Juggler Becomes A "Happy Hobo" in TV Land

by Dale Pierce

 

Adrian Guenther, better known as Happy The Hobo to young afternoon viewers of

WFFT-TV in the Ft. Wayne, Ind., area, is living proof juggling can lead to a career as a television star.

 

Guenther, 24, might serve as inspiration to amateur jugglers who don't believe their juggling can ever be more than a hobby. The Happy The Hobo story proves that with just a slight stroke of luck, life can change for the better in an instant.

 

Guenther virtually walked into his role. There have been three Happy The Hobos anchoring Channel 55's 90-minute afternoon cartoon show for the past 14 years. Guenther grew up watching the first one, Mike Fry. "He was just a tremendous juggler," said Guenther. "He gave juggling lessons over the air, and I taught myself juggling at age 11 from watching the character I am now!"

 

Young Guenther developed a clown char­acter, Wonko, and used juggling as his main means of audience entertainment. "One time I decided I would try to juggle knives," he said in reflecting on one of his lesser moments of brilliance as a child aspirant. "I cut the (expletive) out of myself, but I learned to juggle. Picture when I came out of the bedroom with blood all over the place, announcing, 'Hey mom! I can juggle knives!'"   It was evidently a talent that was scratched from future performances, both as a child and an adult.

 

When word went out about 2-1/2 years ago that the station was looking for a replacement Happy, Guenther sent in a brief audition tape. It was admittedly a longshot, but Guenther was invited to the station to present an hour of material to a camera - his first time ever being filmed! Surprising even himself, he made the cut and was invited to become WFFT's new Happy The Hobo.

 

Guenther has proven to be amazingly popular, not only with the kids during the just­out-of-school-and wanting-to-be-entertained set, but with adults as well. Ratings for the afternoon show indicate 42 percent of all children watching television are watching Happy and the Fox network programming of Power Ranger and Animaniac cartoons he anchors. Within that time period, Guenther and several cohorts do about a half-hour of skits, reading viewer mail, and playing with children in the studio audience.

 

The hobo clown shares the stage with a small puppet frog, 7-foot tall fox and "Lawn Boy," who wears a costume bedecked with construction equipment. They film the entire week's offerings in front of a live studio audience on Tuesdays, performing complicated skits that are later edited for broadcast. On Fridays they film additional material at locations such as the zoo, fire station or police training grounds.

 

Guenther's Happy doesn't juggle much on the air, but he does rely on it for most of the material in his character appearances around town for grand openings and festivals. When he showed up at the Memorial Auditorium in Fort Wayne as part of a city-based festival to routinely plug "Happy's Place," as his show is now called, and gain some press for Channel 55 where it originates, kids and adults alike flocked toward Guenther more than any other regional personality. At this live showing, he put on a magnificent performance juggling clubs and showing that he was, for all practical purposes, a serious juggler first and a clown second. His act was the hit of the weekend.

 

He showed audiences his skill with diabolo, devil stick, balls, clubs and baseball bats, scarves and rings. He also does a lot of hat and balance tricks. His latest is balancing a cup of coffee on a club on one finger, and then sipping the coffee while it's balanced.

 

With or without the greasepaint, Happy The Hobo is a juggling success story worth examination. The general rule of thumb is, if it happened once here, it can happen to some struggling juggler somewhere else just as easily!