Clowning Around With Quality Programming

Re “Bozo Has Left the Building,” editorial, May 26: I knew [the original Bozo] Pinto Colvig when we both worked for the “Speaking of Animals” cartoon movie shorts. I was in the painting/inking department and he was the voice of all the animals. He would announce his entrance into our room as Goofy to give us an entertaining work break.

Also, in my youth, I ushered at the Hollywood Bowl. Pinto lived in one of the large homes across from the bowl, all now demolished. He would come to the bowl on a concert night, when he knew I would be there, and sit on the steps with me. He would tell me all the laughs and kidding around he had with Mel Brooks. What a lovely man Pinto was.

Ruth Banarer

North Hollywood

Your editorial prodded a quasi-painful memory. In the early ‘60s I hosted L.A.’s most forgettable kiddie television effort via Channel 9. The show was taped in the morning; it aired in the afternoon. My son saw his father’s debut image on the tube.

“Daddy?” he queried. Almost instantly, pointing to the screen, he demanded, “Bozo!” I wrote Bozo’s originator, Larry Harmon, threatening an alienation-of-affection suit. My kid never did watch “Cartoonsville.” That made him a member of a majority group.

Perry Allen

Carlsbad