Doody, Doody, Doo. Witness the impossible before your very own eyes as Wizzo, the mysterious wizard from Arobia, dazzles you with his magical powers from the stone of Zanzibar.
For close to 30 years, the magician amazed daily television audiences with his tricks and illusions with the help of his red-headed assistant, Bozo the Clown, on “The Bozo Show.”
Roselle resident Marshall Brodien originally appeared as himself and then developed the clown-wizard character. And after 27 years of playing Wizzo, Brodien hung up the wizard’s garb and handlebar mustache when “The Bozo Show” moved to two one-hour shows on Sunday mornings this fall (without Wizzo or Cookie; Roy Brown, who plays Cookie has been recovering from heart surgery).
“It’s been a lot of fun to put on that costume and just act crazy and wild,” said Brodien, who will still make special appearances as Wizzo.
“Kids get a kick out of him. They think he’s crazy,” said Al Hall, producer of “The Bozo Show” and senior producer/director at WGN. “Wizzo is truly a strange character within a nice guy. The kids like Wizzo, as strange as he is.
“He provides the show with a specialized variety with his magic. We create a situation with everyone in a mess, which can only be solved by Wizzo’s magic.”
Brodien’s retirement from the show is a great loss to his co-workers as well as the audience, said Joey D’Auria, who has played Bozo for the last 10 years. “Wizzo adds the right touch of screwiness to get through the day,” D’Auria said. “Professor Andy (Andy Mitran, also a member of the cast) and I believe it will be hard to get through a week without Wizzo.”
D’Auria said he admires Brodien’s talent both as a businessman and a performer: “Marshall is proof of what a great country America is. Any other country in the world, he’d be in a straitjacket. Here he is a millionaire.”
Brodien’s Wizzo and the rest of the crew have been Bozo mainstays for two generations. Recently at “The Viking Revue,” a talent show at Geneva High School, seniors Chad Rehnberg, Caroline Adams and John Miller put on a parody of the Bozo buckets game with the three seniors as Bozo, Wizzo and a young contestant.
“I used to get dressed every morning in front of the TV watching `The Bozo Show,”‘ said Adams, who played the contestant in the school skit. “Those clowns were always so patient and kind to all the snot-nosed kids. We thought it would be fun to show how it might be if they weren’t.”
Miller, who played the part of Wizzo, was introduced to “The Bozo Show” while visiting his grandparents in Indiana. He had grown up in Washington, D.C., and was captivated by the show. “I wanted to play Wizzo in the skit so I could get wacky and ham it up for the audience like Wizzo does,” Miller said.
For the past 21 years, Wizzo and his clown-buddy Cookie have delighted crowds averaging approximately 2,000 children and adults at the Kane County and DuPage County Fairs. Today’s audiences include a number of parents who treasure their own memories of shows witnessed in their childhood.
“Wizzo puts on one dynamic show with a live band like the old `Bozo Show,”‘ said Floyd Brown, Kane County Fair’s marketing promotions director and a WGN announcer. “The show is a different element than what people are accustomed to viewing on TV.”
Brodien also has made appearances in and out of costume at numerous picnics and children’s parties for the Dan Rostenkowski Youth Council, which is run by the 32nd Ward Democratic organization in Chicago.
He donated his time to demonstrate his mastery of close-up magic and distributed his magic sets free of charge at three different parks on each occasion over a period of 15 years.
“As long as we asked Marshall, he came as a special favor on behalf of our kids,” said Terry Gabinski, 32nd Ward alderman, vice mayor of Chicago and close friend of Brodien. “He took care of everything, running the entire show and even bringing in other entertainers.”
Aside from Wizzo, Marshall Brodien is a man of many faces: magician, hypnotist, businessman, television producer, father, friend. And each facet of the man’s life is a magical story in itself.
“Every job I’ve ever had througout my life has involved magic to some degree,” Brodien said. “I’ve always enjoyed performing magic and promoting other magicians. It’s my work, but it’s also my hobby.”
The slender, 6-foot-tall, soft-spoken man has gained recognition performing magic and stage hypnosis at lounges, clubs, county fairs and parties throughout the Chicago area for more than four decades. He has been a spokesman and performer at trade shows for corporations such as Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Westinghouse, Bethlehem Steel, Reynolds Aluminum and the American Gas Association.
After being drafted into the army in the mid-1950s and being commissioned to the Special Services Entertainment Division at Ft. Carson, Colo., Brodien performed more than 700 shows at hospitals, non-commissioned officer clubs and private parties.
Brodien’s contact with other entertainers on and off television has been extensive. He made television appearances on the “Mike Douglas Show,” levitating Bill Cosby and balancing Louie Nye on the tip of a sword with Tony Bennett’s assistance. He is a recognized personality throughout the magic industry, being called the magician’s magician by his peers.
His business savvy built a multimillion-dollar magic and novelty company, Marshall Brodien Magic Co., with the creation of his TV Magic Cards.
“I watched magicians pitch decks of cards at fairgrounds where they could stop 100 people and sell 50 decks of cards,” Brodien said. “I figured if I went on TV, I could reach enough people to sell a million decks.”
He has sold more than 15 million decks and continues to sell them. Today he has a wide variety of magic tricks and sets under many labels including Siegfried and Roy, Aladdin for Disney and Harmony Toys, which are sold at stores such as Toys `R’ Us and Wal-Mart.
He has also had his hands in Totos and Lancers restaurants and owned a magic shop in the Old Chicago Indoor Amusement Park in Bolingbrook, which is no longer in existence.
“Marshall is a good role model for the business side of being a magician,” said Bob Hoge, president of Fox Valley Bank in St. Charles, who is Brodien’s friend and personal banker. “He is a very astute businessman with foresight as a young man to look at the future. He started making good choices early in life.”
