Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Joe. Joe.
Speaker 1: There's Chuckles, this is Stuff you should know the podcast.
Speaker 1: And there's Jerry. She has a regular name. Hey. That
Speaker 1: was pretty good. Thanks. They could have also this could
Speaker 1: also be like how late night talk show hosts work too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Krusty the Clown was on my mind during a lot
Speaker 1: of this. I thought that was your step Meyers. Non guy,
Speaker 1: did you say that? It was just completely ludicrous joke.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched this show yet. I haven't earn I
Speaker 1: like the guy though, good guy. I don't watch anything
Speaker 1: but Conan. Yeah, I don't even watch Conan really. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do want Hodgeman's on. I record it, you know,
Speaker 1: and then watch it the next day. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: stay at whatever times Canna say, geez, I guess you
Speaker 1: don't go to Early Bird for dinner anymore either. You
Speaker 1: have to watch Conan. Hey early. Speaking of Conan, big
Speaker 1: shout out to Brian Kylie, Rob Kutner and Dan Cronin
Speaker 1: and Seth Meyers. No, they are writers for Conan and
Speaker 1: they treated me to a lunch that was very nice
Speaker 1: at Warner Brothers. Thanks for inviting me, guys, and uh, Conan.
Speaker 1: If you think we get neat fan gifts, you ought
Speaker 1: to see the stuff Conan gets. Oh, man, like what
Speaker 1: well there was? Well? I met the masterbaiting bear guy
Speaker 1: who I won't reveal his name, but he's the guy
Speaker 1: that's done it all these years. And someone sent him
Speaker 1: like a four ft tall tree trunk hand carved bear
Speaker 1: them bear. Really. Yeah, it was beautiful. I got pictures
Speaker 1: all this. And then Conan has a life size Lego
Speaker 1: Conan that someone sent him that's pretty, and a life
Speaker 1: size a hundred thousand dollars worth of Legos probably is,
Speaker 1: and then a life size ConA made of pencils that
Speaker 1: was really neat looking. Yeah. Wow, So they just had
Speaker 1: the stuff. I was like, man, I mean, I like
Speaker 1: our little photoshop stuff, but you know, Cooper needs to
Speaker 1: step it up. Nice life sized lego Josh and check.
Speaker 1: It would be kind of cool. Anyway, I just want
Speaker 1: to say thanks to those guys. Are awesome. Yes, and
Speaker 1: they're supporters of us, Thanks guys, yeah, supporters of you
Speaker 1: at least, and they're clowns. That was a great segaway, dude,
Speaker 1: great is that why you thank them in this episode, sure,
Speaker 1: because they're clowns. That that was good. You've scared of clowns.
Speaker 1: I'm not scared of clowns, not at all. I mean
Speaker 1: the scary clowns that are supposed to be scary and
Speaker 1: horror movies are creepy, of course, But like, I don't
Speaker 1: have any kind of a phobia. What's it called the
Speaker 1: official phobia colura phobia? Right? Which also includes um It's unofficial,
Speaker 1: by the way. UM. It also includes things like costumed
Speaker 1: characters like Mickey Mouse and UM, stuff like that. It's
Speaker 1: not just clowns, right, right, So it's the d s M,
Speaker 1: which is the infallible Bible of psychology and psychiatry. UM
Speaker 1: has an entry for fear of clowns, lumped together with
Speaker 1: other childhood fear of costume characters. That one I can
Speaker 1: I can identify what I think I ran away from,
Speaker 1: like snow White or something at Disney World when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, And there's just always been something about
Speaker 1: somebody being dressed up in costume that I've found unnerving.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna scare a lot of kids. I'm not overtly
Speaker 1: afraid of clown sure, but just costume people, and I
Speaker 1: get that, like I get like, you know, what are
Speaker 1: you hiding kind of thing, which I think is informs
Speaker 1: the basis of cool or a phobia. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: lot of the show, it turns out it is going
Speaker 1: to be about that, because it's one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting parts of clowning. But um, one guy later on
Speaker 1: in this article put it, it makes sense. It's like
Speaker 1: some clowns are just not great at it, and you know, well,
Speaker 1: like yeah, like lungeon a kid or something. And he says,
Speaker 1: they seem like they're on the attack. And he said
Speaker 1: a big part of teaching clowning is to teach personal
Speaker 1: space and like how to not come at a kid
Speaker 1: because they think you look weird. Well change and if
Speaker 1: you come at him like too fast, then it's it
Speaker 1: might scare them. And especially these days, to like, clowns
Speaker 1: today are still following a tradition from the early to
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century. Kids today aren't really hip with the
Speaker 1: mid twentieth century. They're not into like mid century modern
Speaker 1: like art or design or anything like that, and so
Speaker 1: clowns are about as creepy to them as like an
Speaker 1: old wooden toy. It's just awful little. It's an uncanny
Speaker 1: expet it And as a result, there's this two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight UM study to the UK that the BBC
Speaker 1: reported on that found that most of the children in
Speaker 1: this study, I think there was like two fifty population
Speaker 1: sample um feared and or disliked clowns. Most of the
Speaker 1: kids in the study. That's a lot of sad clowns, yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of scared kids. So think the point
Speaker 1: is to just keep clowns and kids away from one another.
