"When Happy Met Froggie" on DVD!

One from the JSH News blog:


"Morris Book Shop at 408 Southland Drive now has a quantity of the brand new DVD release of When Happy Met Froggie available for sale!

The documentary, which recently had its world premiere in Lexington, includes footage from an interview with Jeffrey Scott Holland discussing his painting of the beloved clown-and-puppet pair whose children's show aired on local TV in the 1970s.

Support indie films and indie bookstores by trekking here to get your copy today!"

"When Happy Met Froggie" Film Premiere

Tonight's the night! Scott Hall and Michael Crisp's documentary When Happy Met Froggie makes its world premiere at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington at 7:30pm.

It tells the true story that Lexingtonians have been longing to hear told - the power and the glory that was a locally-made low-budget TV kid's show called Happy's Hour. Happy's Hour starred Happy the Clown and his puppet sidekick Froggie, plus an obese doppelganger called "Happy II" in the later years. It ran on Lexington's WTVQ-62 (which later became 36) from 1976-1980.

Yours truly makes an appearance in the film, as the producers sent a film crew to my house when they found out I'd painted Happy and Froggie's portrait.

I'll be there on the red carpet tonight for the premiere, come join us! And then find me later, because I'll probably be at Blue Agave Cantina.

The Return of Happy and Froggie

A crew from Remix Films were just here at Chez JSH, interviewing me for their documentary film When Happy Met Froggie. The movie's all about the great lost Lexington 1970s children's show Happy's Hour, starring Happy the Clown and his puppet friend Froggie. And of course, my painting of them makes a prominent appearance. (Guess what, sniffers, the price just went up!)

Do you have any memorabilia pertaining to Happy's Hour, or any special memories or experience with the show, that may be of use for the documentary? It may not be too late - contact the producers and let them know!

Ronald McDonald Dies in Ashland

Michael Polakovs, the original Ronald McDonald clown for McDonald's commercials, passed away this past Sunday at King’s Daughters Medical Center in Ashland, KY. Polakovs died of complications from a stroke at the age of 86.

According to an obituary in the Ashland Daily Independent:

Polakovs, who lived in southern Boyd County, was a giant in the world of clowning.

He spent his entire life performing in circuses, was highly respected by his peers and was major source of inspiration for several generations of clowns. A number or the routines he developed are still used by clowns worldwide.

In 1966, the McDonald’s Corp. hired Polakovs to design Ronald McDonald. He designed the outfit and makeup that is worn by the character to this day. He also appeared in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as Ronald McDonald and appeared in the first eight TV commercials that featured the character.

In addition to creating the Ronald McDonald character, Pokalovs was internationally known as Coco the Clown, a persona he inherited from his father Nicolai, also a world famous clown in his day. Pokalovs also helped found the Ringling Brothers Clown College.

The early Polakovs version of Ronald McDonald is actually quite different from the fey and well-groomed fellow we know today. He was scruffy-haired, more striped, wore a giant bib around his neck and a dixie cup over his nose, and balanced a giant to-go box on his head. You can see him on YouTube here and here. Pokalovs was also behind the later redesign of Ronald, which made the character more streamlined and ostensibly less scary.

Cambo the Clown

And then there's Cambo the Clown.

It says here, "Cambo felt the call of Hollywood, but he knew bigger things were in store for him. Things like birthday parties, hospital visits, city festivals, community celebrations, store openings, family reunions, restaurant family nights, wedding receptions, crowd entertainment for people in long lines, and the list goes on and on."

It also says here, "Cambo the Clown has received professional development funding through the Kentucky Arts Council, a state agency in the Commerce Cabinet, supported by state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art."

Clown Convention

I just found out that this very week, Louisville is hosting "Run For The Noses", the 2009 Convention for Clowns of America International.

Those of you who follow my artistic escapades know that I have a real love/hate obsession with Clowns. Mostly hate. In 2005 I had a one-man exhibition called Clowns in Love in New York City (with a special guest appearance by Kentucky's very own Grillo the Clown).

I've always felt that the guy in the film Killer Klowns From Outer Space was on to something when he theorized that our Clowns of today represent a distant vestigial memory of the frightening ancient alien civilizations that seeded our solar system in prehistory.

Nevertheless, your humble author is always willing to take one for the team, au service de la révolution, and I looked into the possibility of donning some clown white facepaint, making a balloon Cthulhu, and infiltrating the Clown Convention for this blog as an investigative reporter. Unfortunately, with a $185 registration fee, that would have been a pricey scheme.

