Will the real Bozo please stand up?
For years, promoter and entertainer Larry Harmon claimed to have both created the character and said he was the original.
Now the International Clown Hall of Fame in downtown Milwaukee is formally endorsing a different version: Capitol Records executive Alan Livingston created Bozo for recordings in 1946, and the late Vance “Pinto” Colvig was the first person to play the clown.
On Friday, the hall is posthumously inducting Colvig as the first Bozo.
That reverses the hall’s “Lifetime of Laughter Award” given to Harmon in 1990 as Bozo’s creator. The hall has since taken Harmon’s plaque off its honor wall.
Kathryn O’Dell, the hall’s executive director, said the hall was duped to believe Harmon created Bozo and didn’t find out the truth until ABCnews.com columnist and entertainment producer Buck Wolf reported Harmon was wrongly laying claim to the character.
I dunno. He sounds like a bozo to me.
And speaking about appropriately named clowns, one clown who won’t be making the International Clown Hall of Fame is Spanky.
Spanky, a clown with the renowned Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, has been arrested on charges stemming from a child pornography investigation, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.
