Tique Talk by Marianne Dow: Bo-Bo and Charlie -- #Vintage 1950s TV Clown Show from Lima Ohio

Here's a wonderful vintage postcard that combines my interest in Lima Ohio memorabilia with my interest in small local TV station history. Too bad I didn't live here then to see Bo-Bo & Charlie. But then I'd have missed out on my Los Angeles TV station's local Bozo the Clown.

Here's the scoop from WIMA's website:

CHARLIE'S CARTOON CLUBHOUSE

Chuck started as a staff announcer in 1960. From 1963 to 1965 at 5:00pm, "Charlie" (Chuck Osburn) and "Bobo the Clown"(Denny First) entertained kids around the Lima area with the "Cartoon Clubhouse". Each day Charlie would fly in the day's cartoons and show them on the "Cartoonoscope", plus a multitude of characters would show up from time to time.
Chuck Osburn went on to become the Program Director of WIMA Television, then to Station Manager of WIMA Television in 1971. Chuck left in 1976 and passed away in 2003.

Denny First works in Fort Wayne, Indiana, as a director at the NBC television affiliate, WKJG Television which is Channel 33 in Fort Wayne.

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More WIMA history:

According to Lima's local tv station, now called WLIO, on April 24, 1955 the call letters and channel were changed to WIMA-TV, Channel 35.

"The Co-Owners of both WIMA Radio and WIMA-TV from 1954 to 1972 were George E. (Bruff) Hamilton and Robert W. Mack. The two of them formed Northwestern Ohio Broadcasting Corporation in 1954 when they purchased then WLOK-TV and changed the call letters to WIMA-TV."

ORIGINAL WLOK-TV CONTROL ROOM.

This is what the WLOK Control Room looked like in 1953. In the background you can see the original 1 kW Transmitter. There is a sign just visable in the upper left-hand corner that states, "If You Can't Be Quiet, Leave Control Room". In the beginning, there was only a curtain separating the control room from the studio, so when a live show was going on everyone in the control room had to be quiet.

From 1953 until around 1955 WLOK-TV operated with only one studio camera, a General Electric Black & White camera. Shown with the camera are cameraman Dan Bradford and Floor Director Grover Blazer. Grover became Traffic Manager and retired in 2001.

TV STATION INCREASES POWER.

On March 20, 1958, then WIMA-TV went on the air with greatly increased power. With the installation of a new General Electric 12 Kilowatt,TT-24A Transmitter, replacing the original WLOK General Electric 1 kilowatt transmitter. The increase in video power went from 16,000 watts to 198,000 watts and audio power from 10,000 watts to 105,000 watts. This greatly increased the area that WIMA was able to serve. It provided many households in West Central Ohio their first local news and entertainment from a "local" television station. At the time this transmitter was installed, the tower height was 300 feet, and the antenna was a General Electric helical. The original 1 Kilowatt transmitter was kept on as a standby. Shown installing one of the transmitters Klystron power tubes are; (left to right) Engineer Royal Albridge and Chief Engineer Maurice Lamb.

STUDIO CAMERAS

From the late 1950's until 1968 the picture that came from the WIMA studios came from these cameras. These RCA TK-5 Black & White studio cameras were state-of -the-art for its time. They were replaced in early 1968 when the transition was made from black & white to color as the station purchased two Marconi studio cameras (these cameras were later replaced in 1970 with the RCA TK-44 cameras).