

 

Harmon protected Bozo's reputation with a vengeance, while embracing those who poked good-natured fun at the clown.

 

As Bozo's influence spread through popular culture, his very name became a synonym for clownish behavior.

 

"It takes a lot of effort and energy to keep a character that old fresh so kids today still know about him and want to buy the products," Karen Raugust, executive editor of The Licensing Letter, a New York-based trade publication, said in 1996.

 

A normal character runs its course in three to five years, Raugust said. "Harmon's is a classic character. It's been around 50 years."

 

On New Year's Day 1996, Harmon dressed up as Bozo for the first time in 10 years, appearing in the Rose Parade in Pasadena.

 

The crowd reaction, he recalled, "was deafening."

 

"They kept yelling, `Bozo, Bozo, love you, love you.' I shed more crocodile tears for five miles in four hours than I realized I had," he said. "I still get goose bumps."

 

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Harmon became interested in theater while studying at the University of Southern California.

 

"Bozo is a star, an entertainer, bigger than life," Harmon once said. "People see him as Mr. Bozo, somebody you can relate to, touch and laugh with."

 

Besides his wife, Harmon is survived by his son, Jeff Harmon, and daughters Lori Harmon, Marci Breth-Carabet and Leslie Breth.

___

 

Associated Press writers Polly Anderson in New York and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this story.

[VaBeachGuy 12]

Wow, I used to watch Bozo all the time as a kid. My oldest brother was actually on the show sometime in the early 60's.

[trekz 7]

Bozo the Clown

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Bozo the Clown is the name of a clown whose widespread franchising in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States.

 

History

Created as a character in 1946 by Alan W. Livingston who produced a children's storytelling record-album and illustrative read-along book set which Livingston called a "Record Reader", the first of its kind, titled Bozo at the Circus for Capitol Records. Pinto Colvig portrayed the character on this and subsequent Bozo read-along records. The albums were extremely popular and the character became a mascot for the record company and was later nicknamed "Bozo the Capitol Clown." In 1949, Capitol and Livingston began setting up royalty arrangements with manufacturers and television stations for use of the Bozo character. KTTV-TV in Los Angeles began broadcasting the first show, Bozo's Circus, featuring Colvig as Bozo with his blue-and-red costume, oversized red hair and classic "whiteface" clown makeup on Fridays at 7:30 p.m.

 

In 1956, Larry Harmon, one of several actors hired by Livingston and Capitol Records to portray Bozo at promotional appearances, formed a business partnership and bought the licensing rights (excluding the record-readers) to the character when Livingston briefly left Capitol in 1956. Harmon had the vision and drive to take advantage of the growing television industry and make a better future for Bozo. He renamed the character "Bozo, The World’s Most Famous Clown" and slightly modified the voice, laugh and costume. He then worked with a wig stylist to get the wing-tipped bright orange style and look of the hair that had previously appeared in Capitol's Bozo comic books. He started his own animation studio and distributed (through business partner Jayark Films Corporation) a series of cartoons (with Harmon as the voice of Bozo) to television stations, along with the rights for each to hire its own live Bozo host, beginning with KTLA-TV in Los Angeles on January 5, 1959 and starring Vance Colvig, Jr., son of the original "Bozo the Clown", Pinto Colvig. Unlike many other shows on television, "Bozo the Clown" was mostly a franchise as opposed to being syndicated, meaning that local TV stations could put on their own local productions of the show complete with their own Bozo. Another show that had previously used this model successfully was Romper Room. Since each market used a different portrayer for the character, the voice and look of each market's Bozo also differed. One example is the voice and laugh of Chicago's Bob Bell, who also wore a red costume throughout the first decade of his portrayal. In 1965, Harmon bought out his business partners and became the sole owner of the licensing rights. Thinking that one national show would be more profitable for his company, Harmon produced 130 of his own half-hour shows from 1965 to 1967 titled Bozo's Big Top with WHDH-TV (now WCVB-TV) Boston's Bozo, Frank Avruch, for syndication in 1966. Avruch's portrayal and look resembled Harmon's more so than most of the other portrayers at the time. Harmon was met with resistance though and the show's distribution was limited as most television stations preferred to continue producing their own versions, the most popular being Bob Bell and WGN-TV Chicago's more elaborate Bozo's Circus which ultimately went national via cable and satellite in 1978. Bell retired in 1984 and was replaced by Joey D'Auria.

