Bye, Bozo: You Were Just So 20th Century

In the end, it is probably more surprising that Chicago’s Bozo the Clown is still on the air in 2001 than it is that he won’t see the end of summer.

Bozo is the television equivalent of one of those fish they occasionally find in the darkest, coldest ocean depths, a relic of a different evolutionary era.

Even Joey D’Auria, the 48-year-old actor who has portrayed Bozo for WGN-TV since taking over for Bob Bell in 1984, reacted to news of his own cancellation by calling the show a “dinosaur.”

It is no overstatement. Where once dozens of iterations of the Bozo show roamed America’s airwaves, now only WGN’s 40-year-old geezer remains, a still-resonant but no longer very popular symbol of Chicago life.

The recent announcement that the last Bozo would air Aug. 26 hit a lot of baby boomers like pastry in the kisser, but it would take canceling ‘Arthur” or “Digimon” to make their young kids feel similar pangs.

“I think basically a pie in the face is still funny,” said Neal Sabin, general manager of rival WCIU-TV, “but I think kids expect a lot more because they’ve seen so much more. It’s kind of sad. Kids grow up faster and they’re much more sophisticated, and you’ve got girls’ cartoon shows, guys’ cartoon shows.

“There’s not that commonality--I guess you can’t call it ‘water-cooler buzz,’ but ‘water-fountain buzz’--about one show.”

Analyzing Bozo’s demise, it is tempting to cast this cultural jolt as a who-killed-the-clown murder mystery.

But, really, it is as D’Auria said: “It’s not so much that Bozo was killed. I think that Bozo has sort of naturally succumbed to progress.”

Kids’ programming has shifted from locally produced shows with roots in theater to slicker, nationally produced ones with roots, too often, in consumer products.

Cable has gained in prominence, with channels such as Nickelodeon and Disney Channel devoting themselves to becoming the kid-friendly television name brands. And the market leader, the wildly popular PBS, in recent years has sharpened and solidified its children’s lineup.

Clowns in general are passe these days, more likely to be thought of as scary than uproarious. A guy like Bozo, relying on slapstick and vaudeville instead of computer-generated special effects, airing on a station that was doing little other kids’ programming, had a hard time keeping up. Especially in his virtually dead-air time slot, 7 a.m. on Sundays.

Since moving from weekday mornings to Sundays in 1994 to make way for the “WGN Morning News,” the show reborn as “The Bozo Super Sunday Show” has been losing its once-awesome hold on the region’s kids.

“I grew up in L.A. and Bozo was everywhere, on records and TV,” said local television historian J. Fred MacDonald. “But when I came here, I mean, it was a cult. Before they even got married, people signed up for tickets for their children: ‘Seven years from now, I’m probably going to have a 5-year-old, so I’ll sign up now.’ It was an amazing sociological thing to see.”

Now, the most popular shows among Chicago’s 2-to-11-year-olds are on PBS: “Arthur,” “Clifford the Big Red Dog” and “Dragon Tales.” “Bozo” is toward the bottom of the pack, with about one-seventh of “Arthur’s” ratings in February.

The show’s most recent incarnation, a collection of educational material, games and antics, was averaging about a 1.4 rating (18,750 kids) and 10% audience share in that demographic this TV season, according to Nielsen ratings provided by WGN. That’s down from a 3.6 rating/15% share of kids 2-11 in 1996-97 and an 8.6/30% on mornings in 1992-93.

Local television executives and media buyers say it is likely the hourlong weekly production was losing WGN tens, probably hundreds, of thousands of dollars annually. There simply is very little advertising money in general at 7 a.m. Sunday, and there is almost no local kids advertising left.

“I’m sure the dollars said a long time ago that they shouldn’t be doing this, and to their credit, they kept it on the air an awfully long time,” said WCIU’s Sabin.