Robert Smigel parody of WGN’s BOZO’S CIRCUS
June 19th, 2009 by Scott Marks
On last night’s WGN News at 9, EC’s old pal Dean Richards interviewed Robert Smigel and ran a clip from an unaired Fox pilot that featured a devastating parody of Bozo’s Circus.
I made a note to scour YouTube and when I awoke this morning my work had been done for me. In my Facebook inbox a letter began, “I wanted to send you these links to a pilot my friends created for Fox that not surprisingly got shot down.” It was from my old friend Larry Kapson who is still at Columbia College in Chicago.
Columbia College? Slowly I turned…I remember Columbia College. Isn’t that the film school where the Department Chair once showed a pan-and-scan print of “The Graduate” and praised cuts that were inserted by some geek seated at an editing console and where a certain History of Cinema teacher was browbeaten for not renting an anamorphic print of “Citizen Kane?” But I digress…
Robert Smigel’s TV Funhouse is the funniest thing to play SNL since Bill Murray left the show. (Or am I forgetting “More cowbell?”) The trip to the Disney Vaults is a spot-on satire with enough buried in-jokes to please even the most demanding viewer.
Prozo’s Circus is a pitch-perfect assault on Bob Bell’s Chesterfield’s-throated incarnation of Boz and it’s is the sharpest impersonation of a beloved childhood favorite since Dave Thomas’ Bob Hope or Billy West’s Gen. Larry Fine. Smigel doesn’t miss a beat: Bell’s extreme poses, the slurred boredom in his voice, the “grownups only” stage whispers. There’s even been a third tip added to Prozo’s celebrated candy apple red headdress. Bent over he looks like Bozo the Kremlin.
Instead of Cuddly Dudley reading the mail and showing pictures sent in by the boys and girls at home, a cat named Furball coughs them up. When the kitty begins to lick its privates, Proz notes that this is what separates “us humans from the aminals.” After watching the cat lick away he mutters, “I wish I was an aminal.”
If I walked in the room and glanced at the TV while this was playing I’d have guessed that SuperStation WGN was running a commercial for an anniversary show. It’s that good. There are clones of Cookie and Whizzo and a cost cutting trio of musicians in lieu of what used to be Bob Trendler and his Bozo Big Top Band. The Ringmaster Ted double looks more like Pat Hurley than Ned Locke or Frazier Thomas.
Larry writes, “I must point out that they are aware of the fact that they left off the Bozo bucket game. They only had so much of a budget.” How much could it have cost to nail 6 Folger’s cans to a stick? Perhaps it was that expense of reconstructing the budget-draining Bozo Drum which housed the thousands of letters sent in by at-home players.
I’ll forgive them for not fully exploiting the comic possibilities of The Grand Prize Game, but one crime cannot go unmentioned. One of the Hezbollah should have been played by Golly the Gorilla.
So good of Mr. Kapson to let me know that comedy gold is still out there to be mined. Happy Birthday, Larry. Thanks for the present!
PROZO’S CIRCUS Part 1
PROZO’S CIRCUS Part 2
Tags: Bob Bell, Bozo the Clown, Bozo's Circus, Chicago, Chicago Memories, Clowns, Frazier Thomas, grand prize game, kids show hosts, kids tv, kids tv shows, prozo, prozo the clown, robert smigel, robert smigel bozo, tv funhouse, Video, WGNShare: 
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10 Responses to “Robert Smigel parody of WGN’s BOZO’S CIRCUS”
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This could very well be the most brilliant 25 minutes ever!
I hate myself for how much I like this… Too bad it never made it into production. I’d be a Prozo Video Ranger in a second.
When I was a boy in Kankakee I knew the Bozo show almost as well as I knew my mother’s face. I’m telling you this show would’ve fooled even me. It’s… I’m f—ing stunned into silence. I can’t believe how spot-on this is. It’s this incredibly perfect thing that couldn’t possibly exist and yet somehow I just watched it.
Also, do you know where I can find a copy of the anamorphic “Citizen Kane”? Every place I look only has the crappy full-frame edition.
There was one more missed nuance. At the end of the show when Proz is looking for a cab, he should have lit up. You know the second the last kid exited the studio Bob Bell was in his dressing room smoking a Lucky Strike.
If you need a ‘Scope “Kane” there’s a broad in Chicago named Doreen that has a copy.
My favorite line is, “I got one of those in Korea once.”
It’s too bad the show wasn’t picked up. It could have explored Looky the Clown’s bypass surgery.
“I wish I was an animal.”
Oh, and of course when I was a boy the pie fight would have been with Carter, Sadat, and Arafat.
Carl Grayson, Len O’Connor and Jack Taylor.
As funny and as on target as anything I’ve seen on SCTV.
Thank God for Superstation WGN.
just as I remember it when I’d come home for lunch during the school break.