| Mike Fry | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1961 Watseka, Illinois |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, Trainer, Entertainer, Marketing expert |
| Website | |
| mikefrylive.com | |
Mike Fry is an American serial entrepreneur, entertainer, trainer and marketing expert. He was the original Happy the Hobo on the children's television series Happy's Place, and the creative mind behind and owner of Fancy Fortune Cookies.
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Mike Fry was born in Illinois but grew up in the Huntington, Indiana area. He began juggling at the age of fourteen, after finding out that his grandfather used to juggle dirt clods on the farm in rural Illinois. By the age of 17 he was juggling for audiences in the local area.[1]
Mike was accepted to the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus Clown College, in Venice, California at the age of 19, graduating in 1981. He then toured with the circus for the 1981 and 1982 season. He had the honor of being trained by three of the world's top four Master Clowns; Lou Jacobs, Frosty Little, and Bobby Kay.[2]
He left Ringling Brothers in 1982 and made the transition to television, where he wrote and co-produced Happy's Place one of America's highest-rated children's television shows from 1982 to 1990. Happy's Place aired on Fox affiliate Channel 55 in 207 cities for eight years. At the height of the show's popularity there was a two year wait for tickets to the show. He hosted guests from The Harlem Globetrotters to Jerry Mathers and Tiny Tim.[3]
After leaving Happy's Place Mike trained at The Second City sketch comedy group in Chicago. While in Chicago he also auditioned to play the role of Bozo the Clown, and did some writing for the show as a result. He was also an instructor at the Illinois Juggling Institute for one year while he lived in Chicago.[4]
During his role as Happy the Hobo Mike became interested in inventing. In 1988 he started marketing his first viable invention, America's first gourmet-flavored fortune cookies. Since 1988 the company has greatly expanded on his original concept of gourmet-flavored fortune cookies, specializing in flavored, chocolate dipped, giant, and decorated fortune cookies.[5]
In 1990 Mike started developing and marketing another of his inventions, the "Always There Bear". He spent twelve years developing, marketing and refining the idea, culminating in his invention being purchased by Hasbro toys in 2002. His story is featured in the book The One Minute Millionaire, by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert Allen. Mike worked with both Mark and Robert on the deal with Hasbro.[6]
In 2004 Mike joined up with his long-time friend and mentor Linda Chandler as a part of her Core Value Training Program. He used his experiences as a marketer, entrepreneur and entertainer to teach internet marketing strategies to thousands of international business owners.[7]
Mike is currently working on publishing his own children's joke book, using jokes from his live kid's show. He has collected kids joke books for many years, and he has a huge collection of them. Mike is using his eight years of experience as a children's entertainer to write and publish a joke book for children and fun-loving adults.
He is also working on a book pertaining to goal-setting based around hours of interviews with adventurer and author John Goddard, who greatly influenced Mike to start his own life-list at age 23.