The Lorenzo Show facts for kids

The Lorenzo Show, also called Lorenzo and Friends and Lorenzo's Cartoon Festival, was a children's television program starring Gerry Wheeler (1926-2013) that ran in several different American markets from the 1950s until the mid-1970s.

Synopsis

A typical program always began the same way: Wheeler, in his street clothes, would speak directly to the audience as he sat in front of a makeup table and put on his costume and makeup to transform himself into the show's title character, Lorenzo. The crowning touch would be a battered fedora which Wheeler would later claim to have worn on the show for 17 years.

Lorenzo, a mute character similar to Emmett Kelly or Don Sandburg's Sandy the Tramp from Bozo's Circus in Chicago, would then have his daily adventure, which usually revolved around him attempting to get a lollipop. In the rare instances when he got one, he would happily respond by dancing to Yakety Sax by Boots Randolph. (This became known as the "Lorenzo Stomp").

Through the years, Wheeler also created other characters in speaking roles—Clarence the Country Boy (with his trademark "overbite" teeth, a sunflower corsage and a straw hat); Nevada Ned, (an Old West prospector type who sported a gray, handle-bar mustache with a blue bandanna tied around his neck); and Percy the Pirate.