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.
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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, WGNFiled Under Rants, Uncategorized