Speaker 1: All right, are you ready to go back in time? Yes,
Speaker 1: happen the old way back machine. It's London and it's
Speaker 1: eighteen o three, and there's a man named Joseph Grimaldi
Speaker 1: and he, for all intents and purposes, has just invented
Speaker 1: the modern what we now think no as the clown. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very purposefully too, got the white makeup. They still call
Speaker 1: clowns Joey's because that was his character name. That's a
Speaker 1: nickname for clowns. Oh. He was he huge, like not
Speaker 1: only did he invent clowns, and like today still they
Speaker 1: they you know, tip their clown hat at Grimaldi for
Speaker 1: inventing the clown. He um in his day, he was huge.
Speaker 1: There was a legend that supposedly an eighth of the
Speaker 1: population of London had seen him on stage. A lot
Speaker 1: of people and still today on London's East End there
Speaker 1: um is a church that has an annual mass in
Speaker 1: his honor and everyone comes in full clown makeup and
Speaker 1: costume the church for Grimaldi, he was a big deal.
Speaker 1: He was very, very famous for the time. He was
Speaker 1: a very well known person. And he had a contemporary
Speaker 1: too at about the same time in France named de Brow,
Speaker 1: and both of them oddly were um. They had really
Speaker 1: kind of sad backstories. Yeah, which we'll get to that
Speaker 1: that's sort of lends itself, no mean to get ahead
Speaker 1: of ourselves. That lends itself to the dark underbelly of
Speaker 1: clowning and why it might have this reputation. But what
Speaker 1: clowning really sprung from was uh, from the beginning of
Speaker 1: time almost there were gestures essentially um and all types
Speaker 1: of all over the world than all cultures. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems to be universal. Um. There were at least as
Speaker 1: far back as the like bc um in Egypt, in
Speaker 1: China there are already jesters, uh, pranksters, clowns, tricksters, something
Speaker 1: of that ilk mischief makers. Yeah, and and in totally
Speaker 1: disparate societies that never met one another, like um in
Speaker 1: Native America. Different Native American societies had some version of
Speaker 1: the clown or the jester. Yeah. During a natural Navajo
Speaker 1: ritual chance, they would clowns would come into disrupt performances,
Speaker 1: bump into the dancers, Pueblo clowns. They would have a
Speaker 1: sacred offering and they would come bouncing in and and
Speaker 1: kind of mock what was going on and maybe like
Speaker 1: do alude sex act in the middle of this very
Speaker 1: serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah, or the spirits. That's
Speaker 1: a that's a big deal. That's a an an unusual
Speaker 1: role for someone to play. Sometimes they were considered shamans,
Speaker 1: like they were imbued with some sort of power as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were. They were held in high esteem. The same
Speaker 1: thing went on in Japan with the taikomochi. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: it means drum bearer. Drum bearer. They were in the
Speaker 1: red light districts and apparently, uh in the late sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Their deal was when the when the party starts to wane,
Speaker 1: they were to bounce in and like get the party
Speaker 1: started again. Hey. Yeah, And they were actually the original Geisha.
Speaker 1: They were men and they were later replaced by women.
Speaker 1: But the Taychomochi were the original versions of the Geisha,
Speaker 1: and the Taychomochi in the Red Light District actually ended
Speaker 1: up there because this period of peace settled over Japan
Speaker 1: because prior to that they were court jesters and also
Speaker 1: like military advisors. So once they weren't needed for that,
Speaker 1: they ended up in the Red Light District, like, let's
Speaker 1: get this party. Party. So in India, the the official
Speaker 1: jesters there were a member of the Brahmin, which was
Speaker 1: the highest social class. Right, Yeah, that's where it's the
Speaker 1: class that I who's a member of? Oh? Really did
Speaker 1: he say that? But that's what his mom said. When
Speaker 1: he thinks she thinks that who's married to Marge? She goes,
Speaker 1: surely your children are aware of your bram inheritance embarkoes
Speaker 1: so long as there's no follow up questions. Absolutely, fully, man,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Your knowledge is way deeper than mine.
