What Kind Of Show Is ‘The Krusty The Clown Show’
Image Source: Netflix
The Simpsons has been around for a good while. As such, a lot of it feels like a time capsule from a bygone era. Take, for instance, Springfield’s favorite clown, Krusty. The host of a local kids show on channel 6, The Krusty the Clown Show, seems like an aberration to many a Simpsons fan. Of course, most people of a certain age probably don’t even remember local kids’ productions, thanks to cable tv and other services, but they existed. In fact, we can comfortably list two such shows, one of which practically raised a generation of primarily midwesterners and Chicago-ites. So let us head back to before streaming, while cable tv was just beginning to take off.
From the early ’50s, tv stations around the country began producing local programming. These could range from news shows to professional wrestling. This gave us plenty of room for kid shows. These shows often mixed host segments with syndicated cartoons, like Clutch Cargo, Looney Tunes, and Tom & Jerry, and even a few games for prizes. Most networks produced their own kid’s blocks on Saturday mornings, and these local shows dominated the weekday mornings. Life was different before cable really took off.
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Image Source Wikipedia
The main inspiration for Krusty the Clown was James H. Allen, otherwise known as Rusty Nails. As his clown persona, he ran shows on KOIN, KPTV, and KATU in Portland, the hometown of Simpsons creator Matt Groening. It’s not widely known what these shows were like, but we can probably guess that at least one of them hosted Tom & Jerry, the inspiration for the Itchy and Scratchy show. Allen died on July 28, 2015, but his legacy lives on through Krusty. However, most people aren’t aware of the connection between them.
Another clown character inspired Krusty’s voice, and he was well known to many kids of the time Bozo the Clown. Created by Alan W. Livingston for Capitol Records, he soon found his way to TV, after which he was bought out by Larry Harmon and licensed to various stations around the country. The most famous of these was Chicago station WGN-TV’s version, which reached national audiences when the station was uplinked to satellite.
Image Source: Wikipedia
The show was not a direct inspiration for Groening, though it did feature cartoons and side characters, and the character was a local celebrity, much like Krusty. The man who was inspired by Bozo the Clown, was his voice actor, Chicago native Dan Castellaneta. He based his performance of Krusty on Bob Bell, the first actor to play Bozo in Chicago. He played the role from WGN-TV, gaining the license in 1960, until 1984, when he was retired and replaced by Joey D’Auria. WGN-TV’s The Bozo Show aired under various names from 1960 to 2001, the longest-running Bozo the Clown show on television. Many kids around the Chicago area and beyond would be raised on him.
With the rise of cable television in the late 80s and early 90s, many dedicated children’s channels sprung up, taking away viewership from local kid shows. Even when The Simpsons first premiered, the Krusty the Clown show became an anachronism. Today more people are probably aware of Krusty than the shows he was based on, though some still hold nostalgia for Bozo the Clown and other shows. You can find clips featuring Bozo on YouTube, or you can tune in to Channel 9 in Chicago to watch some retrospectives on WGN-TV’s children’s programming during the holidays, not just Bozo but also The Ray Rayner Show and Garfield Goose and Friends.
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Source(s): Wikipedia