According to AP News via Yahoo, the International Clown House of Fame has decided to induct Vance “Pinto” Colvig into its Hall of Fame. In doing so, the ICHOF is yanking the Lifetime Award they gave to Larry Harmon, who evidently at one time was believed to be the creator of Bozo (he later clarified that he was the creator of Bozo on television — Harmon is responsible for creating the Bozo franchise for children’s television, and for providing the voice for early syndicated cartoons). Harmon, by the way, is also the fellow who holds the license for the images of Laurel and Hardy. This does not, however, affect the award given by the ICHOF to Bob Bell, who played Bozo for the longest time in Chicago. In reality, Bozo was created by Capitol Records as a way to teach reading to children, who would read Bozo storybooks along with a record.
This story interests me, because Yet Another Interest of MineTM is Children’s Television of the 1950s/1960s. There is an very good book on the subject that tells the story well, and how the days of the children’s program is gone.
Now, I remember the days of Hobo Kelley, Sheriff John, Billy Barty, Paul Winchell (who, by the way, is the inventor of the artificial heart as well), and other hosts in Los Angeles (although I don’t remember Engineer Bill, and I only watched Tom Hatten in his incarnation as a host of Saturday Children’s Movies). I wonder how much our children lose by not being exposed to such hosts, and instead being fed Rugrats and Spongebob Squarepants. I guess they don’t lose much.