Bozo the Clown is the name of a clown, whose widespread syndication in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States. Partly as a result, the word bozo has become synonymous in the US with a foolish person.
Bozo was created in 1946 by Alan W. Livingston , who released a children's record titled Bozo at the Circus on Capitol Records, with a read-along book set. It was a smash hit, and by 1949 children's shows featuring Bozo, with his blue-and-red costume, oversized red hair, and classic "whiteface" clown makeup, were starting to appear on then-new television.
Bozo became even more famous after Larry Harmon purchased the rights to the character in 1956 and franchised it to local television stations as a daily half-hour show with a live Bozo - a different man in each city - in front of a studio audience of children, as well as five-minute cartoons. Several people became locally or nationally famous after playing Bozo, including Bob Bell at WGN in Chicago and Willard Scott, later a weatherman on NBC's Today Show.
By the mid 1960s, Bozo was reportedly grossing over $150 million in merchandise worldwide.
Many stories have arisen about misbehavior on the show making it onto the air, including one in which Bozo was attempting to manage the behavior of an outspoken child in the audience by making the comment: "That's a Bozo no-no." which elicited the response from the kid: "Cram it, clownie!"