Speaker 1: For the Simpsons too much. I think I stopped watching
Speaker 1: before you did too, But you still watch, right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I fell off again, yeah, on again, off again. Um.
Speaker 1: All right, So we're in India and the brah mean
Speaker 1: they One of the things you'll notice over and over
Speaker 1: here with jesters is what they really are are satirists.
Speaker 1: And their job is too and they were the only
Speaker 1: ones that could do this really was to poke fun
Speaker 1: at the leaders. They would they would never bounce in
Speaker 1: and talk about how great the king is. They would
Speaker 1: bounce in and talk about how fat the king is
Speaker 1: and make jokes about like how many meals have you
Speaker 1: had today? Well, yeah, and so there's their Their role
Speaker 1: was to say, um, poke holes into the king's stupid ideas.
Speaker 1: Whereas the rest of the court would be like, oh,
Speaker 1: great idea, Um, you should paint the Great Wall of China,
Speaker 1: whereas the jester would be like, yeah, that's a great idea.
Speaker 1: Where you going to get all that paint from your dummy? Well,
Speaker 1: speaking of China, I think they had some of the
Speaker 1: best names, and they have a great tradition of clowning,
Speaker 1: and they had legends named twisty Pole. Uh Baldi chun
Speaker 1: you that's the name of the podcast. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: And this one I don't get moving bucket. I don't
Speaker 1: get that one either. It probably makes sense in Chinese.
Speaker 1: Another one I came across was newly polished mirror. Really
Speaker 1: with the name of a clown. That's no baldly chun,
Speaker 1: you though. Interesting. Uh. And then in Poland, um, there
Speaker 1: was a legendary jester named Stanzik and I looked up
Speaker 1: this guy. He was He was a legend beyond clowning.
Speaker 1: He was like the political satirist of his day. Uh.
Speaker 1: He worked for three different kings and was very intelligent,
Speaker 1: political philosopher and satirist. That uh, it's still like revered
Speaker 1: in Poland, as you know, a necessary thing. Yeah. Supposedly
Speaker 1: one of his most famous stories was the king of
Speaker 1: Poland that he was working for had a bear imported
Speaker 1: from I think Russia or something, maybe Prussia, and um
Speaker 1: let it loose so he could hunt it. And the
Speaker 1: bear came back the king and the court and the
Speaker 1: queen and like almost killed everybody. And um, the king
Speaker 1: later criticized stan Chick for running off, and stan Chick said, well,
Speaker 1: I was smarter than letting a cage bear loose something
Speaker 1: along those lines, And the King was like, oh touche,
Speaker 1: and everyone laughed, and then the bear eight the king. Uh.
Speaker 1: In ancient room chuckers they used to call the court
Speaker 1: jester's stupidest stupidest Huh, yeah, that makes sense. Uh. Grimaldi
Speaker 1: himself came out of the rich tradition in Italy, um
Speaker 1: called the Comedia del arte tradition. And uh, this is
Speaker 1: in the fourteenth century, and it was some people say
Speaker 1: these were like the first professional actors in the world
Speaker 1: were coming out of Italy at the time in this program. Right.
Speaker 1: So at the time, you were basically if you were
Speaker 1: a clown or a jester or something, you were probably
Speaker 1: a member of a court. If you're a member of
Speaker 1: a Native American tribe or um in most parts of Africa,
Speaker 1: and you were a jester, you belong to the community
Speaker 1: rather than the specific leader. UM. But in Europe and
Speaker 1: China and Egypt and all over wherever there was royalty,
Speaker 1: there was usually a jester of some sort, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: But one of the ways that jester spread, especially saying
Speaker 1: in Europe, was from um a jester being forced to
Speaker 1: hit the road first, stepping over the line, getting kicked doubt.
Speaker 1: And that's one way that it kind of spread. Clowning
Speaker 1: originally spread to the masses was you may run across
Speaker 1: the court jesters down on his luck traveling along the
Speaker 1: road because he's kicked out a court all this great
Speaker 1: material exactly, but he's still a jester. He's gonna make
Speaker 1: you laugh, you know. Yeah, that makes sense, so that
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I think the king's tolerated to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: but if they're having a bad day, they're just like,
Speaker 1: all right, you're out here exactly. Yeah. And there's there's
Speaker 1: um at least some debate over whether how how much
Speaker 1: of the idea that a jester was the only one
Speaker 1: who could speak his mind towards the king. Um. Not
Speaker 1: that the idea was that more people in the court
Speaker 1: could speak their mind, but that the jester couldn't even
Speaker 1: speak their mind. In some cases, there were some documented
Speaker 1: versions like um, the one in Persia Kareem Charay who
Speaker 1: um told the king the Shahnaz Sardin apparently said there
Speaker 1: a short of shortage of food, and uh Kareem said, yes,
Speaker 1: I see that, your majesty is eating only five times
Speaker 1: a day, and then he made this little boatie spin,
Speaker 1: but he got the point across that, Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: shortage of food and you're not helping anything. Your cloister
Speaker 1: it up here in your ivory tower, and um, you
Speaker 1: need to open up your eyes, your majesty, I'd like
Speaker 1: to see some of Baldi chunyus material. I would love
Speaker 1: to see that too. I bet he killed Oh bet
Speaker 1: he did as well, Chuck. So we'll get to what
Speaker 1: clowning is specifically right after this. Alright, clowning, my friend,
Speaker 1: is a lot of things, but what it is in
Speaker 1: all cases is exaggeration. Um. Movements are exaggerated, your appearances exaggerated.
