Goodbye
Larry
'Bozo The Clown'
Harmon!
There just isn't enough hours in the week to blog about everyone you would like to mention in your blogs.
Earlier this week I mentioned 'Bozo' and Sheriff John (Rovick) in a blog post along with 'Engineer Bill' when a fellow eBayer had a rare Engineer Bill 'Red Light / Green Light Glass' up on auction.
So this morning I read that the man who appeared as 'Bozo the Clown' for decades passed away yesterday July 3rd at the age of 83.
Contrary to popular belief, Larry was NOT the original Bozo.
However he did portray the wildy popular frizzy-haired clown in countless TV and onsite appearances during the years.
Where Larry made his mark in pop culture was as an 'entrepreneur', where he licensed the 'Bozo The Clown' character to others, especially to dozens of TV stations around the country after he bought the rights to the character!
Those TV Stations in turn hired actors to be their local Bozos for their TV audiences. This was in the days before Cable TV, where certain stations had larger broadcast areas than others.
Larry himself called this process 'cloning himself' when he explained how he did it in interviews in the 1990's. He stated that he was the first to do this 'cloning' the character process.
Actually it was Pinto Colvig who originated the character 'Bozo the Clown' when Capitol Records in 1946 introduced a series of children's records!
Larry would later meet his 'alter ego' when he answered a casting call to make personal appearances as a clown to promote the records.
Larry got that job and later bought the rights to 'Bozo'.
If you see earlier comic books or photos, you'll see how Larry emphazized Bozo's distinctive look.
Larry made sure that the orange-tufted hair, the outlandish red, white and blue costume and the oversized nose would be far different from any other clown that Bozo could be compared to.
During Larry's years of running the Bozo license, he trained over 200 Bozos to represent the character in local and world-wide markets.
I myself, a kid of the mid to late 1950's remember watching a 'Bozo The Clown' show for a while, not ever realizing that there were so many of them out there in other areas!
I had no idea that Larry was running what could be considered 'The Santa Franchise' of Clowns in every market!
Larry's contribution to pop culture was a big one... and he will be missed!
We have an ongoing Comic Con and pop culture convention here at Make It So Marketing, what with our daily blog posts and listings of items for sale! Please join us again for more!
Michael
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