Mark Holden shocks rest of Australia in 2014 with TV dance homage to Adelaide’s 1960s legend Bobo the clown

Mark Holden as Bobo the Clown faces the judges on Dancing with the Stars television show in 2014. Inset: As the young pop singer who made his debut on Adelaide Tonight in 1972.
Main image courtesy Seven Network

Singer Mark Holden caused a very Adelaide sensation on his 2014 appearance on the Dancing with the Stars television show. His performance dressed as Bobo the Clown was condemned as “disturbing”, a “disaster on the dance floor”, “one of the scariest things I've ever seen” and “a train wreck”. Holden received four out of 40 (the lowest score possible) and was voted out of the show.

Holden may have exposed a national clown phobia but he was paying tribute to Bobo as the phenomenally popular character of 1960s South Australia. Bobo the clown, played by Charles “Hal” Turner, was a children’s character who first appeared on Adelaide’s Channel 9 and grew so popular that in the early 1960s that he was hired by new rival Adelaide TV station SAS10. This caused Channel 9 to come up with a new character: Humphrey B. Bear.

After the Bobo incident on Dancing with the stars, Holden self-released Holden Brothers Travelling Circus on CD/DVD – a reference to his family background in circuses.

Holden’s career had an intrinsically local start with an appearance on Ernie Sigley’s Adelaide Tonight in 1972 starting a varied and colourful career as a singer, actor, TV personality, record producer, songwriter, and barrister. Holden had nearly completed the law degree at Adelaide University in 1974 when he had four top 20 hit singles, including “Never gonna fall in love again”. In 1975-76, Holden became the first pop star to play the lead role in the first Australian production of Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat in Sydney.

In 1976, Holden played Greg Mason on the TV soap opera The young doctors. Holden won the Logie in the next years for most popular Australian TV teenage personality (also in 1978) and best new talent. 

Holden courted later controversy as a judge on Australian Idol television show but his Dancing with the Stars appearance was regarded as bizarre – or was it an Adelaide sense of humour? In his exit dance from Dancing with the Stars, Holden dressed as Vladimir Putin.