His most recent feat is executive producer of a $500,000 television special featuring Las Vegas magician Lance Burton and hosted by Ann Jillian. Burton has been performing six shows a week for the past three years and on television shows such as “The Tonight Show.”
“I wanted to offer Lance the exposure, because he is one of the best magicians in the world,” Brodien said.
As a father, Brodien incorporated his creative side into parenting, said his children. Anita Brazeau, 30, of Lake Zurich, Brodien’s oldest child and mother of his three grandchildren, said weekends with her dad after her parents divorced were always an adventure. He would tell the children bizarre stories about people who lived in ominous old homes they would drive by on the way to his house.
“He would say Dracula lived here and this is what he was doing, or Frankenstein lived there,” Brazeau said. “Sometimes I pass these homes today, and part of me still believes his silly stories.
“He used to do this one trick where he would pretend to put a needle through his arm and sew it up. We used to laugh so much at him. He was always a funny person.”
Her magical father plays much the same way with her children, pulling nickels from their ears and making up songs with each of their names in them, Brazeau said. He and the children also have a ritual where he disguises his voice when he calls and then acts disappointed when the children recognize him.
Brazeau said she treasures her childhood relationship with her father but finds him a warmer person today, hugging more and communicating openly with his children.
“We get wisdom through each other. He learns from us as well as we from him,” she said.
Marshall Jr., 27, of Roselle agreed. “My dad’s a fantastic guy. We’re like best friends. We have a good relationship.”
Christine Torrey, 26, of Lake Zurich grew up watching her father on TV. Her parents had divorced when she was a baby, and although Brodien saw his three children every weekend and often during the week, watching him on television was an added bonus.
“Sometimes the kids would make jokes and call me Wizzo’s kid, but it was quite exciting having a father as a celebrity growing up,” Torrey said.
Born in Chicago on July 10, 1934, Brodien has always lived in the Chicago area, residing in Roselle for the past seven years and Medinah for 18 years before that.
His interest in magic began at the age of 8 when a magician captured his attention at a school performance. After a brief investigation into the mystery of illusion and trickery, the young Brodien was soon hooked for life.
At the age of 14, he got his first job working downtown Chicago at the Magic Center selling and demonstrating magic tricks and novelties. He later took a similar job at the National Magic Co.
One of Brodien’s favorite pastimes was to watch the magicians and sideshow barkers at Riverview Park in Chicago. On one occasion he noticed a regular magician missing from his booth.
“I marched into the main office and asked for the job,” Brodien said. “The manager said I was too young, so I offered to work a week for free.” He was only 16 at the time but did such a good job he remained there for the next three years performing as many as 20 shows a day. During that time, he learned to eat fire and swallow swords.
When the sideshow left Riverview, 19-year-old Brodien was hired for a job at the Magic Lounge in Cicero after telling the owner he was 21. The lounge drew a tough crowd. After one show, Brodien asked a male patron to hold a small cage and watch a bird appear. When the cage vanished right in the man’s palm, he demanded Brodien tell the secret of the trick. Brodien refused until the man pulled a gun, held it to the magician’s head and cocked it. Brodien quickly disclosed the secret, and the man put his gun away.
From there he moved on to the Beacon Inn on the South Side of Chicago. Impressed by Brodien, a regular patron offered to exchange lessons on hypnotism for magic lessons. The marriage of magic and stage hypnotism proved to be a dynamic combination there and at the Boston Nocturne Club in Chicago, which he later bought and renamed the Club Mystic.
“I couldn’t stand running the club. It gave me so little time to perform,” Brodien said. “I had to sell it.” Brodien went on to the Cairo Supper Club until it closed after a mysterious bombing.
Without a job, Brodien auditioned for the part of the master of ceremonies for the Ice Royal’s, a magic show on ice, even though he did not know how to skate. He swept himself off his own feet opening night but soon mastered the ice, While working there he met and married a young skater, Judy Skarda, and they had three children.
Brodien eventually ended up being booked to do his magic act on the Bozo show and was so well received that he was offered a permanent spot.
Today much of Brodien’s time is spent promoting products and people. Peter Raveen, entertainer and personal manager for magician Lance Burton, said working with Brodien on Burton’s TV special has been a pleasure because of his attention to detail, professionalism and modesty of his own talents.
“In this business, where people overtalk and underperform, Marshall gives way beyond what is required. He is also one of the few people who is a genius at identifying another performer’s ability,” Raveen said.
In January 1992, Brodien sold his magic distribution company to Harmony Toys and has remained on board as a consultant. The magician demonstrates the products in stores all over the country. He also has appeared on the Home Shopping Network four times a year for the past two years offering special deals on magic sets.
“Marshall is an important part of our company because of his knowledge of the business and being so well known throughout the industry,” said James Baum, Harmony Toys president. “He is the world’s greatest pitchman, a very good showman.”
Stand-up comedian and magician Ken Mate of West Chicago, as well as a generation of other magicians, started his own career by practicing magic with a deck of TV Magic Cards long before he met Brodien. “The greatest thing about Marshall is how he goes out of his way to get other magicians to a higher level of show biz without any gain for himself,” Mate said. “He’s a magician’s magician.”
Lance Burton said after seeing Brodien on a TV commercial promoting his cards that he went straight to the Walgreen’s in his hometown of Louisville to purchase a deck. He demonstrated his tricks just as he had seen on TV, repeating it almost verbatim.
Burton said Brodien has become a close friend and mentor and has boosted his confidence as a magician.
But aside from Brodien’s ability as a magician and businessman, what impresses magicians, associates, family and friends most of all is the man’s humanity and humility.
Torrey said, “My dad started from the bottom, and, through everything he has gone through and accomplished in his life, his success has not gone to his head. All of us are really proud of him.”
