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Revision as of 03:33, 4 December 2004
J.P. Patches was a clown who appeared on the Seattle television station KIRO channel 7 from 1957 to 1981. He was hugely popular among viewers in the Puget Sound area, not only with children, but with their parents, too, who enjoyed J.P.'s frequent use of double entendre. J.P. was created by KIRO News's floor director Chris Wedes, who played the character for the entire run of the program. Wedes continues to make his living portraying J.P. at public events and private parties, and by licensing J.P. Patches merchandise.
The primary conceit of the program was that J.P. was the "Mayor of the City Dump," and he lived in a shack at the dump, surrounded by his cast of stock characters: Sturdley the Bookworm, Esmerelda (actually a Raggedy Ann doll), Ketchikan the Animal Man, Boris S. Wort, and his girlfriend, Gertrude. Virtually the entire supporting cast, male and female, human or non-human, was played by the versatile Bob Newman.
Fans were called "Patches Pals." J.P. would celebrate birthdays of selected Patches Pals by "viewing" them on his "ICU2TV" set (actually a cardboard prop that created the appearance that J.P. was looking at you from inside your television). He would predict with amazing accuracy where a gift might be hidden in the child's house.
Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, was a Patches Pal, having grown up in the Pacific Northwest and gone to college at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, the state's capital. J.P. was the inspiration for Groening's Krusty the Clown.