Reply To: A Lament for Bozo
Didn’t the original Bozo do his thing in the Chicago area? In DC, the local Bozo franchise was inhabited by Willard Scott, who was also the weatherman at local NBC affiliate WRC. In the Bozo costume, he introduced cartoons and did zany wacky interviews with 5-year-olds in a studio audience setting. And then went on to take the same schtick to parking lots when he created an identical figure for a couple of local McDonalds, whom he called “Ronald McDonald.”
Personally, I love the crazy trickster kind of clown, like Harpo Marx, who dashes around in a very stuffy atmosphere making mischief. But the cliche of the sad or unlucky clown whose misfortunes you laugh at — the ‘pie in the face’ kind of clown — has always bothered me. It’s like agreeing tacitly that mocking the embarrassment or shame of the unfortunate is okay, really.