So how do clowns (outside the circus) make their money? Clueless parents and hospitals surely can’t cover all the clowns I’ve seen. Are they one of those byproducts of a vanished time (like Bob Dole) that we happen to be stuck with?
I can’t believe nobody’s mentioned this yet.
“Can’t sleep…Clown will eat me!”-Bart Simpson
I like Krusty. The episode where Homer dresses up as his twin is a favourite of mine.
All other clowns remind me of Pennywise.
Even as a kid, clowns tripped my insincerity meter right off the scale. If an adult relative or parents’ friend had come to our house drunk, and put on makeup and danced about the living room thinking the kids would like it - well, going to the circus was about the same. I think the TV ads with Ronald McDonald didn’t help any either.
As an adult, I just find them creepy, and frankly, there’s a sort of sleazy, sexual element I can’t quite explain, but seems real to me. I don’t think the “Mr Bubbles” case in Australia helped my opinion of them any.
I hate clowns.
Killer Klowns From Outer Space, anyone? I saw that movie when I was about five years old. Still can’t even look at a clown without getting chills.
Then there was the time I saw the clown on the bike. Scared the crap out of me.
I was never particularly enthralled by traditional gag-and-pratfall-type circus clowns. Even when I was a kid, I found them unfunny and vaguely embarassing, like animated cartoons from the thirties, and the local kids’ shows that were slowly dying on TV during the seventies. Ronald McDonald only confirmed my association of them with fakeness.
Hmm. I wonder whether that could partly explain my dislike of heavy makeup…?
Now, la Cirque du Soleil is a completely-different matter. I rather suspect that they and the École Nationale de la Cirque in Montréal have saved the circus in North America?
Mr Blue Sky, that made me choke on my lunch - that is the funniest thing I’ve seen all day! Thanks, man.
I really don’t care for circus clowns, though I loved them when I was a wee lad.
Oddly enough, though, when you consider comic film greats such as Chaplin, the Marx Bros. (Harpo, especially)–their routines were very much a variety of clowning. Only we don’t think of them as clowns, because they didn’t work in a circus and make balloon animals. Good clowns are good actors, and they can move an audience. Actually, Groucho, the Marx Brother who was the most verbal and sophisticated in his performance, singled out Red Skelton as the likely successor to the Chaplin mantle, citing his ability to play both straight and comic roles with great skill, and his ability to convincingly create characters literally on the fly. He had nothing but praise for Skelton, whom most of us now probably think of as just a second-rate physical comedian.
I’ve never been able to understand why people are creeped out by clowns. They’re mostly harmless as far as I can see. In fact, most little kids that I’ve observed (of the right age, maybe 4 to 6 years old) seem to get a kick out of them. What’s not to like, if you’re 5? Weird clothes, weird shoes, weird makeup, honking horn…this is amusing to a child.
That being said, I don’t find them entertaining, but then again I’m not five.
Maybe the reason many people are creeped out is the makeup. There’s something vaguely creepy about a painted-on facial expression.
When done right, though, clowning can take on a bizarre sophistication that borders on the surreal. I’ve never seen such a performance live, but the troupe of clowns surrounding the title character in the Lon Chaney silent classic, He Who Gets Slapped, was a good example.
…Not withstanding my posts above, let it be known by all that I will cross the street to avoid a clown, on those occasions when I encounter them unexpectedly.
I think circus clowns are funny.
Good one, Eggerhaus!
Count me with the clown-haters. I still cover my eyes during that scene in Poltergeist.
Anybody hiding behind a mask can come off a little creepy. Clowns like Pennywise & John Gacy don’t help matters.
The Cirque du Soleil clowns are way cool.
First)I hate clowns, they’re not funny, they scare people.
B) The Three Stooges ARE funny, and they scare people.
3) Mimes should be hunted, not watched.
Thank you for your time, I’ll hang up and wait for my answer.
Oh wait there is one clown I like, KRUSTY, HEY HEY now that’s funny!
Gaaah! Have none of you had a chance to see Bill Irwin? He’s a freakin’ genius!!!
Regular clowns are awful, though.
I used to be a clown for a summer, mostly big birthday parties and corporate events at parks-- it was a lot of fun, but I played it basically like I was a funny-looking game organizer. I got all the kids to run races, have contests, and parade around.
I didn’t do any tricks, I didn’t talk in a funny voice, and I made the absolute lousiest balloon animals ever (all derivations of the basic dog, until I got bored, then just crammed a bunch of balloons together and told the lucky kid that what he got was “really something”). Kids thought I was the absolute greatest.
There were some other clowns that I met who were far more adept and practiced at the fine art of clowning, and I always found them to be slightly disturbing. They talked to adults like they were children, talked to children like they were morons, and physically, seemed to be perpetually lost in trying to, I don’t know, attain oneness with the spirit of Buster Keaton. Possibly artistic, not much fun.
The way I saw clowning was that it was a way to be a caricature of an adult. Big, fast, funny, and willing to talk to kids.
Boy: How did you get here?
Me: I flew.
Boy: Nuh Uh! (pause) …What did you fly in?
Me: A plane.
Boy: Nuh Uh! (pause) …where did you get it?
Me: I made it.
Boy: Nuh Uh!! (pause) …out of what?
Me: Pudding.
All Children: NUH UH!!!
Far as I know, no kids were afraid of me.
Nah, somewhere there’s a kid who hasn’t slept in six months saying, “Can’t…sleep…clown…in…pudding plane…gonna…get me…”
Used to be a big fan of clowns as a kid. Tried to be a clown myself - borrowed dad’s big shoes and some makeup and flopped around; looked at clown books at the library, knew some of the more famous clown faces, that sort of thing.
Just sort of outgrew it I guess… Nowadays I see clowns as just another kind of entertainment that is past it’s prime - like a lot of early 20th century things, but sort of a tradition enough that they’re still around. Like ventroloquists, magicians, etc… Somebody mentioned the Stooges and slapstick comedy here already. Old school.