Considering that all Clowns on Earth know each other and recognize each other immediately, I'd be outed in no time. And I don't know the secret Clown handshake, nor the Clown "password for the house". If captured by Clowns and grilled about my Clown credentials, I'd collapse under questioning faster than Peter Graves in Stalag 17.

But, if you're a braver soul than I and have $185 to blow, check it out and let me know what you learn. Some of the fascinating experiences you may expect:

Lectures from Bunky & Blinky, Priscilla Mooseburger, Salty the Clown, Buff Phoon, Peachey Keene and Judy "JuJuBee" Johnson.

Classes in "Face Painting for Fun and Profit", "Working with Shaped Balloons", "Losing Your Inhibitions through Improvisation", "Magic So Easy A Cave Clown Can Do It", and "Clowns in Church".

I keep thinking I'll run into some Clowns in town to party down, but so far I haven't spotted a one. I guess they're all sticking close to the convention's hotel. I'd give anything to be a fly on the wall at the bar late at night as these Clowns get schnockered and start talking Clown gossip.

Happy's Hour

In a day and age where even obscure Lexington TV shows like Monsterpiece Theatre are on youtube and well documented online, you'd think there would be something about WTVQ's Happy's Hour on the web. But surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, Happy's Hour was an extremely popular afternoon children's show that acted as a showcase for old Three Stooges and Flash Gordon episodes. Airing on Channel 62 (later 36) at 3:15 weekdays, it quickly became a hit with kids, not for the old black and white films but for the show's hosts: a hobo-clown named Happy and his frog puppet sidekick, Froggie, who would pop out of a window on the wall and say insulting things.

The show began to jump the shark when Happy and Froggie became the mascots for "Picture Pages", a local weekly newsprint giveaway full of "educational fun for kids", and then when an obese slovenly clown called "Happy #2" started to host the show more and more.

Somewhere I have a 45 RPM record of the Happy's Hour theme, and when I do find it, I will digitize it. Meanwhile, all I have handy is this photo of a painting of Happy and Froggie that appeared in my Desperate Telegrams one-man exhibition at Gallerie Soleil in the summer of 2003.

Grillo the Clown

The first reported sightings of this unique Kentucky eccentric were in the early 1990s, on the streets of towns like Winchester, Paris, and Cynthiana. Nowadays, however, Grillo is mainly found around the downtown/UK areas of Lexington, dressed in his usual outlandish regalia and masks. A self-styled performance artist, street musician, and panhandler, Grillo also has his own rent-a-clown business, but we'd be surprised if anyone has ever hired him.

There are many stories about Grillo's past but all are contradictory. Grillo himself tells radically different versions of his life story when asked. Although his only internet access comes from visits to the public library, he maintains a considerable web presence with numerous sites by and about him.

The stories of Grillo's misadventures and malfeasance are legendary and worthy of compilation in a tome of their own. My favorite Grillo story is the time he actually took up residence in the men's room of a University of Kentucky campus building, to the extent of actually bringing in chairs, lamps, books, and a TV set. Apparently this went on for many weeks, with only a few "Do not remove" signs taped to his stuff being sufficient to keep unquestioning janitors - or anyone else - from messing with his belongings. It was then that I knew Grillo really was a true performance artist!

Thinking I could harness his radioactive powers, I hired Grillo to perform his act at my Clowns in Love art exhibition in New York City and paid for his bus fare, but it was not to be: he showed up at the very end of the show in an altered state of consciousness, made a mess of the place with shaving cream pies for a few minutes, and then departed into the night with my 200 bucks and two bottles of vodka.

Oh well, that's show business.

A couple years back, my indie record label Creeps Records cut a deal to release Grillo's album Grillo Sings the Hits of the 90s (He wanted to call it Blubbering Buttsteaks of Eternal Torment). Despite the painfully low-fidelity nature of the recording we were given, and despite the fact that he's singing these songs acapella, the album is actually selling pretty well, so maybe this is a new career for the clown.

Then again, we also received a report from someone that one cassette recently purchased from Grillo on the street, supposedly of music performance by him, actually turned out to contain the audio portion of a TV broadcast of a 2003 Bengals-Chiefs game.

More about Grillo on page 99 of Weird Kentucky.