Speaker 1: That's why they wear big goofy suits and big goofy
Speaker 1: use the makeup to makeup. Of course, a lot of
Speaker 1: people look at a clown and say you're disguising something.
Speaker 1: The point of clown makeup is quite the opposite. It's
Speaker 1: meant to exaggerate the emotions that are already there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like the big, huge smile or frown, the big frown. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And I read one pro clowns um description of what
Speaker 1: clowning means, and he said, clowns aren't actors. We're not
Speaker 1: supposed to pretend. What clowns do is exaggerate the the
Speaker 1: emotions that we already have inside. So if you're a
Speaker 1: really good clown, you're going to play up. You know
Speaker 1: that the anger at being rebuffed when you're trying to
Speaker 1: get a laugh from somebody, or you're gonna play up
Speaker 1: your stage fright at performing in front of some people.
Speaker 1: Like when you see a clown like acting a certain way,
Speaker 1: you're you're supposed to understand that what they're they're actually
Speaker 1: feeling that, right, then it's just being it's it's being
Speaker 1: broadcast on a clown scale. Yeah, And part of that
Speaker 1: is for comedic effect, and part of it is uh
Speaker 1: quite literally because in a circus, uh, you have a
Speaker 1: lot of people and you may may be sitting very
Speaker 1: far away from you. So these big movements and the
Speaker 1: slapstick um which actually I never knew this slapstick was
Speaker 1: an actual physical tool. Never heard of that. Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It's like looks like a paddle with another paddle hinge
Speaker 1: to it. And back in the old days of the
Speaker 1: Comedia dell Art in Italy, they would um strike someone
Speaker 1: with this paddle and then of course the other paddle
Speaker 1: on the hinge would smack really hard on the on
Speaker 1: the wood and so they could hit someone not too hard,
Speaker 1: but make it sound huge, sound like they had been
Speaker 1: hit really hard. And that's where slapstick comes from. That's
Speaker 1: the word slaps and um, we keep mentioning Comedia dell Art. Um,
Speaker 1: that's where Grimaldi came out of. And this was the
Speaker 1: original place where the clown really first made it on
Speaker 1: the stage. Because remember when Comedia dell Art was establishing itself,
Speaker 1: for the most part, clowns were relegated to court gester
Speaker 1: ship right, yeah, than mimes later yea, so exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: So Comedia dell Art was this, um, this player production,
Speaker 1: and in the middle of it, or in different points, um,
Speaker 1: there'd be like a break or an intermission or something
Speaker 1: like that, and that would come like the jugglers and
Speaker 1: the baton twirlers. And there were also little skits and
Speaker 1: sketches and plays themselves that were intended for comic relief.
Speaker 1: And one of those is called the harlequin Aide, and
Speaker 1: Harlequin you recognize Harlequin as one of the jokers, the jesters,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um, there's actually a character in
Speaker 1: the Harlequin Aide that was a clown, and Grimaldi originally
Speaker 1: played that character. And that character was, um kind of
Speaker 1: a bumpkin, a rustic rube. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the word clown supposedly comes from a sixteenth century German
Speaker 1: word for like a country bumpkin um. So that was
Speaker 1: the original character. Well, Grimaldi came along in about eighteen
Speaker 1: hundred and started playing this in the pantomime, which was
Speaker 1: that break in the media dell Art for comic relief exactly.
