Monday, November 24, 2014

"Cram It Clown" - A Great Story Lost to (sob) Truth

This story has been told I don't know how many times since I was a kid so here's a re-telling from Larry Harmon who says he was the original Bozo and he was there:

It took place during a game, Bozo's Treasure Chest, which boasted a huge cache of toys as a prize. 

"One day this young, underprivileged kid was competing and his eyes were as big as saucers looking at those toys.  The boy had to toss three Ping-Pong balls into a barrel.  He landed the first two but missed the third.  The show's ringmaster said to the boy, "You're never a loser on the Bozo show, you're just an almost-winner," and handed him a Bozo towel as a consolation prize. 

"The kid looks at the towel, he looks at the ringmaster, then looks at Bozo and says, 'Cram it, clown!'" 

Bozo's response? "That's a Bozo no-no."  (Snopes:  Cram It Clown!)


Here's the sad punchline:  it's bollocks.  Never happened.

Snopes did a good job of investigating it and I imagine they hoped to find it was true also ... but it ain't.  The evidence is too thin and the witnesses aren't credible.


Here's a real clown, tho.  Don't expect honking horn jokes and just let it build.

(There's no-one safer for children than Mikhail Usov)


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