Bozo the Clown

Bozo the Clown
Premiere	1959
Finale	1962
Creator	Larry Harmon, Ted Ticktin
Based on	character created by Alan W. Livingston
Network/Provider	Syndication
Style	6-minute animated comedy
Company	Larry Harmon Pictures, Jayark Films
Seasons	3
Episodes	156
Origin	USA

Bozo the Clown is the star of a popular series of children's storytelling record-album and illustrative read-along book sets released by Capitol Records. He was created by Alan W. Livingston and voiced by Pinto Colvig (original voice of Disney's character Goofy, among others). A local Los Angeles kids' show was launched with Pinto as Bozo in 1949. A chap named Larry Harmon, one of several actors hired to play him at promotional appearances, was so enamored with the character that he formed a business partnership, bought the licensing rights for Bozo and went on to create a nationwide franchise of live Bozo shows. The longest running Bozo show originated from WGN-TV in Chicago from 1960 to 2001. In the late 1960s, a syndicated edition, Bozo's Big Top, produced by Harmon featured the WHDH-TV (WCVB-TV) Boston Bozo show in markets that were not producing their own Bozo shows at the time.

Harmon would inaugurate an animation studio where he had Bozo cartoons (billed as Bozo, The World's Most Famous Clown) made for the local stations. In these cartoons, Bozo (whom Harmon himself voiced) had a young circus sidekick named Butchy Boy and the Circus Boss. Two of the cartoons' main adversaries was a thug named Short Biggie and his stooge Big Shorty. Three batches of cartoons were made; the third had the designs more simplified and gave Bozo additional characters, including Belinda (a little girl), spy guy Slippery Bligh and Wacko Wolf (a prototype of Wacko appeared in two earlier cartoons).

Seasons

Season	Premiere	Finale				#
Syndication
Season One	1958	1959				20
Season Two	1959	1960				84
Season Three	1962	1963				52

DVD Releases

Three volumes of the late 1960s syndicated Boston Bozo live action shows feature a five-minute cartoon.