Marshall Brodien

Wizzo the Wizard, also known as Marshall Brodien, was a wizard clown that performed on WGN-TV's Bozo's Circus and The Bozo Show from 1968-1994. Brodien, who had been making semi-regular guest appearances, later appeared as a wizard character in an Arabian Nights-inspired costume and by the early 1970s evolved into Wizzo the Wizard. He was billed as being from Arobia and possessed the Stone of Zanzabar. According to Brodien, the first time he touched Bozo (Bob Bell) with the stone, Bozo quipped "I remember when you got stoned at the Zanzabar." During the mid 1970s it was rumored that Wizzo (the character not Brodien) was a Jewish convert to Islam. Producers of the show during that time, however, deny this rumor and claim the storyline would have just "confused small children" watching the show.

Oliver O. Oliver (Ray Rayner) left Bozo's Circus in 1971 and was briefly replaced by Pat Tobin as Oliver's cousin Elrod T. Potter, and then by magician John Thompson (an acquaintance of Roy Brown's and Brodien's) as Clod Hopper. By 1973, WGN gave up on Thompson and increased Brodien's appearances as Wizzo.

Brodien was the spokesperson for a trick magic card deck known as TV Magic Cards. It is similar to a Svengali deck. The deck resembled a regular playing card deck, except that half the cards had the same face and were cut a little shorter than the rest of the cards in the deck, thus enabling many card tricks to be performed with the deck. Over 17 million decks of the cards were sold.

Brodien currently designs magic trick sets for children through a company called Cadaco Toys. He occasionally makes public appearances in the Chicago area and his autobiography was recently published titled "The Magical Life Of Marshall Brodien". The book is available through Amazon.com and several other on-line stores.