Just heard that he was having his final show. And that he rigged the game.
Bozo plays grand finale his own way
Bozo T. Clown rigged the Grand Prize Game to make it easier to win at the final taping of his WGN-TV Channel 9 show Tuesday.
"I've been wanting to play the game that way for years," he said. "What are they going to do, fire me?"
That, they already have. After Channel 9 and Tribune Broadcasting systematically worked to diminish interest in the program for the better part of a decade, the taping Tuesday set the foundation for "Bozo: 40 Years of Fun," a 90-minute, prime-time highlights special that will air July 14 as the show's swan song.
Still, Bozo and the rest of the cast and crew seemed determined to make the finale a celebration, not a wake, and in that Bozo got his way too, kicking off the final Grand March by saying, "We are celebrating 40 years of fun." The audience joined in that celebration - even if the two-hour taping left a few of the littler kids fidgeting toward the end - and so did some special guests.
Former cast mates Don Sandburg, as Sandy the Tramp, and Marshall Brodien, as Wizzo the Wizard, returned to join Robin Eurich's Rusty the Handyman, Andy Mitran's Professor Andy and, of course, Joey D'Auria as Bozo, the title character he stepped in to play after Bob Bell retired from the role in 1984.
Channel 9's "Bozo" show debuted in 1960, then took a hiatus in early 1961 while the station moved into new studios at 2501 W. Bradley Place - an address fixed in the minds of all at-home players of the Grand Prize Game - where "Bozo's Circus" began its uninterrupted run that September. A noon fixture for younger children and those capable of walking home from school for lunch, it moved to mornings in 1980, then became the weekly "Bozo Super Sunday Show" in 1994. Where once local Bozos populated the TV landscape across the nation, Channel 9's Bozo was the last of the line.
"I think a show like this enters your consciousness before you can even know what you like or don't like," said Billy Corgan, the former Smashing Pumpkins front man, who offered to play the finale after it was announced the show was ending this spring. The 34-year-old Corgan said both he and his 54-year-old father watched the show in their formative years. "I've never talked about Bozo with my dad," he said, "but it's good to know we have the same memories."
And after Corgan and his makeshift band played Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" in tribute as part of the taping, he went and sat down next to his father in the audience to watch the rest of the show.
That intergenerational appeal was shared by Denise Nagle of Rosemont, seeing the show in person for the first time with her children Alexa, 7, and McKenna, 3, along with their 6-year-old cousin, Brian Kintzer.
"I know a lot of friends who waited years for tickets," Nagle said. "I wish I would have been able to see it as a child. Actually, I'm pretty excited now to see it."
Some of the tickets to the final taping were obtained the old-fashioned way, some were won in contests and some were just obtained. It was a parent-heavy audience, which prompted the show's longtime producer Allen Hall to predict - accurately, as it turned out - that the Magic Arrows might have trouble finding players young enough for the Grand Prize Game.
Timeless images passed by on the monitors as videotape played highlights from the show's 40-plus years, but there were delightful new images as well. Bell's widow, Carol, showed an old photo of the cast with the childhood Jacksons, including Michael and Janet. Corgan posed for a picture with Professor Andy, then accepted a stuffed Bozo doll as payment for playing on the show. Wizzo displayed perfect guile and timing in delivering a cream pie to the face of one of the players in Corgan's band, and Sandburg looked as familiar as ever with his talent for mime and physical comedy.
"I was apprehensive," he said afterward with a smile, adding that he had a dreadful, science-fiction feeling of being out of place to start. "What am I doing here, and am I too old to get back in silly outfits and scramble around?"
"They know their business as soon as the lights get turned on," Eurich said of playing with both Sandburg and Brodien. "They snapped into character."
And in character they stayed, shaking hands with each audience member as everyone filed out in the Grand March, and staying after to take photos with families. So let's not drink to the death of a clown, the way Ray Davies of the Kinks suggests, but instead leave them there posing again and again and again, each time a little differently, each time creating an enduring image for someone who loved the show and grew up with it.
