by G. Jack Urso
Promotional flier for Up, Up, and Away (courtesy
Steve Roz).
When I wrote the
article on Up, Up, and Away (1974-1975), WAST,
Channel 13, Children's Show, my intention was to document a show I loved as
a child about which little was known. Hosted by Bob Carroll, a magician and
ventriloquist, and the team of Rosco the Clown and Mac, on guitar, the trio
helmed what appears to be the last locally-produced children’s show in the
Capitol Region. Produced in the era before home VCRs and when networks taped
over expensive videotape for reuse, no footage of the show remains.
Gaslight Village
was a favorite place to visit for me as a kid (along with Fort William
Henry right next door) so I had been following posts in a Facebook group
dedicated to the theme park when the administration revealed he was THE Bob
Carroll from Up, Up, and Away. Bob
answered some questions for me and I was able to piece together part of the
story of the show.
Still, as an
amateur historian I was bothered. I felt there was still more to the story I
wasn’t getting. After all, there were three of them. Then one day, like a magic
trick, Steve Roz, Rosco the Clown himself, left a comment on the post. We
exchanged emails and soon I was talking to Roz himself. We had a wide-ranging
conversation about Up, Up, and Away,
his career, and how clowning has changed over the years. He answers a lot of
questions about the show, drops a few names like theme park entrepreneur
Charlie Wood, shares a few stories of those he worked with at Gaslight Village, and takes a fond look at the show that brought us together.
Steve Roz is
every bit as warm and wonderful as I hoped a childhood hero of mine would be.
Enjoy!
____________________________________________________
(Left to Right) Mark Macken,
Bob Carroll, and Steve Roz.
Aeolus 13 Umbra (Ae13U): Hi Steve! Thank
you for speaking with me today about Up,
Up, and Away, Gaslight Village, and your career. Let's start off with your
secret origins in clowning. When did you first get interested in it?
Steve Roz (Roz): Well, my mother showed
me a picture of when I was three years old, and every morning I'd wake up and
look in the closet and say what kind of costume do I want to wear today?
One of those
costumes was a clown costume. I think people who are clowns, it’s just because
that's their makeup. That’s who they are. [Joking around] and getting away with
it and getting attention that way. That
was the beginning, but when I was in 8th grade I was approached by the drama
teacher of a high school to be in a production of Oliver! and so was Mark Macken [later
of Rosco and Mac with Steve Roz]
The drama teacher was Jack Sheehan. You might remember that name. He ran The Costumer business for year after he
was a teacher.
[Note: The Costumer is the leading theatrical
supply company in the Capital Region. Dating back to 1917, it was run by the Sheehan
family for 42 years and continues to this day.]
Ae13U: Really?!?
Roz: Well, his summer job was he was an
entertainment director at Gaslight Village, and he was involved with the Opera
House, the melodrama production, and getting together waiters and waitresses,
who also had talent and sang . . . and every once in a while they would jump up
on the bandstand and sing a song and.
Ae13U: The connection with The Customer is fantastic. I used to go to the one in the now long-gone
Northway Mall, where the magic shop Bob Carroll used to work at also was. What
a fantastic place.
Roz: When he [Jack Sheehan ] bought the
business he was going through a lot of their props and everything, so it was it
was really kind of an antique business for show business and he upgraded it and
provided cash to us for high school productions.
But anyways, me
and Mark [Macken] became friends and we liked to entertain, and we looked up to
certain people in our class that ended up working at Gaslight Village. So, we
thought that would be cool to do. And Jack Sheehan asks if we wanted an
audition. Mark and myself were in 11th grade. We put together a 15-minute act.
He [Mark] played the guitar, and is a very good musician with a guitar, and I
was learning to juggle and I had lots of magic tricks — I had always been
interested in magic since I was in second grade. So, we put together our act
and we got a chance audition, then we're hired.
We did four
shows a day, six days a week.
This appears to be the set for Uncle Floyd's show (courtesy Steve Roz).
Ae13U: Four shows a day, six days a week?
That’s quite a busy schedule! I don't
want to date you, but that must have been the very early 1970s.
Roz: Yes, I graduated 1975. Starting in 1972, we [Roz and Mark) were
doing high school productions.
