Roy Brown was born in Tucson, Arizona but had lived in the Chicago area since he was a boy.

[1] He started working on the children's series Garfield Goose and Friends at WBKB-TV in 1952 as a puppeteer and art director.

Because the cast of characters had grown, Thomas decided to change the name of his program to Garfield Goose and Friends with the addition of Romberg Rabbit.

Brown's next creation for the program was a sleepy bloodhound called Beauregard Burnside III, who came to full attention when "hotdogs, hamburgers, spaghetti and meatballs" was said into his ear.

[15][16] When Ray Rayner started his programs Ray Rayner and His Friends and the Dick Tracy Show on WGN-TV, Brown was hired as art director, creating a dog puppet called Tracer for the Tracy show.

[17][10][18] He also did puppetry on Rayner's morning show for a character called Cuddly Dudley, a large, orange dog created by WGN-TV's owner, the Chicago Tribune, as a promotional item.

[1] The Cuddly Dudley puppet and his dog house are now part of the Museum of Broadcast Communication's collection.

[10] Among Brown's other creations were puppets for other WGN television shows, such as The Blue Fairy, Treetop House, and Paddleboat, which starred a pre-Bozo's Circus Ned Locke.

[1] Told by Sandburg that if he wanted to become Sandy's replacement on the show, he would need to appear without any other preparation, Brown did his audition live on the air as the circus cook, Cooky.

[10][21] Brown, who had no previous on-camera experience, created the Cooky character as an initial tongue-in-cheek reference to the food at the station's cafeteria.

[25][28][29] Roy also became a member of the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Silver Circle in 1993.

Roy Brown was an important part of all three of the shows; his work delighted three generations of young Chicagoans.