Bozo plays grand finale his own way
Bozo T. Clown rigged the Grand Prize Game to make it easier to win at the final taping of his WGN-TV Channel 9 show Tuesday.
"I've been wanting to play the game that way for years," he said. "What are they going to do, fire me?"
That, they already have. After Channel 9 and Tribune Broadcasting systematically worked to diminish interest in the program for the better part of a decade, the taping Tuesday set the foundation for "Bozo: 40 Years of Fun," a 90-minute, prime-time highlights special that will air July 14 as the show's swan song.
Still, Bozo and the rest of the cast and crew seemed determined to make the finale a celebration, not a wake, and in that Bozo got his way too, kicking off the final Grand March by saying, "We are celebrating 40 years of fun." The audience joined in that celebration - even if the two-hour taping left a few of the littler kids fidgeting toward the end - and so did some special guests.
Former cast mates Don Sandburg, as Sandy the Tramp, and Marshall Brodien, as Wizzo the Wizard, returned to join Robin Eurich's Rusty the Handyman, Andy Mitran's Professor Andy and, of course, Joey D'Auria as Bozo, the title character he stepped in to play after Bob Bell retired from the role in 1984.
Channel 9's "Bozo" show debuted in 1960, then took a hiatus in early 1961 while the station moved into new studios at 2501 W. Bradley Place - an address fixed in the minds of all at-home players of the Grand Prize Game - where "Bozo's Circus" began its uninterrupted run that September. A noon fixture for younger children and those capable of walking home from school for lunch, it moved to mornings in 1980, then became the weekly "Bozo Super Sunday Show" in 1994. Where once local Bozos populated the TV landscape across the nation, Channel 9's Bozo was the last of the line.
"I think a show like this enters your consciousness before you can even know what you like or don't like," said Billy Corgan, the former Smashing Pumpkins front man, who offered to play the finale after it was announced the show was ending this spring. The 34-year-old Corgan said both he and his 54-year-old father watched the show in their formative years. "I've never talked about Bozo with my dad," he said, "but it's good to know we have the same memories."
And after Corgan and his makeshift band played Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" in tribute as part of the taping, he went and sat down next to his father in the audience to watch the rest of the show.
That intergenerational appeal was shared by Denise Nagle of Rosemont, seeing the show in person for the first time with her children Alexa, 7, and McKenna, 3, along with their 6-year-old cousin, Brian Kintzer.
"I know a lot of friends who waited years for tickets," Nagle said. "I wish I would have been able to see it as a child. Actually, I'm pretty excited now to see it."
Some of the tickets to the final taping were obtained the old-fashioned way, some were won in contests and some were just obtained. It was a parent-heavy audience, which prompted the show's longtime producer Allen Hall to predict - accurately, as it turned out - that the Magic Arrows might have trouble finding players young enough for the Grand Prize Game.
Timeless images passed by on the monitors as videotape played highlights from the show's 40-plus years, but there were delightful new images as well. Bell's widow, Carol, showed an old photo of the cast with the childhood Jacksons, including Michael and Janet. Corgan posed for a picture with Professor Andy, then accepted a stuffed Bozo doll as payment for playing on the show. Wizzo displayed perfect guile and timing in delivering a cream pie to the face of one of the players in Corgan's band, and Sandburg looked as familiar as ever with his talent for mime and physical comedy.
"I was apprehensive," he said afterward with a smile, adding that he had a dreadful, science-fiction feeling of being out of place to start. "What am I doing here, and am I too old to get back in silly outfits and scramble around?"
"They know their business as soon as the lights get turned on," Eurich said of playing with both Sandburg and Brodien. "They snapped into character."
And in character they stayed, shaking hands with each audience member as everyone filed out in the Grand March, and staying after to take photos with families. So let's not drink to the death of a clown, the way Ray Davies of the Kinks suggests, but instead leave them there posing again and again and again, each time a little differently, each time creating an enduring image for someone who loved the show and grew up with it.
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