Ae13U: So, wait — you graduated high school
in 1975, and Up, Up, and Away began
in late ’74 and ran through ’75, so you were 18 years old?
Roz: Actually, we were 17 1/2 in our senior year when we were doing the Up, Up, and Away show.
Ae13U: Wow. This puts an entirely new
perspective on the show for me. You guys were really young!
Roz:
Yes, and we were so fortunate to get the chance to, you know, kind
of live out our dream of being performers. Here’s the way I look at . . . all
the people I worked with at Gaslight Village, we're all a group of old souls
who loved performing, who loved vaudeville, and wanted the good old days to
last forever. Everyone who worked there had the same mindset and it was kind of
magical.
The
Tradition and Craft of the American Clown
Ae13U: Were some of the performers at
Gaslight Village old enough to have done vaudeville?
Roz: Yeah, quite a few of the
performers in the Opera House, involved with the Ice Show [at Gaslight
Village], had been in vaudeville, like Joe Jackson Jr. [a tramp clown and
pantomime artist], and those were the people we looked up to. In-between the
shows, we would sit in the wings and watch the performers do their act and kind
of gleaned off their energy.
On the outdoor
stage is where the circus acts performed and the people who came to Gaslight
Village performed on the outdoor stage, most of them had been in the circus at
one point. I met dozens and dozens of circus performers, which was cool.
Ae13U:
What a great opportunity for you as a young man because Gaslight Village
was sort of this nexus of circus performers and old-time vaudevillians and
there you are, 17-18 years old, learning your craft. What a great opportunity
to learn some of these traditions and maintain them at a time when they were
rapidly fading away.
Roz: I know Joe Jackson Jr. was very
happy to see someone getting interested in clowning, because at that particular
time the clowning craft was kind of dying out and they wanted a resurgence,
that’s when Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey opened up their crown
college
[Note: The Ringling Brothers and Barnum &
Bailey Clown College operated from 1968 to 1997.]
Local colleges
like Hudson Valley Community College and Schenectady Community College offered
up a clowning course . . . and they had
the Happy Valley Clown Alley and the Electric City Clowns . . . but then everybody
was interested in clowning and wanted to give it a chance, that put a whole different
light on the idea of clowning — someone who would go to a party and make
balloon animals and do face painting.
The market was
flooded with people who put on clown makeup and do balloon animals.
I kind of got
involved before that where my interests were in the crafts of juggling and
doing comedy magic and having an actual act to perform. The way I kind of
treated clowning was I had characters. There was the clown. At Christmastime I
was an elf, Santa’s sidekick. Then adult parties and that's when I started imitating
what I consider to be a European clown where the makeup isn't so grotesque
[compared to the classic American clown face], and they usually had an act that
that involved some kind of craft or talent, you know, juggling or something
like that. So, that's the kind of angle I went to, but my bread and butter was
doing birthday parties for kids and special events, making balloon animals.
Ae13U:
Over the course of your career, that’s a lot of balloon animals!
Roz: Jack, I figured it out. I knew how
many balloons I had. I would buy them by the gross . . . and I kind of figured
out that in my lifetime I've blown up 35,000 balloons.
Ae13U:
[laughter] I’m tempted to say you’re full of hot air, but to blow up so
many balloons I guess you’d have to be!
Roz: [laughter] Well, that was before
they had balloon pumps . . . I don't know if you ever tried to blow up a
balloon animal, but that in itself was difficult and kind of magical.
Ae13U: Yes, and then keep doing it for a
couple of hours at a party!
Roz: Yes, sir.
Charlie
Wood
Ae13U: Alright, let's touch base a little
on the indomitable Charlie Wood. I can’t let you go without discussing the
legendary theme park developer here in upstate New York. Of course, Story Town was his is his other big and
lasting achievement, now Six Flags Great
Escape. Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s and hitting all of these great
theme parks that sprung up in the Post-War era, Frontier Town, North Pole
U.S.A., as well as Storytown, and Gaslight Village.
Roz: Growing up, I guess it affected
me. My grandmother lived a block away from Rye Playland [located in Rye, N.Y.] . . . an amusement park built in the Art Deco
style at a little boardwalk and summers. I would go down there and I was
hanging out at the amusement park, mostly when it was closed . . . I was just
enthralled with the whole idea of working at an amusement park.
