Gamer Girls

We all know what a fan Mike Matei is of Bob Bell. Bob Bell played Bozo in the Chicago version of the show from 1960 to 1984. Mike was four years old when Bob Bell retired but he remembers him fondly.

I’m two years older than Mike and have no memory AT ALL of Bob Bell. So he’ll have to regale you with stories of Bob Bell. For my part, I’m going to compile a non-exhaustive list of memories I have of the show in the Joey D’Auria era.

I watched it every day before school. Just for a few minutes. Ten or fifteen minutes maybe. I’m thinking that I had to leave for school shortly after the show started. But I remember always being disappointed that I couldn’t watch more of it.

Cooky was the main other clown on the show, played by Roy Brown. There was also Wizzo, played by Marshall Brodien. He was only part-time, it seemed. Cooky was a cook and Wizzo was a wizard. In real life, Marshall Brodien was a magician. I don’t know what Roy Brown’s real-life culinary skills were like.

Cooky and Wizzo were already pretty old by the time Joey D’Auria took over the role as Bozo. Roy Brown would have been 52 and Marshall Brodien 50. Joey D’Auria was a sprightly 32.

Roy Brown also played Cuddly Dudley on the show. This was a dog puppet who would read jokes that the kids would send in. Bozo would be there to help out. They’d be knock knock jokes and whatnot. But Cuddly Dudley often had to prompt Bozo to turn the page or put a new letter down because it was keeping in character that the dog was reading the jokes.

I had a stuffed animal that vaguely looked like Cuddly Dudley so I named it in honor of the character. Then I had to sell it for 25 cents at a garage sale. My mother was out there hawking my wares. “Hey, all of my son’s prized possessions: only 25 cents each! Everything must go! I am assuring that he won’t speak to me as an adult!”

There would be games on the show. Usually with kids. And Bozo would call the team who lost, “The second place team.”

Sometimes the parents would play the games. A popular one was putting a pillowcase onto a pillow, taking it off, and then handing it to the next person to do the same. It was always men against women and the men almost always won.

Cooky would sometimes hype the men up. Remind them of the history of men dominating the game.

So there was one time when the men lost. And Cooky really made a big deal out of it. Cooky was the one who would bring the prizes out. So when Bozo said, “And what do we have for our second place team, Cooky?” Cooky said, “You mean the losers?” Bozo sheephisly said, “I mean our second place team, Cooky.” Cooky loudly said, “For the losers we have this deck of Uno playing cards” or whatever the prize was.

Grand Prize Game. This was a game where you had to throw a ping pong ball, sequentially, one at a time, into six buckets of increasing distance from the player. The prizes increased in value the more buckets you got. In buckets one to three you might get an Etch & Sketch or a gift certificate to a hair salon, or some frozen pizza. Nothing amazing. But in bucket four, you’d get a Radio Flyer wagon. And Cooky would put all of the prizes you won so far into the wagon so that you could cart them home with ease. I don’t remember what you’d get in bucket five but it must have been something great.

It all paled in comparison to bucket number six. You got a Schwinn bicycle and fifty bucks. And Cooky would always happily ride out on this little children’s bicycle. Later, they upped the prize to $100 and the bicycle.

The Grand Prize Game wasn’t without it’s fair share of controversy, though. There was one time when a suspiciously old-looking 12 year old was playing the game. Cooky made jokes about him shaving and whatnot.

But the main issue was when kids too young to understand the rules of the game would play. They knew that you had to get the ball in the bucket but couldn’t seem to remember that they had to keep their toes behind the line. So they’d just walk up to the bucket and put the ball in.

They would always allow it but Bozo would get increasingly adamant as this went on, explaining the rules.

There was one particularly egregious offender who was being actively encouraged by his father to break the rules. And Bozo would say, “No, don’t listen to him. Keep your toes behind the line and THROW the ball.” But the kid wouldn’t listen. So after bucket four, Bozo had to essentially restrain the kid while he threw the ball at bucket five and obviously missed.

At the end of the show was The Grand March. This is where Bozo would lead the audience out of the studio while carrying a marching baton. But very often Cooky wanted to lead The Grand March. So Bozo would propose a “fair and square”, which was some kind of bar trick, with the premise that if Bozo lost, Cooky could lead the march.

I always rooted for Cooky. Cooky was the main draw of the show for me. Bozo was fine for little kids and simpletons but Cooky had an edge to him. Cooky appealed to, dare I say, the more cerebral members of the Bozo Show audience. He didn’t talk down to you like Bozo did.

Every once in a great while, something would go wrong with this “fair and square.” Bozo would just fuck something up or the prop broke or it just didn’t work for whatever reason. Cooky would relish this and eagerly take the baton and lead The Grand March.

It was a great show. I watched it regularly, even as it constantly continued its downward spiral, until it was finally cancelled. I was in my last year of college by this point.

It’s all gone now. They didn’t save the tapes. There’s some lost media that Bobdunga should uncover. Fuck this anime shit.