 

The series successfully survived competition from syndicated and network children's programs for many years until 1994 when WGN management decided to get out of the weekday children's television business and buried The Bozo Show in an early Sunday timeslot as The Bozo Super Sunday Show. It suffered another blow in 1997 when its format became educational following a Federal Communications Commission mandate requiring broadcast television stations to air a minimum three hours of educational children's programs per week. In 2001, station management controversially ended production citing increased competition from newer children's cable channels.

 

In 2005, Chicago's Bozo returned to the national television airwaves in a two-hour retrospective titled Bozo, Gar & Ray: WGN TV Classics. The primetime premiere was #1 in the Chicago market and continues to be rebroadcast annually during the holiday season. In 2003, Harmon released six of his Bozo's Big Top programs with Avruch on DVD and a box set of 30 episodes in 2007 retitled "Larry Harmon's Bozo, The World's Most Famous Clown Vol.1".

 

The wigs for Bozo were originally manufactured through the famous Hollywood firm Emil Corsillo Inc. This long time Hollywood company designed and manufactured toupees and wigs for the entertainment industry. Bozo's headpiece was made from horsehair which was adhered to a canvas base with a starched burlap interior foundation. The hair was first styled, formed, then sprayed with a heavy coat of lacquer to keep it's form From time to time the headpiece needed freshening and was sent to the Hollywood factory for a quick refurbishing. The canvas top would slide over the actors forehead. The eyebrows were permanently painted on the headpiece

 

Following is a partial list of Bozo television portrayers since the original (Pinto Colvig):

 

United States

 

Nationally Syndicated Bozo

Frank Avruch (1966-1970s) at WHDH-TV (now WCVB) Boston

(Produced 1965-1967 with syndication limited to local U.S. TV markets that were not producing their own Bozo shows.)

 

National Cable & Satellite TV Bozos

Bob Bell (1978-1984) at Superstation WGN Chicago

Joey D'Auria (1984-2001) at Superstation WGN Chicago

(Signal-reach throughout North America included the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean among others.)

 

Some selected Local Bozos:

 

Los Angeles, California

Vance Colvig, Jr. (1959-1964) at KTLA-TV (son of the original Bozo the Clown)

 

Washington, D.C.

Willard Scott (1959-1962) at WRC-TV

Dick Dyszel at WDCA-TV

 

Orlando, Florida

Alan Rock (1971-1974) at WFTV-TV

 

Chicago, Illinois

Bob Bell (1960-1984) at WGN-TV

Joey D'Auria (1984-2001) at WGN-TV

 

Baltimore, Maryland

Stu Kerr (1960s) at WMAR-TV

 

Boston, Massachusetts

Frank Avruch (1959-1970) at WHDH-TV (now WCVB-TV)

 

Detroit, Michigan (see also Windsor, Ontario)

Jerry Booth (1959) at WWJ-TV

Bob McNea (1959-1967) at WWJ-TV

Art Cervi (1975-1980) at WJBK-TV

Andrew F. Smith (1991-1997) at WADL (TV)

 

New York City, New York

Bill Britten (1959-1964) at WPIX-TV

Gordon Ramsey (1969-1970) at WWOR-TV (Appeared on the nationally syndicated What's My Line?, first as Bozo for the first segment without revealing his name, then as himself for the last round with his line being "I'm Bozo the Clown.")