Ae13U: Sounds like a great reason to visit
your grandmother!
Roz: My grandfather was an electrician at
Rye Playland. Ever since I was a little kid it was always part of my background
scenery
Ae13U: Were there any other performers in
your family?
Roz:
My father was in a polka band — he was a saxophone player — and my
mother was a kindergarten teacher.
Ae13U: Definitely a performer, then!
[laughter]
Roz: You know, a lot of our experience
was doing assemblies for elementary school. Actually, Mac [Mark Macken] when we
went out to California, he auditioned and he got into a school assembly show,
and Bob Carroll also did school assembly shows for years.
Ae13U: Yes. Bob has written about
that online and that was basically his career for many years.
Roz: Yes. That's how I got interested
in education. I wanted to be working summers in the amusement park, but in the
winter, I did assembly shows so I wanted to become more involved with education
at school.
Ae13U: Since you bring that up, and we
were both licensed teachers, where did you get your certification in? New York
State.
Roz:
I was certified in
elementary ed. and social studies.
Ae13U:
And which school did you go to?
Roz: I went to Hudson Valley [Community
College] and I got a marketing degree and then I got my four-year degree at the
College of Saint Rose.
Ae13U: Interesting coincidence . . . I
teach at Hudson Valley Community College and taught St. Rose up until it
closed. When did you complete your education?
Roz: I finally got my degree in 1986. In
between high school and 1986, I was just doing this, that, and the other thing. I worked at The Costumer for many years and then I
went out to California was in the ice show, and every summer I come back and I
worked 25 or 26 summers up in Lake George, either in Storytown-Great Escape, or
Gaslight Village. Sometimes I would do evenings and then during the day I would
work at Storytown.
Ae13U:
Wow. That’s quite the pace. ! I know it was hard work, but coming from
someone outside the industry, spending the summer shuttling back and forth
between a couple theme parks sounds like too much fun, although I know you were
probably working some very long and hot sweaty days.
Roz:
Well, back to Charlie Wood, he was a very strict boss.
Ae13U:
Yes. His reputation seems to have proceeded him in that regard. I read a
story somewhere by someone who went to see Charlie Wood at Gaslight Village, so
he goes up to one of the workers and asks where he can find Charlie, and the
worker says something along the lines of, “I don’t know, but if I sit down for
five minutes he’ll suddenly show up.”
[laughter]
Roz: On the Fourth of July, there was a
mandate that went out in the park, “Any employee of Gaslight Village who is
caught looking up at the fireworks will be terminated.”
Ae13U:
Wow . . . THAT is hardcore, but he definitely had a vision of
how everything should go together.
Roz:
He was very, very kind to me — always — for some reason he liked me. When he would have house parties or something, he would get the
performers in common and do a little act and I was always included for that. .
. . I would have to get to Storytown
from Lake George Village and I would usually walk and he would be driving his
station wagon from Sun Castle up Route 9 and he would stop and give me a rise
to work. So, he took that little interest in me.
Uncle
Floyd and Up, Up, and Away
Ae13U: So, how did Up, Up, and Away get started?
Roz:
Floyd Vivino was working at Gaslight Village that first year we were
there . . . and this was the time in the
1970s when the idea of cable TV was just starting. Floyd Vivino down in New
Jersey got together his own little TV show [The
Uncle Floyd Show, 1974-1998]. You probably don't remember kid shows like The Soupy Sales Show . . .
Ae13U: I do
remember The Soupy Sales Show! Not
the 60s version, but he did a syndicated version in the 70s I watched – on
cable, of course!
Roz:
Yes, and you know a lot of that entertainment was going back to
burlesque. It's making the parents laugh as well. That's kind of where Bob
Carroll got the idea and that first year we [Steve and Mark] worked, Bob
Carroll approached me and Mark Macken to work on this project for WAST [Channel
13, currently WNYT] to make a kiddie show. So, Bob Carroll liked the idea of
having some slapstick in it and he specifically wanted to be a apart of the
show. We said sure and it all kind of gelled together in one year.
