Bozo the Clown was created in 1946 by Alan Livingstone, a writer-producer at the Capitol Records company who later became a senior exec there. Bozo at first was a story-telling clown heard only on Capitol Records for kids and his voice was done by Vance "Pinto" Colvig, a former circus clown and animation storyman who'd become a top cartoon voice actor heard in many Disney cartoons (as Goofy and other characters) and occasionally films for other studios.
Bozo the Capitol Clown, as he was sometimes called, was a huge success and soon, Capitol was exploiting him in areas other than kids' records. In 1949, for example, Mr. Colvig donned clown makeup every day to host Bozo's Circus, a kids' show on KTTV Channel 11 in Los Angeles. Other folks played Bozo for personal appearances.
A lot of people think Bozo was created by a gentleman named Larry Harmon. This may be because Mr. Harmon at times said he was. Actually, he was among those who played Bozo when Colvig didn't. A company he headed up acquired the rights to the character in 1956 and began franchising him for television. Among their successes was a Bozo show which ran on KTLA Channel 5 here in Los Angeles from 1959 until 1964. It featured Bozo cartoons produced by Harmon's company and live hosting by Vance Colvig Jr., stepping into his father's role. Many other people played Bozo on Bozo shows produced in other cities.
Before Harmon got his mitts on "The World's Most Famous Clown," a TV pilot was produced by Hal Roach Studios for what would have been a weekly situation comedy. For reasons I would love to know and don't — though they probably involved money — they didn't hire Pinto Colvig to play the character. They hired longtime character actor Gil Lamb.
That's a photo of Gil Lamb, who was often in that position when he appeared. The very flexible Mr. Lamb did a lot of odd poses and eccentric dancing in movie musicals — you can see him in Bells Are Ringing and Bye Bye Birdie — and other places. He was kind of an odd choice since Bozo was best known for his voice and Lamb sounds nothing like Colvig but that's hardly the only thing wrong with this pilot. It didn't sell, like all the unsold pilots you'll see each day here on newsfromme.com during Unsold Pilots Week!
I don't think you'll make it all the way through this but you may watch enough to see why it didn't become a regular series…