 

 

Bozo on Chicago TV

 

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 in 1978. Chicago's Bozo debuted on June 20, 1960 starring Bob Bell on a live half-hour show, weekdays at noon, performing comedy sketches and introducing cartoons. It evolved into Bozo's Circus on September 11, 1961, as a live hour-long show with additional cast members, a 13-piece orchestra, circus acts, games and prizes before a 200+ member studio audience. Erstwhile WGN-TV children's show host Ned Locke of Lunchtime Little Theater and Paddleboat presided as "Ringmaster Ned." Although Bell had previously portrayed Bozo, the character did not appear on the September 11th telecast due to a budgeting error by producer Jim McGinn. Hal Taylor, an NCAA trampoline champion from the University of Wisconsin, performed and served as Locke's foil in comedy sketches. Bell returned as Bozo the next day. In the early months of the series, a respected English acrobatic clown, "Wimpey" (played by Bertram William Hiles) worked on the show, providing some legitimate circus background and performing opposite Bell's Bozo in comedy sketches. Hiles continued to make periodic guest appearances on the show into the mid-1960s. In October 1961, Don Sandburg joined the show as producer and principal sketch writer, and also appeared as the mute clown "Sandy", a character partly inspired by Harpo Marx. (He was announced by Locke at the start of each show as "Sandy the Tramp", although Sandburg himself preferred to be called "Sandy the Clown"). By November, another eventual Chicago television legend joined the show's cast, Ray Rayner, as "Oliver O. Oliver", a country bumpkin from Puff Bluff, Kentucky. Rayner was hosting WGN's Dick Tracy Show (which also premiered the same day as Bozo's Circus) and later replaced Dick Coughlan as host of Breakfast with Bugs Bunny, which was rechristened Ray Rayner and His Friends. WGN musical director Bob Trendler led the WGN Orchestra, dubbed the "Big Top Band." Games on the show included the "Grand Prize Game" created by Sandburg, whereby a boy and girl were selected from the studio audience by the Magic Arrows, and later the Bozoputer (a random number generator), to toss a ping-pong ball into a series of successively-numbered buckets until they missed. If they made the winning toss into the sixth bucket, they (and an "at-home player") received a cash prize, a bike and, in later years, a trip. (For many years, one "silver dollar" was dropped into Bucket #6 each day "until someone wins them all." When the show changed to a 90-minute format, shows no longer aired consecutively, so the final bucket now contained a $50 bill, increased to $100 in 1989.) The Grand Prize Game became so popular, Larry Harmon adapted it for other Bozo shows (as "Bozo Buckets" to some and "Bucket Bonanza" to others) and also licensed home and coin-operated versions. (On occasion, the child would miss the first bucket completely, prompting Bozo to take the ball, look at it, and say it was a lottery ball before throwing it away and giving the child a new ball and another chance.)

 

Over time, new characters were introduced to the cast. Some made a lasting impression while others were briefly tenured. In October 1968, Bell was hospitalized for a brain aneurysm and was absent from the show for several months. Meanwhile, Sandburg resolved to leave the show for the West Coast but stayed longer while Bell recuperated. To pick up the slack, WGN floor manager Richard Shiloh Lubbers appeared as "Monty Melvin", named after a schoolmate of Sandburg's, while WGN Garfield Goose and Friends and Ray Rayner and His Friends puppeteer Roy Brown created a new character, "Cooky the Cook." Magician Marshall Brodien, who had been making semi-regular guest appearances in which he frequently interacted with the clowns, also appeared as a wizard character in an Arabian Nights-inspired costume and by the early 1970s evolved into "Wizzo the Wizard." Sandburg left the show in January 1969 and Bell returned in March. Lubbers left as well with Brown staying on as a permanent cast member. By 1971, Rayner began appearing less frequently and last played Oliver on March 1 of that year. Rayner was briefly replaced by Pat Tobin as Oliver's cousin "Elrod T. Potter", and then by magician John Thompson (an acquaintance of Brown's and Brodien's) as "Clod Hopper." (Tobin previously had played Bozo on a local production on KSOO-TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Thompson has appeared on A&E's Criss Angel Mindfreak.) Rayner periodically returned to guest host as himself in his morning show's jumpsuit as "Mr. Ray" when Ned Locke was absent. By 1973, WGN gave up on Thompson and increased Brodien's appearances as Wizzo. In 1975, Bob Trendler retired from television and his Big Top Band was reduced to a three-piece band led by Tom Fitzsimmons. Ned Locke also retired from television in 1976 and was replaced by Frazier Thomas, host of WGN's Family Classics and Garfield Goose and Friends, at which point Garfield Goose and Friends ended its 24-year run on Chicago television with the puppets moving to an abbreviated segment on Bozo's Circus. As the storyline went, Gar "bought" Bozo's Circus from the retiring Mr. Ned and appointed "Prime Minister" Thomas as the new Circus Manager.

