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  • SunshineCartoons Says:

    It was the clarinet that got Pinto into show business when he was 12. Visiting Portland’s “Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition” with his father William, he was magnetized by “The Crazy House” on the Midway where a huckster attracted the crowd with a bass drum and shouts of “Hubba? Hubba!”

  • SunshineCartoons Says:

    Pinto told the man he could play? “squeaky” clarinet and ran back to the hotel to get his instrument. He was hired on the spot and given some oversized old clothes and a derby and, for the first time, white makeup and a clown face.

  • SunshineCartoons Says:

    The man told Pinto, “Now you look like a real bozo” (“bozo” was a name? given to hobo or tramp clowns in those days). Pinto’s act was to play a screechy clarinet while distorting his face and crossing his eyes at the high notes. He later recalled, “I never was able to get circuses and carnivals out of my blood after that.”

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