When I was a kid (3rd, 4th grader) in south Georgia there was a kid’s TV show, one of those with a live studio audience of kids (akin to the ‘peanut gallery’ of the Howdy Doody show of a decade earlier), named “Circus Parade”.
They’d have silly contests like balloon stomping, etc, then segue into someone doing something like riding a unicycle across a tightrope, then go to a cartoon. (Most of us watched it for the cartoons, I think).
Mundane and Pointless: I’m trying to remember the name of the original host, I think he wore a ringmaster’s suit, introduced at the beginning, “and here’s your host, MISTER ____ !” Ned? Ted? Nick? Seems like it was a Mister FirstName sort of deal…
I remember quite clearly his replacement, who had the show for considerably longer, actually; his name was Doug Beard and was introduced as “Uncle Doug”. (No ringmaster’s suit for Uncle Doug, though, he did his stint in plain old suit jacket etc)
You’d think the combo of “Circus Parade” and “Doug Beard”, or “Circus Parade” and “Uncle Doug”, or “Doug Beard” and “Uncle Doug”, would nail me at least some info about the TV show, but I’m getting nothing.
Must’ve been a small regional audience. Undeserving of nostalgic web pages. Oh well.
I don’t suppose anyone in here recalls such a show?
Except for the “Uncle Doug” reference, what you’re describing sounds a like like Bozo’s Circus, which I used to watch religiously. Perhaps it was a locally produced variation of it.
The show you’re thinking of was indeed “circus Parade” which aired at 5PM on WALB, the NBC affiliate out of Albany (channel 10). The host’s name was “Uncle Doug” and the clown was named “Clem”.
Wow, where do you begin? I’m 37, and my fondest memories of anything to do with television all include channel 10. There was the NBC peacock that emerged into “living color”, the cartoon shows in the afternoons, “Uncle Doug”, and Clem Clown, who I remember meeting when I was a little boy when he came to Nashville.
I had forgotten that clown. Yeah, that’s it all right. Hmm… original question unanswered by the emails on that site (name of Uncle Doug’s precessor as host of Circus Parade) but I’ll see if there’s a means of contacting them there and asking!
I remember this show…I was on it when I was in the first grade…It still brings back smiles to my face to remember it…I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame.
Ever get the impression that zombies had taken a disturbing interest in you lately?
::foil::
Hi, Darlene! Don’t take the zombies thing personally. (I see you’re a guest and this is your first-ever post). “Zombies” refers to threads that get “resurrected” long long after they’ve become inactive (hence dead, hence resurrected dead things = zombies). And someone else just resurrected a thread about identifying a song that I posted back in 2004.
As long as I’m posting here: the predecessor to Uncle Doug that I was trying to recall was not just a predecessor to the guy but to the whole show. The show was called Captain Mercury and the Space Explorers. (It was another method for delivering cartoons up to children, on at the same time as the later Circus Parade).
The name of the original Circus Parade ringmaster was Jungle Jerry who was portrayed by Jerry NeSmith. Mr NeSmith is still with us as I type these words. The lovable mute clown who went by the name of Clem was portrayed by the late John Garmon who was taken on December 23, 1983. I always thought Doug Beard was a dull untalented bore so I do not know if he is still among the living or not. Captain Mercury preceded Circus Parade. The star spanning spaceman was portrayed by the late Grady Shadburn. A very soft spoken nice guy like Mr Garmon. Clem could actually talk but chose to allow his horn to do his talking while in character. When not clowning around on camera he served as WALB-TV film director. All of the on camera guys did most of their work behind the scenes. Uncle Dougie was the mastermind of the Circus Parade Ice Cream Disaster. Serve ice cream. Under unbearably hot studio lights. None of those clothes came clean. What a mess. Hope I answered your inquiry. Peace.
