How WGN-TV's Bozo the Clown Came to Be 

I used to watch Bozo at lunch break from school, little did I know I would be working the show years later. Awesome.

Me too watched it every morning before school.

Born in '84, grew up watching Bozo in SWFlorida every day

I myself(in Chicago of course)grew up on the Bozo tv show in the '70's and early '80's.

Yup! I remember watching The Bozo Show on WGN-TV the first 12 years of my life. Even after I moved from Chicago, I still watched it. I was shocked a sad when it ended in 2001.

​@@TurboGC8cause of WGN

nostalgia. this comment will be years old in a few years

What year? I was on it around 1971 or so, I didn't get picked for the game. I grew up in Lagrange and Hinsdale

That beats me. THE GRAND PRIZE GAME!!!. I WAS lucky to be on Ray Raynor in 1979. Chicago area teams that won state championship were always invited. I never knew it was the same place. Ray was also a army Air Core flyer that spent 2? Years in a POW camp.

Me too my first grade teacher took us on his show

I went in 1971, do remember the Bozo button they gave you? I grew up in Lagrange and Hinsdale in the 1970s.

@@Mark.G475 I remember it well! Wish I still had it.

@@ColonelJack1 I'm 57 and my mom still has mine in a draw some where at her house.

It's on reruns on RU-vid

my grandma (rest in peace) used to set up pots and pans for me to play the "grand prize game". I'm glad others had the same :D

It's only a 15 minute clip and part of a longer story, this part focused mostly on Bell. Was cobbled together as it also makes it sound like Bozo was all but forgotten and never that memorable. I agree though a full proper history and more on Cookie who really made the gags hit home.

Those are some great memories! I'm originally from down Kankakee way.

Not cable. 50 000 kw. Only the rockies blocked it.

Wgn was the first to create children's programming. Look up WGN 100rd years of broadcasting

@@shawnyoung8752 YES it was on Cable, WGN was a "Superstation" in the 1980's was brodcast nationwide. I grew up in Louisville, KY and we watched the Bozo show every morning on WGN!

i think the itll likely be a horror movie sinve david arquette bought the rights to the character in 2021

@@areze666 man, we don't need another horror movie. Bring back what was fun and funny with clowns. The horror side of it is stupid, needs to go away, and screw that non sense.

​@@boneyard009I agree. Personally I don't find clowns scary to begin with.. But even though some people do... It's been overdone to hell and back.. Pennywise from IT was the horror clown, leave it at that. The fact that stupid Gacy was a clown, embedded that into the culture, and it's more annoying than anything. If a serial killer once worked at McDonald's does that make all McDonald's employees scary? Lol. I'm with you 100 percent. Bozo was an amazing part of childhood, and the kids today are all so cynical and shit since they have access to the internet from birth. They're overexposed to everything and therefore grow up too damn fast. Who wants that? Who wants the problems and worries that come with adulthood at an earlier and earlier age? Bring back Bozo! Bring back the innocence of childhood! Let kids be kids.

I wanted to see it but I had work sadly. Why hasn't it been recorded anyway? It's been airing annually for years.

The pretentious idiot who thought Bozo was serious theater.

We spell everything the same. We use s in boso and say it as such. Bosso

I remember watching both the WGN version of Bozo during the week and the WZZM version on Saturdays. Not sure what the wait for tickets was on the Michigan version but you could also tell that version had a much smaller budget (of course now I realize it was due to being around #35 in Nielsen market verses #3 plus a national audience). Interesting, these two stations were the last to still be producing Bozo shows.

Stephen King didn't end all clowns by any stretch of the imagination. I mean sure, coulrophobia (fear of clowns) has become a common thing in the last few decades with the usage of clowns in horror having become so regular an occurrence and changing (some) people's perception of clowns, but there's still circus clowns and party clowns out there performing for the entertainment of children & families. And while Pennywise the Dancing Clown is arguably the most well known & popular creepy/scary/evil/killer clown these days (I say arguably because the Batman villain The Joker fits in that category and is likely more well known than Pennywise), the whole creepy/scary/evil/killer clown archetype existed well before Stephen King's "It" was published in 1986. Now I don't doubt that "It" and thus Pennywise (probably the 1990 TV miniseries adaptation more so than the novel) played a big part in the rise of coulrophobia in recent decades, but I don't think all clowns in general are forever branded as creepy, but even if they were, Stephen King certainly didn't do it all by himself anymore than he created the creepy/scary/evil/killer clown archetype to begin with. Both Bozo & Ronald McDonald were still beloved & popular amongst many children (& families) for years after the likes of Pennywise came along and probably still would be if they were around regularly.

​@@DannyBoy111285 McDonalds did say they retired their clown after the year bloody fanged Bozos started turning up at Halloween. They gave up. Curiously the clown still does live on..... but in a much more subtle way. In many of today's Disney cartoons and animated kids shows (such as Dorah the Explorer), the characters frequently have giant colorful eyes. This is very much a clown effect as its been shown to keep especially small children engaged and interested Just as in the old days, clowns would draw huge circles around their eyes to make them look bigger and have colorful faces