Art or Pornography?

There are no hand buzzers, trick flowers or balloon animals in this clown story. The issue is who created Bozo the Clown — and the dispute is wiping the smile off some clowns' faces. For years, promoter and entertainer Larry Harmon claimed to have both created the character and said he was the original.

Now the International Clown Hall of Fame in downtown Milwaukee is formally endorsing a different version: Capitol Records executive Alan Livingston created Bozo for recordings in 1946, and the late Vance “Pinto” Colvig was the first person to play the clown. On Friday, the hall is posthumously inducting Colvig as the first Bozo.

That reverses the hall’s “Lifetime of Laughter Award” given to Harmon in 1990 as Bozo’s creator. The hall has since taken Harmon’s plaque off its honor wall. Kathryn O’Dell, the hall’s executive director, said the hall was duped to believe Harmon created Bozo and didn’t find out the truth until ABCnews.com columnist and entertainment producer Buck Wolf reported Harmon was wrongly laying claim to the character.

"It was something that was hinted at and hinted at and we started to do research and sure enough the information we were getting from outside sources was true," O’Dell said.While Harmon popularized the character since the 1950s, Livingston and Colvig were first to develop it, she said. Colvig’s voice was used in the first recordings and he wrote some of Bozo's first songs,made the first live appearances and was the first Bozo on television.


5/28/2004:
	There are no hand buzzers, trick flowers or balloon animals in this clown story. The issue is who created Bozo the Clown — and the dispute is wiping the smile off some clowns' faces. For years, promoter and entertainer Larry Harmon claimed to have both created the character and said he was the original. Now the International Clown Hall of Fame in downtown Milwaukee is formally endorsing a different version: Capitol Records executive Alan Livingston created Bozo for recordings in 1946, and the late Vance “Pinto” Colvig was the first person to play the clown. On Friday, the hall is posthumously inducting Colvig as the first Bozo. That reverses the hall’s “Lifetime of Laughter Award” given to Harmon in 1990 as Bozo’s creator. The hall has since taken Harmon’s plaque off its honor wall. Kathryn O’Dell, the hall’s executive director, said the hall was duped to believe Harmon created Bozo and didn’t find out the truth until ABCnews.com columnist and entertainment producer Buck Wolf reported Harmon was wrongly laying claim to the character. "It was something that was hinted at and hinted at and we started to do research and sure enough the information we were getting from outside sources was true," O’Dell said.While Harmon popularized the character since the 1950s, Livingston and Colvig were first to develop it, she said. Colvig’s voice was used in the first recordings and he wrote some of Bozo's first songs,made the first live appearances and was the first Bozo on television.
Vance "Pinto" Colvig portrays the clown Bozo in this undated file photo.