Speaker 1: And then the Harlequinade was a a little mini play
Speaker 1: that was a panomime in the Comedia dell Art, right,
Speaker 1: and then the clown was a character in the Harlequinade,
Speaker 1: and Grimaldi played it, but he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not feeling this country bumpkin thing. I think this
Speaker 1: guy's actually highly sophisticated, very smart, hilarious and body and
Speaker 1: he started to play the character like that, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the clown went from a minor supporting
Speaker 1: character to the reason the people were coming to the
Speaker 1: Comedia dell Art productions the panomime, so they were stealing
Speaker 1: the thunder of the legit actors exactly. And from that
Speaker 1: moment the clown went from specifically a rustic country boob
Speaker 1: to the clown that we start to understand today with
Speaker 1: face pain and like colored hair and everything. Did you
Speaker 1: just laugh as I said, boom, No, I just rustic
Speaker 1: country boob sounded like the name of like my memoir
Speaker 1: or something. It just struck me as a nice title.
Speaker 1: I just want a small, small royalty when you publish those, Okay,
Speaker 1: except I would be Rustic City boob. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of play on that whole thing. Yeah, that big
Speaker 1: it's even better n Sharknado and now the title for
Speaker 1: your memoirs, you're on fire. Um, So clowning. One thing
Speaker 1: that you'll also notice the clowns do a lot and
Speaker 1: this is not every clown, but a lot of clowning involves,
Speaker 1: um play violence like slapstick. Yeah, like they're hitting. It's
Speaker 1: like the three students, they're hitting each other a lot.
Speaker 1: They're knocking each other down. Um. A big clown thing
Speaker 1: to do is to like disrupt the the legit act.
Speaker 1: Like we're clowns and we're gonna do, uh this neat
Speaker 1: thing where we all hold this ladder and climate and
Speaker 1: then another clown will come in and bust the ladder
Speaker 1: down and everyone will fall and it's all part of
Speaker 1: the act. But a lot of the Navajo clowns, yeah,
Speaker 1: same thing, basically to disrupt the act. That's that's happening
Speaker 1: through violence, or they may just be jerks and like
Speaker 1: smell my flour ops you get a squirt in the face.
Speaker 1: So if you're paying attention to a group of clowns
Speaker 1: in their routine, you'll actually notice that, Um, there's usually
Speaker 1: a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's a hierarchy
Speaker 1: for sure, there actually is, and it depends on you
Speaker 1: can tell who's in charge before the show even starts
Speaker 1: based on their makeup. Actually it's it's um delineated by that.
Speaker 1: So first you've got the white face clown, which Grimaldi
Speaker 1: was one, so is Boza, the clown who will talk
Speaker 1: about later. Um, but the white face clown is the
Speaker 1: one who's in charge. And going back to the three stooges,
Speaker 1: they actually um get across the hierarchy of clowns pretty clearly.
Speaker 1: So the white face clown is mostly he's still a clown, um,
Speaker 1: but he's Boston the other ones around. He's a signing job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he might be the the most um hostile out
Speaker 1: of all of them. And then after that, and again,
Speaker 1: the white face clown has completely white paint all over
Speaker 1: his face and head and neck. Her fringe counterpart, you're
Speaker 1: talking about, the clown that he created was a white
Speaker 1: flace clown. Um, the perrot p I e r r
Speaker 1: O t po sounds good and that's a kind of
Speaker 1: clown as well. But the pierrot is a white face clown, right,
Speaker 1: So the white face clown is in charge of he
Speaker 1: or she is at the top of the heat of
Speaker 1: the After that you have the August clown. The August
Speaker 1: clown is the one that um Usually they have that sloppy,
Speaker 1: oversized um outfit, huge like suspenders hanging on hanging even
Speaker 1: bigger pants up. Um. The makeup is probably like flesh toned, yeah,
Speaker 1: but like the eyes will like be super arched and
Speaker 1: like the smile will be really big and red. Probably
Speaker 1: a big red nose, although I think the the white
Speaker 1: face clown can have that too. But if you have
Speaker 1: a white face and an August clown next to each other,
Speaker 1: the August clown's red ball nose is probably going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit bigger. And the August clown is
Speaker 1: um definitely the one who takes orders from the white
Speaker 1: faced clown, but um also a little more um hilarious maybe,
Speaker 1: so like the August clown would be um maybe Larry
Speaker 1: Larry probably curly though, because you get he's kind of
Speaker 1: a boob. You know, Yeah, he's not a rustic country boom,
Speaker 1: but he's just you know, kind of fun and lovable
Speaker 1: and and he's still taking orders. What about simp sm
Speaker 1: completely breaks this whole analogy apart. So with the Augusta clown,
Speaker 1: it was um invented by a man named lu Jacobs,
Speaker 1: and there was there was a team Albert Freatellini and
Speaker 1: Lu Jacobs a clown team, and Fredlini was also part
Speaker 1: of the Fredellini Brothers and he was the one who
Speaker 1: invented the red nose. Oh yeah, which I thought it
Speaker 1: was pretty interest Yeah it is. Yeah. But then then
Speaker 1: we have the tramp or the hobo, right, that's the
Speaker 1: next guy. Yeah, that one was invented by a dude
Speaker 1: named Emmett Kelly, and he actually invented the sad Hobo clown,
Speaker 1: which you can immediately bring to mind. I would imagine
Speaker 1: just you're hearing sad Hobo clown, the downcasts, frown face,
Speaker 1: the stubble like five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed
Speaker 1: jacket patches, and the bendle bendel bag on the stick.
