"Bozo's Circus
is on the air!"

For 40 years, Bozo and his pals made the children of Chicagoland just a little bit happier. August 2001 marked the end of an era in children's TV programming when Bozo's Circus aired for the last time.

The character of Bozo The Clown was created in 1946. He was voiced by Pinto Colvig and first appeared on book & record sets for children. He starred in his first local TV show in 1949. In 1956, Larry Harmon purchased the rights to the character and began creating Bozo shows in various cities on a franchise basis.

The Chicago Bozo Show first went on the air in 1960. It was 30 minutes long and consisted of cartoons introduced by WGN television personality Bob Bell. In 1961, the show was expanded to an hour and was renamed Bozo's Circus. The Grand Prize Game and "magic arrows" were added in 1962.

Chicago's Bozo was the most famous of them all. This was due primarily to the cast. In addition to Bob Bell as Bozo, the original cast included Ned Locke as the ringmaster, Ray Rayner as Oliver, and Don Sandburg as Sandy. Sandburg left the show in 1968 and was replaced by Roy Brown as Cooky. Marshall Brodien, a magician who had previously appeared on the show as a guest circus act, also joined the cast in 1968 as Wizzo. Ray Rayner left the show in 1971. The torch was passed in 1976 to Frazier Thomas when Ringmaster Ned retired, and again in 1984 to Joey D'Auria when Bob Bell retired.

In 1978, Bozo was introduced to the rest of America when WGN became available on cable TV. Between 1961 and 1981, Bozo's Circus was a live show, airing each weekday at noon. Starting in 1981, the show was pre-recorded for broadcast on weekday mornings. When Roy Brown and Marshall Brodien retired in 1994, new characters were added and the show was moved to Sunday mornings, where it became The Bozo Super Sunday Show.

In 2001, times were changing, and Bozo announced that it was ending its long run. The final taping was aired as a 40th anniversary special in July 2001, and the remainder of the taped episodes were shown until August.

Sadly, very few Bozo clips survive on videotape. In 2005, the best of these were included in WGN's Bozo, Gar & Ray, a nostalgic look back at the magic that was Bozo's Circus.

Larry Harmon passed away in 2008, and Alan Livingston, the man who created Bozo back in 1946, passed away in 2009.