Circus Boy

Circus Boy was a really great show. All shows done back then were. How they were made and how technology has improved doesn't matter. The show like others made in the 50's, 60's & 70's were great FAMILY programming. They taught lessons/morals that are very much needed in this time & age. The shows were also just plain good. That can't be said of most shows (& cartoon shows) done mainly in the last 20 years (but really since about 1980). T.V. Shows these days have too much sex and violence; Immorally corrupt. Early example: Roseanne. People should be ashamed of the work they do in the entertainment industry. They should bring more shows back instead of making new shows or remakes of the originals. (Remakes are NEVER as good as the originals.) So keep bringing back the good 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).

Loved this program as a youngster. Once had a book based on it too. Had not realized "Corky" went on to star with the Monkees(a vastly underrated group IMO). Good, wholesome entertainment from the "Leave it to Beaver" era. Would love to see it come out on DVD. It was never dull-there were often tense moments. It was drama , not comedy.

"Big Tim" was the most memorable of the other characters. And then there was a lady who played Corky's real mother, and wanted him to leave the circus in some episodes. And of course there was the circus animals.

Are there other "Circus Boy" fans out there? Maybe we can get something going on the Message Board.

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.

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.