Bozo's Got Feet of Clay


Chris Miksanek
10/28/83
 

Recently, I had the fortune to visit the WGN studios as a guest of BOZO SHOW producer, Allen Hall. The meeting was arranged purely around a business topic, but we somehow managed to begot a tour. "I was here 15 years ago," I said walking along a long corridor with Mr. Hall.

 

"You were probably a little guy right in here," he said, pointing through a doorway. I peeked in where he was pointing. It was the BOZO SHOW studio. "Looks bigger when you're five," I said.  

 

Actually, we were on our way to the prop room, where I was to get a run down of the more unusual props accumulated from some near two decades of the BOZO character. Mr. Hall led me away from the BOZO SHOW studio.  

Coming near the prop cage, a two-tiered locked cage area, I was apprehensive. After all, this behind the scenes stuff was like seeing Clarabell without make-up. It's just not right.  

 

Seeing the props reduced to mere inventory items told me that I would never imagine the BOZO character the same again.  

 

The first prop I noticed was the old drum used on BOZO'S CIRCUS, the original version of the show. This, mind you, was not the BOZO DRUM, from which a lucky at-home player can win terrific prizes on the GRAND PRIZE GAME, nay, this was the original drum that Bozo would fake beating at the opening of the show. It wasn't right, I tell you. The drum was just laying there.  

 

While Mr. Hall was out rounding-up the key to the prop cage, I got to nose around among the larger props kept outside the cage. Tables, stands, a wishing well, a skeleton. Probably the neatest thing I saw [was] a pair of toast slices baked from 3-foot slabs of Styrofoam. Allen came back. "These are soooo cool," I said. He just nodded. I guess when you work around such things you tend to get insensitive about them.  

 

Inside the cage, I didn't know where to begin looking. "Some costumes," he said, steering my attention away from a flattened version of Cookie the Clown [Cook]. I saw what appeared to be Whizzo's turban. (Marshall Brodine plays Whizzo.) "Is the STONE OF ZANZIBAR here," I asked. "Whiz keeps that with him," came the reply. The tour went on for about fifteen more minutes as we reviewed some of the more typical props: Fake food, throwing cakes hollowed-out to fill with whip cream, wooden tools, limb casts, sports equipment.  

 

Second level: More of the same. Except for one thing. One hastily tossed prop.  

 

Sitting along with a bunch of unworthy props, it laid in a most disrespectable manner. The infamous BOZO BATON. For years, a decade, easily, he led the GRAND MARCH with it; waving it in front of Oliver O. Oliver's nose as he stumped him with his FAIR AND SQUARE CONTEST after FAIR AND SQUARE CONTEST. Laying there, its majestic chrome finish a haven for dust. It's not right, I tell you. It's just not right.  

 

Props are, after all, just that: props, supporting items. Secondary thespians to lie rigid on the stage. Unappreciated. I guess show-business really is a cold profession.  

 

We toured the BOZO SHOW set, but without the CAST OF THOUSANDS, an empty feeling was left in my stomach. I passed on the tour of the FAMILY CLASSICS' set, the books probably weren't real.

 

(back to the Bozo page)

 

All material presented here is Copyright 1998, 2007 Chris Miksanek or its respective copyright owner.
Last updated: December 27, 2007