I used to watch him back in the mid-late 50s, he introduced (Popeye) cartoons and some Little Rascals segments:
His real name was actually Marvin Fishman. Bob Marvin was just his stage name and Flippo was his clown name.
Columbus Mileposts: Dec. 10, 1953 | Flippo begins decades on Columbus airwaves
Flippo, the King of the Clowns, a staple of Columbus TV children’s programs for decades, made his debut on Dec. 10, 1953, as host of
Tip-Top Bandwagon.
The clown introduced cartoons and performed magic tricks on the 15-minute afternoon children’s show sponsored by Ward Baking Co., makers of Tip-Top bread.
Flippo, who died in 2006 at age 79, had two other names: Bob Marvin, his professional name, and Marvin Fishman, his birth name.
Fishman was playing in the band at the Neil House, a Downtown hotel, in 1951 when WBNS-TV (Channel 10) programmer John Haldi hired him for $25 a show to sing, dance and perform comedy sketches as part of an ensemble on the morning
Homemaker’s Hobnob show.
Years later, Fishman recalled how he came to be Flippo: “In the early ’50s, the Ward Baking Co. and the J. Walter Thompson ad agency came to WBNS-TV in search of a clown show for a kid audience. The talent at Channel 10 were all asked if anyone had any experience clowning.”
Fishman and a professional clown from Dayton were chosen for auditions.
“We rehearsed right down to the wire, and the professional clown from Dayton failed to show for the sponsor’ audition,” Fishman said. “John Haldi, the program director, went bananas early that evening and found that the guy had gotten cold feet and, without telling the station, took off for home.
“Well, here I was ... I was it. We had only one show for the sponsor to see. The pressure was on. We did the audition and, of course, I was soaking wet at the finish. The sponsor liked me and bought the show.”
Flippo would stay on for more than 25 years. In the 1950s and ’60s, he hosted an afternoon children’s show, clowning around between cartoons and
Little Rascals shorts. That show morphed in the mid-1960s into
Flippo’s Early Show, an afternoon program during which he frequently insulted the movies he was showing.
Entire article:
https://www.dispatch.com/story/ente...0/columbus-mileposts-dec-10-1953/23306814007/
Marvin Fishman - aka - Bob Marvin - aka - Flippo admiring a piece of Columbus history at the Ohio Historical Society.
Marvin Fishman
Bob Marvin
Flippo, The King Of The Clowns
1927 - 2006
R.I.P.
