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.
The Cache
This is micro very close to where another once resided. There is
a bit of natural camo covering the cache so as to discourage
critters from pilfering it, so please replace as found or
better.
Several cachers signed this cache log at the 4th Annual GOWT
Gathering (when it was placed), however, FTF rights go to
gaylemae as she was the first to hunt the cache with a
GPS.