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Home > Index > Broadcast Firsts > Circuses
       
  Broadcast Firsts  
     
 

Circuses - The Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey were the first circus to be broadcast via the medium of television. On April 25, 1940 a three-hour circus extravaganza was televised by station W2XBS from Madison Square Garden, New York City to the few existing television sets in the city. One of the first regular circus programs to be telecast in the 1950s was BIG TOP/CBS/1950-51 which featured live circus acts originating from the Convention Hall in Camden, New Jersey. The program starred Jack Sterling as the Ringmaster and was the proving ground for a young resident clown later known as Ed McMahon of THE TONIGHT SHOW. Other popular shows with circus themes in the 1950s were THE BUICK CIRCUS HOUR/NBC/1952-53 a musical drama starring Joe E. Brown as "The Clown"; CIRCUS BOY/NBC/ABC/1956-58 the story of a frontier circus traveling the American West with Noah Beery, Jr. as "Joey the Clown"; CIRCUS TIME/ABC/1956-57, a variety program with both circus and traditional entertainment acts; SUPER CIRCUS/ABC/1949-56 broadcast from Chicago (later New York) hosted by ringmaster Jerry Colonna and starring the antics of three clowns, Cliffy (Cliff Sobier), Scampy (Bardy Patton/Sandy Dobritch) and Nicky (Nick Francis); and BOZO THE CLOWN created by Larry Harmon and played by Frank Avruch. In 1962 WHDH-TV in Boston produced 130 live-action syndicated episodes with Bozo, a fun loving circus clown with large floppy collar, round red nose and red hair sprouting from the side of his head like two large horns. 

 
     
 
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