WIKIPEDIA: "The Magic Clown" was a NBC TV series which ran from 1949 to 1954. The final NBC broadcast was on June 27, 1954. The show then moved to WABD where it stayed until 1958. After that, It was renamed "Bonamo, The Magic Clown" and was broadcast on WNTA from September 29, 1958 to July 24, 1959. The show was sponsored by Bonomo Turkish Taffy.
The show featured a clown, at first referred to only as "The Magic Clown," but later renamed Bonomo after the show's sponsor, performing magic tricks, sometimes with the help of his puppet Laffy.
The show was created by Tico Bonomo, grandson of the founder of the Bonomo Turkish Taffy company, specifically as a vehicle to sell candy. As a result, each episode featured constant plugs for the sponsor, and some consider this show to be an early infomercial.
Development of the show took more than a year; fresh out of Syracuse University, Bonomo went to work creating "The Magic Clown." In a 1994 interview, Bonomo recalled the hard work that went into the program: "I spent the summer of 1948 with writers and producers and an advertising agency," recalls Bonomo. "Those days I worked a seven-day week. The program was on Sundays so I was at NBC every single Sunday at 8 a.m. and we were on the air at 11:30 a.m."