Ae13U: Who selected the title and song for Up, Up, and Away? Was that Bob
[Carroll]? Was that you? Was that Mark? Was that the station?
Roz: Our director, Charles — I forget
his last name — but a lot of the format was developed by him and he would ask
us to provide material to fit into his kind of format. So, my guess is that our
director had chosen that song . . . just kind of a feel-good hippie vibe, you
know.
Ae13U: Bob Carroll said the show only lasted
about 10 months.
Roz:
Mark went to New York City.
Ae13U: Well, unfortunate for us fans, but I
can appreciate that. Mark must have been about 19 at the time and at that age,
young people want to fly on their own. While doing research, I realized Up, Up, and Away must have been the last
locally produced children's show coming out of that early era of TV staring in
the 50s. As you noted earlier, cable TV
was just starting, which pretty much removed the need for these locally
produced shows in small – medium markers when viewers could tune into shows
from other, larger markets.
Roz: At the time, after that,
everything was syndicated and leaned more towards education . . . with Sesame
Street coming out.
Ae13U: And also because the cable, you
didn't need a lot of locally produced children's shows. You could have just a
few shows and just sell them, and, of course, that's basically what happened.
Things got networked or syndicated and platforms for all those local performers
was lost.
So, all right, back on topic. Mac left
after about 10 months and to pursue his career elsewhere.
Roz: When we were in high school, Jack
Sheehan got us all involved in every aspect and part of that was showing up
Saturday mornings and doing set construction and Mark kind of went with that
when he went down to New York City. He had some bit parts, but he was a
professional set builder.
Ae13U: Well, that was probably a good
choice. Actors come and go, but a good set builder probably has steadier
employment. So, no consideration from Channel 13 to continue to show without
Mac, what happened there?
Roz: Well . . . they were getting more
and more into the syndicated shows and had a lot people on deck already . . . personalities
like Betty George and Moo. She was part of the lineup for Channel 13 and they
kind of put her in to be the spokesperson for the pets and for children.
They would do
some special promotions and Betty George and Moo would show up and the kids
would come and play with her dog.
The marvelous meteorologist Betty George and Moo
too!
Ae13U:
Betty George and Moo! I was a fan.
Roz: [singing] “Any weather . . . we’re
together.”
Ae13U: [singing] “A happy-go-lucky lady and a mutt named Moo!” [laughing] Ah yes, the “Ballad of Betty George and Moo!” I know it well. Didn’t
Dave Allen [a local radio and TV personality from the era] write that or have something to do
with it?
Roz: Oh, right, David Allen, sure. [Note: Allen was, in fact, the producer and writer of the single.]
Ae13U: Unless you’re old enough and from the Capitol Region, people probably
wouldn’t remember her, but she was very popular at the time.
Roz: Well, there's a whole generation who knew her as not Betty George
and Moo, but as a Big Band singer.
Ae13U: Yes, she had a whole career in 40s
and 50s and was known for her sultry style. She had to be among one of those
last non-professional meteorologists reporting the weather.
Roz: I think at that time John Wolfe [another, more serious, non-meteorologist weather
announcer] was working at the station and Mimi Scott had a show.
Ae13U: Yes, of course, I remember John Wolfe and Mimi Scott. Mimi had her own local daytime talk show [Coffee Break] on 13. I actually met her once at my school, P.S. 19,
and chased her down for an autograph. John Wolfe’s sons were in my Boy Scout
troop and he arranged some visits to the station and an appearance on some community
show he hosted. I recall, when we were visiting the station, seeing Mimi’s set
and the kitchen set where Art Ginsberg’s Mr. Food segments were shot
Post-Gaslight
Village
Ae13U: Alright, so post-Gaslight Village
after 1989 when it closed down, did you continue at the Great Escape or did you
just segue to private parties and that sort of thing?
Roz:
I worked for Charlie Wood until 2000. After Gaslight Village closed,
I was working at the Great Escape and the Ghost Town show with Marshall Wild
Windy Bill McKay. I got Tommy Atkins, the female ventriloquist. Windy Bill, of
course, worked with Roy Rogers. Windy Bill was the ultimate cowboy. When I was
a kid, I wanted so bad to go up and see Wendy. We got there very late. We went
into the park, missed the show, and I never got to see Windy Bill until I
worked there.