Speaker 1: So Emmett Kelly comes up with the sad Hobo clown,
Speaker 1: and that's become a fixture of clowning, and that tramp
Speaker 1: hobo or bag lady clown is the one that's the
Speaker 1: lowest rung on the ladder, the highest on the totem pole.
Speaker 1: It kind of occurred to me when I was reading
Speaker 1: this that they're sort of I mean, are they making
Speaker 1: fun of the homeless? You know, in a way. I
Speaker 1: think that's probably a sticky thing that clowns don't like
Speaker 1: to address, but very very much so. I mean that's
Speaker 1: clearly what they're they're aping is you know, closes or tattered.
Speaker 1: I don't have a place to lay my head, and
Speaker 1: I'm a sad hobo. And you have to understand, like
Speaker 1: Emmet Kelly came up with this in the thirties or forties,
Speaker 1: maybe at a time when it was okay to make
Speaker 1: fun of people who were down on their luck like that.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but yes, And I thought the
Speaker 1: same thing too. I was like, wow, this is like
Speaker 1: making a clown version of homeless people. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: what they would say, my guess is that they would say, there,
Speaker 1: you should have a lot of sympathy for the hobo clown.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and you're we're trying to elicit sympathy, not
Speaker 1: necessarily laughs at my expense. Yeah, even though they do that,
Speaker 1: But they're the ones who are like, um, sweeping the
Speaker 1: mess that the other one's made up when the spotlight
Speaker 1: goes out, trying on the inside and outside to sweep
Speaker 1: sweeping the circus debt. Those are the three big ones.
Speaker 1: There's also a character clown, which is makes up a
Speaker 1: fourth class of clown. Rodeo clowns fall into that, although
Speaker 1: they're technically more like the working clown there, like a
Speaker 1: sheep dog clown, but a character clown would be like
Speaker 1: a keystone cop or an astronaut clown. Basically, if you
Speaker 1: can come up with the profession that uses a costume
Speaker 1: and then make a clown version of it, that's a
Speaker 1: character clown. So those are the doctor clown. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: what was that video hospital clowning on Found Footage Festival. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this video Josh found is a guy that made a
Speaker 1: series of clown instructional videos. A medical clown which they
Speaker 1: do valuable, valuable service by going to children's hospitals and
Speaker 1: things and kids feel better. But this guy did some
Speaker 1: instructional videos on how to do this and what to
Speaker 1: do and what not to do. What not to do
Speaker 1: is very important. Don't touch a covered part because you
Speaker 1: never know if they've just had their leg amputated, was
Speaker 1: one piece of advice. It's so funny. Um, yeah, so go. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you go, if you're listening to this on our
Speaker 1: website on that the podcast page for this EPISOD it
Speaker 1: should be in the links. Yeah, we'll definitely put that
Speaker 1: in there. If not, and you don't feel like going
Speaker 1: to our website, just look up Hospital Clowning Found Footage
Speaker 1: Festival and it will come up. It's wonderful, it is.
Speaker 1: It is delightful. We we talked about it on our
Speaker 1: Internet round Up video show as well. So the big
Speaker 1: question here is why is this funny? Why do we
Speaker 1: need this? Why do people indulge clowns? Um, we're not indulge.
Speaker 1: Why do they like clowns? It's a better way to
Speaker 1: put Why do we let clowns get away with making
Speaker 1: fun of the homeless? Um? I think a good reason
Speaker 1: that's pointed out in the article on how stuff works
Speaker 1: is that, um, we have a very rigid, complex society
Speaker 1: that we live in, and there are rules in their
Speaker 1: social order and uh, you know, we have to maintain
Speaker 1: our good behavior, and so clowning is a safety valve,
Speaker 1: is how this author put it. Two. You know, we
Speaker 1: can live vicariously through the clown who breaks down those
Speaker 1: social norms and says, I'll do whatever I want. I'll
Speaker 1: make fun of the king, or I'll know, squirt this
Speaker 1: little kid in the face with water. Everybody hates that.
Speaker 1: And um, you know since the French clown he'd beat
Speaker 1: a kid to death with his cane in the street
Speaker 1: from making fun of him. That's taking it too far.
