I recall reading as a child that each circus clown had his/her own distinctive facial makeup. Clowns would register their faces by submitting an eggshell(!) made up with design on it and that these were kept in some special place. New clowns were required to create a new face when they moved into the professional ranks.
I was very young when I read this and I’m sure the source was something like Boys’ Life magazine, rather than Scientific American. But the idea has stuck with me and I’m curious if there is any truth to it.
I am willing to believe that a clown’s makeup is an important part of their profession and that it wouldn’t do for everyone to look alike, or that reputable clowns (is that an oxymoron?) wouldn’t want some talentless newcomer to appear in the same costume as some late, great clown of yesteryear. But the registry seems a little far-fetched. Who would administer it, and how? It also strikes me as difficult to imagine that there are sufficient variations of your basic clown makeup to prevent unintentional duplications from occurring regularly. Pretty soon the new guys just wouldn’t have anywhere to go.
OTOH, enforcement doesn’t seem to be a problem. Circus life strikes me as pretty rough-and-tumble (at least it’s always like that in the movies!) and if a new clown needed to “re-arrange his face” his new buddies would be sure to tell him to do it or even offer to do it for him.
Do any of the Teeming Millions have info on this? Did they register their faces? If they did, do they still do it? Any insight into the world of clowns would be greatly appreciated.
Clowns adhere to the Uniform Clown Code (UCC). It is adminstered by an agency of the Federal government run by five clowns and two civilians appointed by the president for overlapping seven-year terms.
Seriously, a clown could register his professional name as a trademark on the state or Federal level. The clown could also register his face as part of a logo that identifies the service as well.
Pluto, you’ve tapped into a dim childhood memory that I’ve tried several times before (unsuccessfully) to call into the light of consciousness. I may be able to help shed some light on your question. Maybe someone else can clear up the rest.
I remember an episode of a television show, I believe it was some sort of detective series. Early in the show you meet a guy who has painstakingly put together a collection of every clown’s face. They are all drawn in detail on eggshells and stored in a large room full of shelves. He tells the story, pretty much exactly the way you did, about the distinctness of each clown’s face, the registration, etc. The characters leave the place and continue the adventure.
Well, as you might expect, during the climactic fight scene for the episode, we find ourselves back in the clown-egg storage room, and the fight knocks over all of the shelves and trashes the guy’s collection.
I never gave any credence to the idea that this was a real thing. I thought it was obvious that it was a device cooked up just so that we could appreciate the coolness of the eggs, then watch them get trashed.
Clowns did register their faces by painting them on eggs and keeping them in a central register! This tradition dates back to the 1550s, perhaps even earlier.
I first read about this in Terry Pratchett’s book “Men At Arms.” Terry writes really funny books that also contain a wealth of genuine information. He is on the internet, and I happen to know that he is a Straight Dope fan.
The site Iguana Boy posted takes you to a place where you can pay $20 to get someone to issue a photo ID of your clown.
It states that this is a “registry” and that it’s to “protect” the character, but there is nothing there to back it up. Nothing to say what authority they have, what protection they provide, etc. I found a couple of other similar sites.
But I couldn’t find anything at all about an official central registry, or especially anything about the eggs. How 'bout a pointer to these, if there’s such a thing?
(BTW, looking up Terry Pratchett I find that he’s an author of Fantasy/Science Fiction. I’m not sure I’ll rely on one of his books for facts on this, either).
Per the registration site cited above…so if a clown copies another clown’s face what is the aggrieved clown going to do. Wave his clown ID photo at the transgressor?
Have a little car pull up and 10 frowney faced clowns hop out and beat the offending pseudo-clown to death with rubber chickens?
Don’t know much about clowns, but I do know that the makeup worn by each of the members of the rock group KISS has been registered. In fact, singer King Diamond (formerly of “Merciful Fate” fame) was ordered by a court to change his makeup, because it too closely resembled that worn by Gene Simmons.
I’ve seen this somewhere in the past few years. It was from an episode of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” and the curator was none other than John Cleese! Either I happened to catch the show by seeing Cleese’s name in TV Guide (I wouldn’t bother watching otherwise), or the scenes were included in some Python documentary.
I did a quick web search for “man from uncle” and got a bunch of same-sex erotic fiction websites. Apparently Solo and Kuryakin were up to more than mere espionage! AND I’m at work where I can be, um, disciplined for virtual voyeurism!
I did find a “Man From U.N.C.L.E” (henceforward, MFU) episode guide: http://members.aol.com/Wmkoenig/uncle1.htm but couldn’t find any hits when I searched for the word “clown”. And I couldn’t find John Cleese as a guest star on MFU in the Internet Movie Database. But I didn’t look very hard.
So far, then, I’ve got one respondent who claims the clown face registry is a venerable institution still in existence, and a lot of votes for television as the source of the story. I’ll see what I can find from Mr. Pratchett.
charizard & astro - o ye of little faith, and poor reading skills.
Was the link posted as anything more than a modern example of an old tradition? No. Did I claim it had any legal authority? No.
Did I claim Terry Pratchett as the source of my information? No, only where I first read about the tradition.
I have read about this in a book I have somewhere in the house. My apologies for not making this clear. If I can find it I will quote you the reference. If I can’t find it, I’ll try a search on the net, but (shock, horror) the internet doesn’t contain everything, not yet anyway.
BTW if you know anything about Terry Pratchett (other than a quick internet search), you would probably accept him as quite a venerable authority (what does a search say about Cecil?).
I recall, as a child, when Emit Kelly, one of the greatest clowns of all, came to town. I also recall reading or hearing how clowns actually did register their faces on eggshells. A clown’s face, back then, was his line of business. It was copywritten. (Or trade marked, whatever.) I had thought the eggs were kept somewhere within the Barnum and Bailey Museum.
