Thanks to Larry Harmon, you could fill one of those circus clown cars with Bozos and never run out of bodies. He took a not-a-little-bit-creepy clown design with gelatin-mold hair and pumped it up until Bozo was much more than a single performer. He became a trademark, a mass-produced product of greasepaint and pale-blue satin.

Harmon, who died Thursday at age 83, made Bozo a large part of my childhood. Most afternoons after elementary school, I watched "Bozo's Big Top." The clown held court in a circus-like set filled with squealing kids. He carried a baton-like microphone, dragging the cord behind him. The children played games. He introduced cartoons. It was standard stuff for hosted cartoon shows of the '60s and '70s, but I loved it.

I didn't know then that the guy in the suit wasn't Harmon. But I probably did believe there was only one man who did the job. And I was so wrong. A savvy Harmon -- who did wear the suit many times, but more importantly bought the character's rights in the 1950s -- had long turned Bozo into a franchise. The clown I saw on TV was likely portrayed by Frank Avruch, who did a syndicated show out of Boston that Harmon produced.

The nationally distributed shows were only the slicker side of the "World's Most Famous Clown." Local markets were allowed to craft their own Bozos. Gary Weir in Little Rock, Ark. Hal Eurich in El Paso, Texas. And, yeah, Willard Scott in Washington, D.C.

No matter. I am dead certain that Larry Harmon was the genius behind an LP I played endlessly when I was about 8. "Dream Along with Bozo," it was called. "Starring Larry Harmon," the cover boasted. The album weaved about a dozen songs around a loose storyline involving (fuzzy memory alert: this was four decades ago) the circus, a parade and following your dreams.

It had Bozo's little-boy sidekick (cough), Butch. It was Wacko Wolf. It had the shady bad guys, Big Shorty and Short Biggie. And doggone if Larry didn't use this album to teach kids like me about patriotism, racial tolerance and carving out your life's path. Example:

That boy down the street may not look the same as you
Maybe his eyes are brown instead of blue
But just like you and me, he's as proud as he can be
We're Americans
We're Americans

Meanwhile, my friends on the schoolyard were sure the story about the potty-mouthed boy on Bozo's TV show was true. As the tale went, the boy dropped a naughty word after failing at one of the show's games. The host scolded him mildly: "That's a Bozo no-no." The kid fired back: "Cram it, clown!"

True story? Maybe. The guys at Desert Knolls Elementary School bought it.

I couldn't find video that is definitely Harmon in the suit, but I did find this: an episode of a Bozo cartoon in which Harmon reportedly supplied the clown's voice (bonus: Swedish subtitles!).

Farewell, Larry. Keep 'em laughing.