Circus Boy

The Circus Boy series bore no small resemblance to Rin Tin Tin and that's not surprising since they both came from Columbia Studio's television unit. In Rin Tin Tin small boy Rusty and a German Shepherd puppy who grew up to be Rinty was found after a wagon train massacre and the soldiers at Fort Apache made him an official mascot.

And that's what happened with Mickey Dolenz here who was then known as Mickey Braddock. He was an orphan who lived and traveled with the circus owned by Big Tim Champion as played by Robert Lowery during the gaslight era. They did the western circuit so a lot of western type plot situations could be used.

It was not a bad series and what a life for Mickey. He lived with Noah Beery, Jr. who was a clown. His other good friend and fourth and last series regular was Guinn Williams who was the head roustabout for the show.

It wasn't a Barnum&Bailey type show, but it was a small circus and life really seemed good. And unlike Rin Tin Tin you didn't have the Indians to contend with.

Too bad it only lasted two seasons, but it was only when The Monkees debuted in the Middle Sixties that I learned that our Circus Boy was not a real blond.

It must have been just as devastating for nineties fans to learn that Mark-Paul Gosselaar was not a California blond either.

CIRCUS BOY, starring future "Monkees" drummer/singer Mickey Dolenz (then as billed as Mickey Braddock)in the title role, spent the 1956-57 Prime Time TV Season on NBC and the next on ABC. I enjoyed it when it re-ran on Saturday mornings thru 1960. There could be 70+ episodes of CIRCUS BOY as back in those days they produced as many as 39 new episodes a season. Nowadays, costs being what they are, you're fortunate to get 20-24. The Circus Boy was Corky, an orphan taken in by Big Tim Champion's turn of the 19th century Circus. He was water boy for Bimbo, a baby Elephant. As a 7 or 8 year old at the time, I found the show quite fascinating and, of course, envied Corky to no end. I mean, who wouldn't want a pet elephant? Coincidently (?) Disney released the popular, similarly-themed TOBY TYLER in 1960. Source Material: THE COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME TIME NETWORK & CABLE SHOWS.

Circus Boy was a typical example of a 50s show that was perfect for us at that time, but would be unlikely today. As such, it's wonderfully nostalgic for those of us who were kids then.

In the 50s we saw a rash of shows with the same basic theme--a boy loses his parents and is adopted by someone who is kind and also cool and the kid gets to live with men and have all kinds of adventures.

We had Fury (a boy on a ranch), Circus Boy, Rin Tin Tin (a boy wit the cavalry), and Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (though in this case the boy's father is present, but not his mother. I include it because the kid gets to live with the men and have the adventures, so it had a similar feel.) They all seem to be inspired by the movie Captains Courageous, even though they were on TV 20 years later. Back in the 50s, kids couldn't wait to be grownups and this kind of show fed their fantasies. Parents liked the shows because they encouraged kids to grow up to be responsible adults.

Note that we never had any shows where an orphan gets adopted by a bunch of women and gets to hang out baking pies and cleaning carpets. That wouldn't be much of a fantasy. Mothers were normally home all day, while fathers were gone to a mysterious job all day. So men had a cachet that housewives didn't have. (Things are different now.)

As a girl, I ate up all these shows and daydreamed of being in the same situation (I was usually adopted by firemen and I lived at the firehouse).

I watch certain OTA and others that cable picks up for one reason: to be able to re watch old television shows-in this case Kid's TV I grew up in the late 40s and 50s with this stuff and it provides a nostalgic hour or 2 whether it is COZI, ANT, METV or which ever one is available. Must be quite popular since I have watched the field grow over the last 4 or more years and am grateful for it. I prefer the stations which limit their format to 50s-60s and early 70s shows and forget about after 1980 as they are covered elsewhere . There is room and market for each target segment,looks like. But that is me. By 1970 i was way past kid show interest. But there were some adult shows with a 70-76start which i associate with 'youth' . Howdy Doody was a real kid favorite in 1952 as i recall. Capt Video or other shows with cardboard sets that shook and toppled sometimes. But, so did late night(prime time) detective shows from 1950-53. top ..that is what early , live mostly, TV was all about. Certainly not up to CSI: any city for special effects graphics and audio. a different entity entirely. But just having a television in the neighborhood or local grill was a big deal. Circus Boy is a refined ,well honed kid's show by early TV standards.

I watched one of these out of curiosity and thought it was the worst thing I had ever seen, but it must have been the pilot or something, because the other episodes were all much, much better. Glad I gave it a 2nd chance because it became a source of fun, something to watch while eating my grapefruit on Sat. mornings. Especially nice to see Noah Beery, who played "Rocky," Jim Rockford's dad, on "Rockford Files." He made a superb clown and key character in "Circus Boy." It took me a few weeks to recognize the main character as Mickey Dolenz of the Monkees. He was billed with a different name in the credits. I kept thinking he was familiar and one day "got" who he was and went and looked up the show online and sure enough, I was right. Most of these, of course, are a trip through time but they also have some interesting stories, not badly produced. I give it a high rating overall. The only negative was in the first few episodes where they obviously were painting freckles on young Mickey's face to make him look more "gawsh, golly gee" boyish. He looked ridiculous, like Howdy Doody.