 

By 1980, Chicago's public schools stopped allowing students to go home for lunch and Ray Rayner announced his imminent departure from his morning show and Chicago television. Bozo’s Circus was renamed The Bozo Show and moved to weekdays at 8:00 a.m., on tape, immediately following Ray Rayner and His Friends. On January 26, 1981, The Bozo Show replaced Ray Rayner and His Friends at 7:00 a.m. The program expanded to 90 minutes, the circus acts and Garfield Goose and Friends puppets were dropped, while Cuddly Dudley and more cartoons were added. In 1983, Pat Hurley, from ABC's Kids Are People Too, joined the cast as himself mingling with the studio audience and periodically participating in sketches. The biggest change occurred in 1984 with the retirement of Bob Bell, with the show still #1 in its timeslot and over a 10-year wait for studio audience reservations. After a nationwide search, Bell was replaced by NBC's Gong Show contestant Joey D'Auria, who would play the role of Bozo for the next 17 years. One of the characters D'Auria performed and won for on The Gong Show was Dr. Flameo, which he also performed on The Chuck Barris Rah-Rah Show and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In 1985, Frazier Thomas died and Hurley filled in, serving as host for the final six shows to be taped that season, stepping into a semi-authority character through the end of the 1986-1987 season. At that point, Hurley was "downsized" in a series of cutbacks, the selection of cartoons featured on the show was streamlined, with the show's timeslot being reduced to 60 minutes. Also that year, a synthesizer performed by Andy Mitran as "Professor Andy" replaced the three-piece Big Top Band. Roy Brown began suffering heart-related problems and was absent from the show for an extended period during the 1991-92 season. Since this coincided with the show's 30th anniversary, a reunion special was produced (telecast September 8, 1991) and Don Sandburg returned to play Sandy, filling in for Cooky for the first two weeks of the season. Actor Adrian Zmed (best known from ABC-TV's T.J. Hooker), who was a childhood fan of Bozo's Circus and former Grand Prize Game contestant, also appeared on the special and portrayed himself as a "Rookie Clown" for the following two weeks. Actor Michael Immel then joined the show as "Spiffy" (Spifford Q. Fahrquahrrr). Brown returned in January 1992 initially on a part-time basis but suffered additional health setbacks and took another extended leave of absence in the fall of 1993.

 

Brown's presence on the show remained as previously aired segments with Cuddly Dudley (and a few with Cooky) were incorporated until 1994, when he and Marshall Brodien retired from television and the show was moved to Sunday mornings and rechristened The Bozo Super Sunday Show on September 11th. Brown, Brodien and Immel were replaced by new characters: Robin Eurich as "Rusty the Handyman" (whose father, Howell Eurich, had been the local Bozo in El Paso, Texas), along with the show's first female characters, "Pepper" (Cathy Schenkelberg) and "Tunia" (Michele Gregory). Schenkelberg and Gregory rotated each week until Schenkelberg left in 1996. The show's format was revised in 1997 in response to an FCC rule requiring broadcast television stations to air a minimum three hours per week of "educational and informational" children's programs. In 1998, Gregory left the show.

 

The last show taped on June 12, 2001 was the Bozo: 40 Years of Fun! special, and aired on July 14, 2001, featuring a guest appearance by singer Billy Corgan, a loyal fan of the WGN show, who performed Bob Dylan's "Forever Young." The final rerun of The Bozo Super Sunday Show was broadcast August 26, 2001.

 

WGN-TV's Bozo returned to the national airwaves in a two-hour retrospective titled Bozo, Gar & Ray: WGN TV Classics on December 24, 2005. The primetime premiere was #1 in the Chicago market and continues to be rebroadcast annually during the holiday season.

[TJ Phaserman 2]

i watched bozo right until i was 12...he will be missed