The First Clowns
Clowns are old, man. As old as Egyptian hieroglyphics dating back to 2500 BC depicting jesters and jugglers. As old as the Tarot deck with a card for The Fool. As old as The Great Wall of China, which might have been painted in jaunty hues without the intercession of The Emperor’s Jester, Yu Sze, who advised his master that painting the wall would result in thousands of deaths.
The American Indians had clowns, those of the Hopi nation charged with being the tradition keepers and delight makers. The Cheyenne had contrary clowns which would behave in a contradictory way to the normal way of life of the tribe, walking around on their hands, riding horses backwards and shooting arrows behind themselves over their shoulders. Because of their great proficiency in these areas, the clowns often became the most skilled warriors in their tribes. In times of battle, their enemies feared the contrarians the most because of their several disparate abilities.
In the sixteenth century, the Commedia del Arte began in Italy and soon dominated European theater, spawning one of the most famous and durable clowns of all time, the Attecchino, or Harlequin. The Harlequin originated as a comic valet but soon developed into an acrobatic trickster wearing a black domino mask and carrying a bat or noisy slapstick with which he frequently spanked his victims, thus the origin of the term “slapstick comedy.”
Joseph Grimaldi is considered the father of modern clowning, he being the entertainer who elevated the white face to a starring role replacing the Harlequin. Grimaldi was born in London, the son of an Italian actor, performing on stage by the time he was three years old. He excelled at designing elaborate trick special effects and produced and starred in live action Roadrunner-type cartoon routines with chase scenes and comic slapstick violence. Grimaldi was also a master of pantomime. In homage to Joey Grimaldi, circus clowns began referring to themselves as “Joeys” and the term is now a synonym for clown. On the first Sunday of each February, there is a service held at Holy Trinity Church in Dalston East London to honor Joseph Grimaldi, father of contemporary clowns.
Send In The Clowns
When we were kids, clowns were always a Good Thing. You went to the circus for a good time and the clowns were there to start the ball rolling, pulling up in their tiny Clown Car and dispatching endless numbers of the costumed characters, guaranteeing hysterics no matter how many times you saw the routine. Friendly clowns with big smiles wandered through the audience delighting children and passing out candy. The word “clown” connoted only positive images and was attached to some of our greatest entertainers. Charlie Chaplin was called a clown. So were Laurel & Hardy, The Three Stooges and the lovable Red Skelton. When fast-food giant McDonald’s was looking for a good-will ambassador, they created Ronald McDonald, a clown. Emmett Kelly, as famous as any clown ever, was so beloved that thousands of Americans wept when he died. And then there was Clarabell. Clarabell made us wonder.
The Howdy Doody Show was a kiddie colossus on early NBC Television from December 27, 1947 until September 24, 1960. The cast consisted primarily of puppets like Howdy Doody, the good guy, and troublemaker Phineas T. Bluster, an old codger who was always stirring the pot. There was also the dimwitted carpenter Dilly Dally and the oddball Flub-a-Dub, a strange configuration of eight different animals. On the human side, Buffalo Bob Smith was the trailboss and Clarabell was the clown. The studio audience consisted of several rows of ebullient children—often in full throat—called The Peanut Gallery, the entirety of which felt it was their Primary Duty in Life to alert the sometimes slow-witted Buffalo Bob to nefarious actvities in his neighborhood. Enter the often-devilish Clarabell, no stranger to loud horns and seltzer-bottles, with which he was prone to abruptly squirt anyone in the vicinity but primarily Buffalo Bob. In a typical scene, the exceptionally gregarious Bob would be seen facing the bubbly Peanut Gallery, telling stories, maybe offering advice to the very young kiddies. Occasionally, Clarabell, reacting to a perceived slight, would approach v-e-r-y slowly from behind with his seltzer bottle at the ready. This horrible threat created almost apocalyptic hysteria in the Peanut Gallery, which rose as one, screaming bloody murder, jumping up and down and pointing frenetically behind Buffalo Bob at the looming danger. Bob, of course, feigned ignorance of his dire fate, asking the kids over and over what they were upset about, looking left and right over his shoulders but somehow never discovering the lurking Clarabell. Finally—SPLASH!—the clown got him again, much to the incredulity and outrage of the tiny toddler audience which felt it had certainly done ITS duty and what the hell is the matter with that deaf bastard Buffalo Bob, anyway? The first Clarabell, it turned out, was the otherwise-kindly Bob Keeshan, who atoned for his years as the scalawag clown by turning himself into Captain Kangaroo, who wouldn’t squirt a fly. But that Clarabell—he got us wondering about the true clown mentality. Was there someting murky we’d been missing?
Pennywise, never to be mistaken for Poundfoolish.