Speaker 1: Well he did, and he I looked this up. He
Speaker 1: went to trial and was acquitted, but um, apparently it
Speaker 1: was like the trial of the century because everyone wanted
Speaker 1: to hear him speak. Oh he was a silent clown.
Speaker 1: Was a silent clown. Um the pioas So, yeah, he
Speaker 1: had a kid that was making fun of him and
Speaker 1: he killed him. He didn't mean to you meant to
Speaker 1: hit him. He didn't get me to kill him. He
Speaker 1: said it was a single blow, and I imagine he
Speaker 1: was just like not again, yeah, or he would mind
Speaker 1: whatever that is. So I want to address what you said.
Speaker 1: The role of clowns are and this is gonna be
Speaker 1: like the most sour puss thing you've heard today, but
Speaker 1: it really makes sense in a way. So, yes, the
Speaker 1: role of the clown is to vent the general populations
Speaker 1: frustrations that abuse heaped on us by the ruling class,
Speaker 1: or the conventions of society or what happened, and the
Speaker 1: clown allows us to to feel better about things because
Speaker 1: this is being made fun of, its being addressed. But
Speaker 1: you can also make the case that in that sense,
Speaker 1: the clown satire anything that provides that function in society
Speaker 1: actually just keeps the status quo in place, because rather
Speaker 1: than any real change coming about from those simmering frustrations
Speaker 1: that are aren't allowed to event that once they're released
Speaker 1: then we can just move along. But nothing's actually really changed.
Speaker 1: It's been satirized, and so we're satisfied to a certain degree.
Speaker 1: You know. I know it's a really like kind of
Speaker 1: view of clowns in general, but it really does keep
Speaker 1: the status quo in place, and a really effective ruler
Speaker 1: will allow him or herself to have just enough fun
Speaker 1: poke that so that um he or she appears to
Speaker 1: have been brought down a peg, but really the power
Speaker 1: is totally unchecked by that. Yeah, interesting, we should do
Speaker 1: one on satire. That's a pretty rich subject. I think
Speaker 1: the function of a satirist is um important. But um,
Speaker 1: you do raise a good point, like at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, what does change come about because of it?
Speaker 1: Or is it just well, at least we all got
Speaker 1: to laugh right at this, which serves, which serves a function?
Speaker 1: It does serve a function, It serves to play kate. Yeah, interesting,
Speaker 1: thanks man, that is that's all mine, Josh right, copyright.
Speaker 1: So we should probably take a break, um, and then
Speaker 1: we'll come back and talk a little more about you
Speaker 1: guessed it clowns. All right, we're back. And by the way, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have heard some weird sounds in the background
Speaker 1: of this one, it's because some jerk in this building
Speaker 1: is using a drill. You're not insane, and they're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing that right now. But it's hopefully
Speaker 1: it's not too distracting. It's sort of here and there.
Speaker 1: I just want to mention that, Yeah, you're not hearing
Speaker 1: the hume. So careers and clowning, my friend, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: mentioned hospital clowning. That's definitely a way to go. University
Speaker 1: of Haifa in Israel has a I think a bachelor's
Speaker 1: degree in medical clowning, and it's exactly what it sounds like.
Speaker 1: You're you learn to go into hospitals and raise the spirits,
Speaker 1: usually of kids, but I think it applies to just
Speaker 1: about anybody in a hospital who wants to have their
Speaker 1: spirits picked up and react. Well, the clowns think kids
Speaker 1: mainly medical clown I know, I like, get out of
Speaker 1: my hospital room. Yeah, an adult that's going in for
Speaker 1: like a bypasser. Try it's a clown in the room. No,
Speaker 1: that's just my thing. That just makes a clown want
Speaker 1: to try harder. Just no bad touch, don't touch any
Speaker 1: covered parts. So, UM, membership is waning these days, as
Speaker 1: in the World Clown Association. UM, they don't keep exact stats,
Speaker 1: but they UM anecdotally say that it's drop by about
Speaker 1: a third in recent years. Um. But like I said,
Speaker 1: you can be a pro clown. You can go to
Speaker 1: Wringling Brothers as a clown college in Sarasota. Dude, it
Speaker 1: is brutal as far as competition goes what to get in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. So in two thousand and thirteen they had
Speaker 1: five thirty one applicants from around the world and they
Speaker 1: let in two clowns. They selected fourteen to come to camp.
Speaker 1: They hired eleven. Yeah, that's pretty pretty competitive. Um, and
Speaker 1: there's only twenty six total clowns that work for all
Speaker 1: of England. Brothers, Barnum and Bailor. They shuffle them around
Speaker 1: the three circuses that are going on, and they didn't
Speaker 1: give him point in time. Interesting, but it pays pretty well.
