From: twcaps@tennyson.lbl.gov (Terry Chan)
Subject: More on TV Legends

First, pearl@sw.stratus.com (Dan Pearl) writes:
  +
  +>> The "little bastards" comment was made by a radio personality by the name
  +>> of "Uncle Don" (in the 40's?).  After his sign-off jingle "sing this
  +>> song with your Uncle Don", he thought he was off the air when he uttered
  +>> his famous line.  

then, system@codewks.nacjack.gen.nz (Wayne McDougall) writes:

  +>I heard this was a UK announcer, who after Children's Hour (Sundays at 7pm?)
  +>having read the story the announcer said "well that should keep the little
  +>bastards happy for another week". I was told this was about the same era -

followed by lorange@spot.Colorado.EDU (Hans L'Orange) who writes:
  +
  +A friend claims (you have to love it) to have seen the following during a 
  +local kiddies TV show in the late '60s:
  +
  +	The host ( a clown in more ways than one ) was trying to get a little
  +	hippie kid (the 60s remember) to play some game with the other kids.
  +	There was no way he was going to roll the egg with his nose or
  +	whatever it was but the clown kept trying to 'nicely' badger him in
  +	to it.  They finally cut to commercial when the kid yelled out ...
  +		"CRAM IT, CLOWN  !!!"

Ah, this is great.  Several variations on similar themes.  In 
_The Mexican Pet_, JHB mentions several of these legends and
records the following:

In version A of "Bozo the Clown's Blooper," a fellow named John
Witkowski wrote a letter to JHB in November 1984 on the legend
recounted by Hans.  "Bozo the Clown" aired in the late 1950s and
early 1960s.  There is a group of children who are playing a game
where they try to carry an egg in a spoon across the room.  One
kid drops the egg halfway and swears.  Bozo "gently reprimands"
the kid and the kid tells him "shove it or worse."  John had
at least a half-dozen friends who claimed to have seen the
episode but were always vague as to approximate date shown and
exact language used.

There is another version where Bozo is interviewing the kids in
the audience and asking them routine questions such as what do
they want to be when they grow up.  One kid then says "Ram it,
clown!"  The show is cut to a commercial and when it returns,
the kid is gone and "order is restored."  The fellow Douglas
Kaplan recalls that this happened on the Baltimore version of
the Bozo the Clown show when it was done live.  When he moved
to New Orleans, he heard his boss say that line.  His boss 
then said that he got it from the New Orleans version of that
show.

In true UL fashion, the line mentioned by Dan and Wayne (or one
very close to it) has been attributed to virtually every children's
local TV host in the US. "Despite a complete lack of supporting
evidence--no one telling the story had ever seen the episode
themselves--the myth was widely believed.  Many who heard it as
children still consider the myth fact."  [This last part JHB
attributes, heh, heh, to Morgan and Tucker's _Rumor!_, p. 92).

JHB himself says he thought that the host of one of his favorite
kids _radio_ shows "Happy Hank" which he thought he heard in
Lansing, Michigan in the 1940s had said those words (about the
bastards).  He also was pretty sure that some kid had sassed
"Uncle Howdy" on radio as well.  But that's the way it goes.