Ae13U:
Yes, if you were a kid, Windy Bill was another big local celebrity, and
he was around for so long doing it.
Roz:
Oh yeah, many, many good years. I never really had a summer vacation
until I was like 40.
Ae13U: A summer vacation for teachers?
What’s that? [laughter]
The
Changing Face of Clowning
Ae13U:
So, all right, let's shift to our final point here which is the how clowning
has changed during our lifetime. You're only about
nine or ten years older than me and I certainly am old enough to remember the
1960s and how much clowns were of a part of marketing and cartoons and comic
books and gumball machines and circuses and sideshows and carnivals. Clowns
were everywhere. Bozo the Clown and Clarabelle from Howdy Doody were a couple
of the more popular ones, and, of course, Ronald McDonald, even though a
commercial icon, was a very visible and popular clown character.
Over the
years, however, things have changed. While clowning no longer has the same
positive connotations of pleasant children's entertainment it had when we were growing
up. There are things like Steven King’s It
with Pennywise and the Clown, the band the Insane Clown Posse, not to
mention Batman’s foes likes the Joker and Harley Quinn, for example, clowns
have an increasingly negative connotation in the public eye. In fact, even Ronald
McDonald is barely used anymore as an icon. I guess I could go on with other examples.
Terrifying imagery of clowns like Pennywise, the
Insane Clown Posse, and the Joker and Harley Quinn have replaced the more absurd
and silly clowns.
Roz: WWE wrestlers . . .
Ae13U: Yes, the WWE, and not to mention Bobcat Goldthwait's questionable
contribution to cinema, Shakes the Clown.
It's certainly appears that clowns no longer enjoy the same position in the
public mind as innocent children's entertainment. So, I'm wondering, can you
give us some perspective on how this evolved over your career?
Roz: Well, like we talked about when I started it, there were people who thought the art of clowning was dying. So, the interest in getting
more clowns involved in the clown school and going and learning how to blow up balloons and
do face painting, which led to a population of clowns that were a little
softer. They were housewives with kids who have all grown up and they wanted a
career or something that they could do as a side gig. A lot of moms became
party clowns and people were comfortable with something that doesn't have a
strange man come into your house.
Ae13U: Ah, right.
Roz:
I would get these calls and I would have to walk into somebody's
house and set up props and do a magic show for the kids. To have that trust to
let a stranger come into your house who was all made-up. I had a few instances
where kids were very afraid. I was never in your face. I'll take a step back.
It might take a while, but eventually they came around.
And then, like
you were saying, Stephen King's Pennywise and the negative clown persona, especially
during Halloween and it got really bad when people started having clown
sightings, people outside of the road, you know, just at the corner, dressed as
clowns.
Ae13U: Right, the whole clown sighting
craze when people would dress as clowns and just stand around in costume in
unusual public places to try and scare people. That was an odd fad.
Roz:
I was driving to a gig in my clown make up and I was pulled over by
a cop. “Where you going? What are you doing?” I said I was going to work, I'm
party clown, but he says, “Well, you know, there's been a lot of reports about
strange clowns in this neighborhood, and we're just checking you out.”
Ae13U: In your car while you were driving
to work?
Roz: That was the 90s. The 80s were a
time when people were still liking clowns because there are moms going in like Tookie
the clown and Cranberry the clown and Freckles the clown. It was just a little safer
when you have a lady clown come in and do a show.
Other kind of
clown characters that evolved that were not grotesque were European clowns.
Those kinds of clowns were more acceptable.
.bmp)
Larry Harmon as Bozo the Clown is a classic
and well-known example of grotesque clown make up.
[Editorial Note: “Grotesque” refers to the
classic whiteface clown persona with more exaggerated make up and clothing than
European clown personas like the Harlequin or Pierrot.]
Ae13U: Circuses have been changing in the
past few decades. There’s been a shift away from animals performing in
circuses. Can you give me some insight into the current state of clowning
today?
Roz: Well, I wouldn't even attempt to
try to market a party clown and doing birthday parties today. What people are
doing for birthday parties now, they're having a Mr. Science come over or
something like that. So, I wouldn't even
consider doing that kind of clowning.
