Michael in San Diego, California, plays a game with his three-year-daughter that involves spotting small round property markers in the sidewalk, which he calls bozo buttons. His mother played the same game as a youngster, but calls those metal discs monkey buttons. It’s possible there’s a connection with the Bozo button from the old Bozo the Clown TV show from the 1960s. Losing contestants on that show received a button with a picture of the clown on it, and the term Bozo button came to mean the prize you get when you think you deserve an award but no one else agrees. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Bozo Buttons”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Michael in San Diego, California.
Hi, Michael. Welcome to the show.
I’m calling about a game that I played as a child that made its way back into my life a few months ago while I was going for a walk with my three-year-old daughter.
Oh, cool.
So we were walking around the neighborhood, and we came across a small metal disc in the sidewalk. And without even thinking about it, I pointed it out to her, and I poked her on the side, and I said, “Bozo button.”
And it’s kind of slug bug-esque, where if you come across one of these little silver discs in the sidewalk, we would, well, when we were rowdier teenagers, it was a little more slug bug-like. But, you know, with my daughter, we just kind of poked her, kind of tickled her on the side, yelled “Bozo button,” and she just gave me this look like, “What was that?”
But as we continued our walk, we, you know, every 20 feet or so would come across a new one, and so it became a really fun game to play. I’m fairly certain I learned it from my mom. However, when I mentioned it to her, she said, “Oh, we called those monkey buttons.” And I don’t know where else I would have heard it. I definitely remember playing it as a kid with our friends in the neighborhood. And I thought for sure it had come from her. But when she mentioned that she had a different name for it, I was, you know, a little thrown off. And I was like, “Well, I’m not sure where I got Bozo Button from.” And so, yeah.
Huh. And so these are pieces of metal, round pieces of metal that are embedded in the sidewalk?
They are, yes. I posted a photo on the Facebook page and a few people mentioned that they are property markers.
Right. From surveys, right, where you measure the boundaries of a property.
Okay. So about what size are they?
A little, maybe the size of a nickel, smaller than a quarter.
Okay. Well, the only Bozo button I know is the Bozo button that was offered as a consolation prize on the old Bozo the Clown shows for children back in the 60s.
Oh, interesting.
And Bozo button kind of became not just a consolation prize, but it’s the thing you get when you think you deserve an award, but nobody wants to give it.
All right. You’re like, “I finished the dishes.”
Like, “Oh, here’s your Bozo button. Thanks for that.”
Like, you don’t really get a prize at all.
Right, and it’s a button that you wear that has a picture of Bozo the Clown on it. And so it’s like not such a great prize.
Yeah, it’s the participation trophy of the year.
Okay.
But I don’t know the game either. I grew up mostly in the country, and our boundaries were marked by, you know, kind of punched into the ground with wooden stakes. The survey would come out once in a while when the property was being sold.
This may be the kind of thing that we have to crowdsource even further and see what other games are.
Turn on the flashing lights and open up.
Yeah, turn that on, Greg.
And let everyone know, if you know what Michael is talking about, did you play this game, Bozo Button or Monkey Button, when you saw the metal discs on the sidewalk? Did you punch the person next to you after shouting out the word?
Let us know, 877-929-9673, or email us, words@waywordradio.org.
And we’ll get to the bottom of this.
Great. Thank you very much.
Yeah, sure. Thanks for sharing. Really appreciate it.
Take care.
Have a great day.
All right. Bye-bye.
