The Bozo Show is a children's television program that aired on WGN-TV in Chicago and nationally on its superstation feed (now NewsNation) from 1960 to 2001.

[4][5][6] After a short hiatus to facilitate WGN-TV's move from Tribune Tower in downtown Chicago to a purpose-built studio facility on the city's northwest side, the show was relaunched in an expanded one-hour format as Bozo's Circus, which premiered at noon on 11 September 1961.

[7][8] In the early months of the series, a respected English acrobatic clown, "Wimpey" (played by Bertram William Hiles) worked on the show, providing some legitimate circus background and performing opposite Bell's Bozo in comedy sketches.

In October 1961, Don Sandburg joined the show as producer and principal sketch writer, and also appeared as the mute clown "Sandy the Tramp," a character partly inspired by Harpo Marx.

[11] The player attempted to toss ping-pong balls into six numbered buckets in sequence, each set farther away than the one before it, and won a prize of increasing value for each one hit.

The game ended when the player either missed a bucket or hit all six of them; in the latter case, he/she won a cash bonus, a bicycle, and (in later years) a trip.

[4] Ray Rayner left Bozo's Circus in 1971 and was briefly replaced by actor Pat Tobin as Oliver's cousin "Elrod T. Potter" and then by magician John Thompson (an acquaintance of Roy Brown's and Marshall Brodien's) as "Clod Hopper."

That same year, the National Association of Broadcasters issued an edict forbidding the practice of children's TV show hosts doubling as pitchmen for products.

The biggest change occurred in 1984 with the retirement of Bob Bell, with the show still the most-watched in its timeslot and a ten-year wait for studio audience reservations.

[14][21] This coincided with the show's 30th anniversary and a reunion special that included Don Sandburg as Sandy, who also filled in for Cooky for the first two weeks that season.

Actor Adrian Zmed (best known from ABC-TV's T.J. Hooker), who was a childhood fan of Bozo's Circus and former Grand Prize Game contestant, also appeared on the special and portrayed himself as a "Rookie Clown" for the following two weeks.

Brown returned in January 1992, initially on a part-time basis but suffered additional health setbacks and took another extended leave of absence in the fall of 1993.

Brown's presence on the show remained, though, as previously aired segments as Cooky and Cuddly Dudley were incorporated until 1994, when he and Marshall Brodien retired from television.

[22][23] Later that year, WGN management, due to the high cost of producing a daily television program, plus the rising competition from dedicated children's television networks, decided to get out of the weekday children's television business and buried The Bozo Show in an early Sunday timeslot as The Bozo Super Sunday Show on 11 September 1994; WGN's decision to relegate the program to Sundays coincided with the launch of the WGN Morning News (which debuted five days earlier),[24] a weekday morning newscast that originally launched as an hour-long program (the move of Bozo effectively resulted in the cancellation of the station's then two-year-old Sunday morning newscast, whose 8 a.m. timeslot Bozo took over).

[citation needed] He also appeared in a 2008 public service announcement alerting WGN-TV analog viewers about the upcoming switch to digital television.

[citation needed] Few episodes from the show's first two decades survive; although some were recorded to videotape for delayed broadcasts, the tapes were reused and eventually discarded.

[33] On 6 October 2018, Don Sandburg, Bozo's Circus producer, writer and the last surviving original cast member, died at the age of 87.

[34] Four months later, WGN-TV paid tribute to Sandburg and the rest of the original cast with a two-hour special titled Bozo's Circus: The 1960s.