For many years I
was doing the European clown for adult parties who really loved it. So, there’s
a move away from that grotesque clown who wore a rainbow Afro wig and a frilly
jump suit for a party clown just doesn’t cut it anymore. We're getting into the
core aspect of it because clowns could be very grotesque and scary.
Ae13U: Thinking about this time period, we
grew up when that kind of clowning was at its height, but also right on the
cusp of great change in the public mind. It's just sort of sad when you're
living in this transition era and you sort of get to see this art at its height
at the same time when it's headings towards its sunset years. The type of
clowning that we enjoyed as kids is probably never going to come back, at least
not the way it used to be.
Roz: Well, like you mentioned, what happened to Ronald McDonald.
Everybody loved Ronald McDonald and then at one point the people at McDonald's
said we got to take a step back with Ronald, there's just too much negative.
Now, all we see is Ronald’s hand at the Ronald McDonald House.
Ae13U: And that’s it. It’s a dramatic change from how the character was used 30-40
years ago, not to mention when Up, Up,
and Away was on the air. The world looked pretty crazy tor me as a kid in
1974/1975 and the show was such a nice break from it all.
Envelope of a fan letter from James Hamm, Columbia St., Hudson, NY, to Up, Up, and Away, postmarked
Dec. 9, 1974, exactly one month from the debut of the show on Nov. 9.
See letter below (courtesy Steve Roz).
Roz: Can I tell you about that one fan
letter I found?
Ae13U:
Please do! Let’s get that
into the conversation.
Roz:
Channel 13 really kept all fan letters, which there were, you know,
quite a few. They didn't want us marketing Up
[Up, Up, and Away], taking
information from the fan letters and saying, “Well, if you'd like to be part of
our fan club all you have to do is send us $3,” or whatever. They didn't want
us to benefit off that, but I did get one very poignant fan letter, the kid
said:
I'm very sorry I cannot come to your show because
my mother and father say I can't come to the show because I never have time to
go to you. But sometime when I have time to come to your show I will try very, very
hard to come when I have time to come. I love your show very, very, very, very
much. And my sister likes your show too, And my mother and father loves it
better than we do.
Ae13U: That’s wonderful. I remember my mom
would sit and watch the show with me, you know, because it was on in four or
4:30 in the afternoons and on a Friday. I think it recalled her own youth to an
extent.
Roz: It was nostalgic for her.
Ae13U: And no less than it’s become for me
now. Steve, I think that's a good note for us to end on. Thank you so very much
for answering so many questions about Up,
Up, and Away, your career, and clowning. It’s not often someone gets to talk to one of
their childhood icons. I had a wonderful time today. Thank you.
Roz: Thank you!
Fan letter from James Hamm, Hudson, NY, to Up, Up, and Away. See envelope above
(courtesy Steve Roz).
____________________________________________________
Concluding
Thoughts
The mission of
Aeolus 13 Umbra is to shed light on silent subjects deserving of a voice and Up, Up, and Away, certainly qualifies. Steve’s
career as a clown took place during a time of transition in society and entertainment
in the 20th century. Clowns, who once were a ubiquitous and positive part of a
Baby Boomer’s childhood, evolved by the end of the century to have a more
negative connotation in the public mind. For a dedicated artist like Steve Roz,
and others like him, it must have been like seeing something you loved taken
from you.
In my research
on Up, Up, and Away I discovered that
others of my generation did not forget Bob, Rosco and Mac, or Gaslight Village.
The memories were planted deep down inside other memories from our youth. The
look on the faces of my friends when I mention the show — pausing for a moment as they
search their minds for a snippet of a song, a magic trick, a corny
old joke — then their eyes light up with recognition when they recall the show
like a long-lost friend from their youth.
Yes, clowning
has changed, Gaslight Village is no more, and footage from Up, Up, and Away is long gone, but I would argue that these things did
not disappear. The memories were planted deep down inside and waited to grow
again — and all that takes is a little love.
Thanks for the memories Steve. May your balloons always be inflated, your nose always be red, and your shoes always be too
big.
We wouldn’t want it any other way.
● ● ●