 Charles Willer was slated to be the first Happy, but he turned the job down when WFFT asked him to retire his other locally-known clown character, Chuckles the Clown, as a condition of employment.The original Happy was then played by Mike Fry, a television show host-turned inventor.Fry left the show in 1990 to concentrate on the gourmet fortune cookie company he started with girlfriend Kim Harvey in 1988.