Flashback: 'Bozo's Circus Fourth of July Spectacular,' July 4, 1978

The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (Fuzzy Memories TV)

What better way to celebrate America’s birthday than with the “Bozo Circus Fourth of July Spectacular” featuring the 1978 Illinois Boys Junior Baton Twirling Champion from Downers Grove and the Diana School of Dance?

Rick Klein, preservationist and curator of the Classic Museum of Chicago Television / Fuzzy Memories TV acquired this gem that originally aired on WGN on July 4, 1978.

Bozo’s "Fourth of July Spectacular" features a full-scale salute to mom and apple pie by the Diana School of Dance, a well known children’s dancing school with studios at 3758 W. 59th St. in Chicago and 9941 W. 151st St. in Orland Park.

Klein acquired the videocassette of the July 4, 1978 Bozo show that was recorded in VX format, a casualty of the consumer videotape format war of the late 1970s and 1980s, when video home recorders first hit the market.

The Quasar Great Time Machine, an early consumer video recorder, circa 1976.

The videocassette came Klein’s way in 2008 from a guy who gave him a Quasar Great Time Machine, then an early competitor of Betamax, which was manufactured in Franklin Park, along with a box of VX cassettes.

“He said the tapes were probably blank, but memories are a little creaky,” Klein said.

Before the VX cassettes could be viewed, the Great Time Machine needed to be refurbished.

“As soon as I heard the music, I knew I had a Bozo,” Klein said.

While WGN taped over many of the Bozo shows, fans have given Klein old Beta and VHS recordings their parents made when they went to the live televised shows as children.

The Diana School of Dance, owned and operated by Diana Sebuck Tarandy of Orland Park, taught ballet, tap, jazz and acrobatics, according to a 1992 profile in the Chicago Tribune. Students ranged in age from five through college-age. Some of Tarandy’s students went on to dancing and acting careers, including the famous Sabrettes in the now-shuttered Sabre Room in Hickory Hills.

The Diana School of Dance dancers. The school had studios on Chicago's South Side and in Orland Park.

Other students became doctors and lawyers, thanks to the self-discipline they learned as children attending Tarandy’s dance school.

Tarandy’s dancers appeared on the "Bozo’s Circus" 20 times, the equivalent of performing on Broadway back when the show aired at noon weekdays on WGN, and in later years mornings after “The Ray Rayner Show.”

The late, great producer of "Bozo’s Circus," Allen Hall, was a big fan of the school and frequently had the Diana dancers as guests.

“We`ve always been pleased to have Diana Dancers on our show,” Hall told the Tribune in 1992. “We`ve mostly used them at Christmas time because they’ve had some really nice, really creative holiday routines. They’re good dancers, obviously well-taught, and good kids.”

The 1978 Illinois Junior Boys Baton Twirling Champion of Downers Grove.

Accompanied by Bob Trendler's Big Top Band, the Diana dancers on the "Bozo Circus Fourth of July Spectacular" burst like a colorful fireworks display across a darkened sky, showcasing patriotic ballet and tap numbers, the Illinois Junior Baton Twirling Champion of 1978, and finishing big with flag-waving clowns Bozo and Cookie.