Welcome To The Dark Side
When we were kids, there was no such thing as a Bad Clown. Okay, that Clarabell might be an occasional rapscallion but what’s a little seltzer between friends? Nobody I knew was actually afraid of a clown. These days, people cross to the other side of the street to avoid them. In restaurants, guests ask to sit in the no-clowning area. When looking for housing, home buyers insist on a place in a clown-free neighborhood. At the airports TSA scanners check their screens for any sign of a red nose secreted in the carry-ons. It’s an anti-clown epidemic. What happened? I think it all started with Steven King.
Remember the evil clown Pennywise, popularized in the 1986 King novel It? The book was nervewracking enough, then they had to go make a movie. That movie clown wormed his way into the psyche of millions, cementing the concept of the evil clown as a valid presence in modern culture. An irrational fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia but some people ask what’s so irrational? These days, clowns engaged in nefarious activities seem to be popping up everywhere. In Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, a malevolent clown disguised as a doctor destroys Pee-Wee Herman’s beloved bicycle after pretending to repair it. In Killer Klowns from Outer Space, carnivorous alien clowns invade Earth. In the 1982 supernatural thriller Poltergeist, a clown doll featured in several earlier scenes becomes possessed by a demonic presence in the finale, attempting to strangle a major character. Sideshow Bob, a clown on The Simpsons, continually tries to kill Bart. And even in The Brave Little Toaster, the main character (the toaster) has a nightmare about a clown seeking to short him out by spraying him with water, ala Clarabell. The Brave Little Toaster, for crying out loud! This mess is spreading like Donald Trump voodoo dolls. And it’s not all fantasy, either. There are nasty clowns in Real Life. And they’re everywhere.
Rise Of The Evil Clowns
In an apparent nationwide clown crime wave, gangs of hostile French teenagers in whiteface kept police busy last Fall by chasing and threatening passers-by with baseball bats, knives, axes and even chainsaws. One victim in Besancon was injured while fending off an axe attack and a Montpellier man was severely beaten by two clown thugs. The two crimes sparked the rise of vigilante clown-hunters who armed themselves and took after the grease-painted goons.
Italian performance artists DM Pranks, best known for pulling outrageous stunts as homicidal maniacs in makeup, took their act across the Atlantic to Las Vegas, invited by Jason Egan, owner of the haunted attraction Fright Dome. As a result, clowns armed with clubs, axes and the like chased hotel patrons on the Vegas strip and ambushed people in parking lots. In one particularly scary incident, a gang of ugly clowns temporarily took over a gas station convenience store. No lottery tickets were lost in the scuffle.
On September 14, deputies in McDuffie County, Georgia reported that Cameron Frails, 12, was walking with his little brother to a local bus stop when both the boys were accosted and chased by several men in clown costumes. A week later in Athens, Georgia, a middle-school girl was arrested for bringing a knife to school. She claimed it was for protection against clown attacks.
On September 27, police in Phoenix told reporters that two fast-food restaurants were robbed by suspects dressed as clowns, neither of them a McDonald’s.
Even Facebook gets into the act. A post from the account Ain’t Clownin’ Around promises students at Westside High School in Houston that the costumed characters “will be at school this Friday to kidnap students or kill teachers going to they cars….” Worse than criminals, these clowns are bad at grammar.
If you’re looking for shelter from the storm, we have good news. While dubious clowns have turned up in 37 of the 50 states, so far there have been no such reports from Montana, North or South Dakota, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Vermont or Alaska. Clearly, most of these varmints are cold-fearing clowns unlikely to show up in Saskatchewan. As an additional bonus, housing is cheap there.
Why bad clowns and why now? Psychologists are at a loss. Has our Clown Education System failed us? Has the recent demise in smaller circuses sent disillusioned clowns into the streets? Or is this just another phenomenon whose time has finally arrived?
Inevitably, there will be a backlash. Posses of oldsters from gated communities will lurch from the underbrush in turbo golf carts, running down these intruders and pulverizing them with nine-irons. Armed citizens in “hold-your-ground” states like Florida and Texas will reply with automatic weapons, collect up the clown bodies, have them mounted and displayed over their fireplaces. Under pressure, clown apparatus stores will be forced to discontinue their lines of Clown Fashion. If people can no longer tell a clown from a common miscreant, what’s the fun in it? Clown shenanigans will recede and the crime wave will be over. The clowns will inevitably be replaced, of course, by diehard Trump supporters in full regalia protesting the crooked election, staging massive trailer-park rallies and burning boxes of Mexican enchiladas. So don’t worry. There will always be clowns.
Hurricane Alert!
Well, it had to happen sooner or later. After a decade of stormless peace and prosperity, here comes the benignly-named Hurricane Matthew to blast apart our beaches, blow down our water oaks and reschedule our football games. It’s a corker, this Matthew, and could cause long-term power outages, disrupting even the regular Thursday appearance of The Flying Pie on October 13. We’ll do our best, but if we don’t show up, you’ll know why. If you’re not busy, you might want to come over and help us chainsaw the debris. Oh, and for you locals out there—careful with those surfboards.
That’s all, folks….
