The Magic Clown

The Magic Clown
Zovella, the Magic Clown, and "Laffy" (NBC promotional photo, 1951).
Created by	Tico Bonomo
Starring	Zovella (1949–1952) Dick DuBois (1952–1958) Doug Anderson (1958–1959) James Randi (1970–1971)
Country of origin	United States
Production
Running time	15 minutes
Release
Original network	NBC (1949–1954) WABD (1954–1958) WNTA (1958–1959) Syndicated (1970–1971)
Original release	September 11, 1949 (1949-09-11) – July 24, 1959 (1959-07-24)

The Magic Clown was an NBC TV series which ran from 1949 to 1954. The final NBC broadcast was on June 27, 1954. The show then moved to WABD where it stayed until 1958. After that, it was renamed Bonomo, The Magic Clown and was broadcast on WNTA from September 29, 1958 to July 24, 1959. The show was sponsored by Bonomo Turkish Taffy. Josh Norris, who used the stage name "Zovella", was the first Magic Clown, and went on to a successful career as a full-time magician.

The show featured a clown, at first referred to only as "The Magic Clown," but later renamed Bonomo after the show's sponsor, performing magic tricks, sometimes with the help of his puppet Laffy.

The show was created by Tico Bonomo, grandson of the founder of the Bonomo Turkish Taffy company, specifically as a vehicle to sell candy. As a result, each episode featured constant plugs for the sponsor, and some consider this show to be an early infomercial.

Development of the show took more than a year; fresh out of Syracuse University, Bonomo went to work creating The Magic Clown. In a 1994 interview, Bonomo recalled the hard work that went into the program: "I spent the summer of 1948 with writers and producers and an advertising agency," recalls Bonomo. "Those days I worked a seven-day week. The program was on Sundays so I was at NBC every single Sunday at 8 a.m. and we were on the air at 11:30 a.m."

The action of the program centered around its eponymous host. Tico Bonomo said that finding a host wasn't easy. "You can't teach clowns to do magic, you have to have a magician and turn him into a clown. And, believe me, it's tough teaching a good magician to put on white face and act like a clown."

The first "Magic Clown" was known only by his stage name, Zovella, and hosted the program from its inception in 1949 until 1952. At that time, a comedian named Richard DuBois took over, serving even after the show was cancelled by NBC and moved to DuMont-owned WABD, until 1958, when the show moved to Newark, NJ based WNTA.

The WNTA run was hosted by comedian, mimic, cartoonist, and puppeteer Doug Anderson, with assistance from his wife, former model Gayle Anderson. The couple added new segments to the show, including informational pieces and in-studio interviews as the show expanded from a weekly to a weekday basis. The Andersons, however, choked at the amount of creative control the sponsor had over the show, and the show was cancelled after only one year on WNTA.