Speaker 1: They inject them with formalde hyde and put them in
Speaker 1: a cryogenic chamber. You will never die, ship them to
Speaker 1: a different part of the country, regenerate them, put on
Speaker 1: their red nose. Then it's all good show time circusl A,
Speaker 1: you can do a lot worse than that, my friend,
Speaker 1: if you want to go that route. It's a different
Speaker 1: kind of clowning, but it's I think a little more
Speaker 1: of the old Italian and European style. It depends w
Speaker 1: they go for both. Yea, they go for like a
Speaker 1: character comedy and then I think like physical slapsticks straight up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you can make up to two k a year
Speaker 1: at circus. I think that's like for all performers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at Wrinkling Brothers. Apparently for clowns they can make up
Speaker 1: to nine two K a year. K means a thousand,
Speaker 1: that's right, and by that I mean dollars. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you're into French clowning and can go to Paris and
Speaker 1: study at the ecole A international de Theater Jacques leco
Speaker 1: Jacques Lecoq theater, Jacques Lecoq. That was pronounced Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: it's not leco No. It's definitely the coup, okay, So
Speaker 1: he don't you remember lacock sportief like um tennis ware
Speaker 1: from the eighties. I called it leco No, it's lacoc okay.
Speaker 1: I mean either that I have been saying things wrong
Speaker 1: for thirty years, which is entirely possible, but I'm almost
Speaker 1: positive because think about he's a clown, Jacques Lecoq. I
Speaker 1: mean it's very funny. I know, it's hilarious. It's way
Speaker 1: funnier than Jacques leco So if it is Jacques leco
Speaker 1: this guy should have thought his name out a little better.
Speaker 1: It's a good point. So Jacques Lecoq was a big
Speaker 1: innovator in clowning, and he had a school um that
Speaker 1: this is still based on, you know, in Paris. But
Speaker 1: he had a school back in the day where his
Speaker 1: big thing was um called the via negativa or negativa,
Speaker 1: which is basically basically like, he doesn't say what you're
Speaker 1: doing is right or wrong. Um, he's he's not there
Speaker 1: to teach you a set of skills. He's to teach
Speaker 1: you to do what you do best right and to
Speaker 1: embrace your own style. It's pretty neat. I found that
Speaker 1: just about anywhere um I saw like how to clown
Speaker 1: or anything like that. During research. One of the main
Speaker 1: things was figure out your style of clown and it's
Speaker 1: based on who you are, and then just figure out
Speaker 1: how to bring that out as big as possible, but
Speaker 1: that it was all about you and and figuring out
Speaker 1: your own jam um. They also suggest that you should
Speaker 1: probably have at least one talent like still walking, juggling
Speaker 1: balloon animals is a big one too, something like that.
Speaker 1: But they pointed out that you should be able to
Speaker 1: be funny with no props whatsoever. And then you start
Speaker 1: incorporating props, well, it's probably good to practice them along
Speaker 1: the way. Give up that rubber chicken though, and really
Speaker 1: work for a little while and and be funny without
Speaker 1: the rubber chicken. Then when you add the rubber chicken,
Speaker 1: you're really going to be funny, right, Um, but that
Speaker 1: all is based on Remember, clowns are exaggerations of a
Speaker 1: human personality and specifically that person's personality, and so that's
Speaker 1: what you're supposed to work on. Initially. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: I think are we now at the the colerophobia? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so? Why do people hate clowns? Why are
Speaker 1: people afraid of clowns? So initially we talked about Grimaldi
Speaker 1: and Debrow having pretty grim backstories, and like everybody knew
Speaker 1: it at the time. Everyone went to de bros Um trial.
Speaker 1: Grimaldi apparently used to crack that he was grim all day,
Speaker 1: but he made you, he delighted you at night, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: play on his name, right, So everyone knew that he
Speaker 1: had this depressing life. His son was an alcoholic clown
Speaker 1: who died of drink at thirty one. Yeah, his father
Speaker 1: was a stage father, a tyrant. Supposedly his first wife
Speaker 1: died during childbirth. Um. Grimaldi was in bad physical shape
Speaker 1: from all the slapstick that he performed over the years,
Speaker 1: and everyone knew this, and yet he was a clown
Speaker 1: and no one thought, oh, that's kind of weird for
Speaker 1: a clown, or very ironic for a clown to have
Speaker 1: a terrible life, in part because Grimaldi invented the modern clown.
Speaker 1: So that was the conception of the modern clown for
Speaker 1: a very long time. It wasn't until the early twentieth
Speaker 1: century that clowns were taken away from this idea that
Speaker 1: they were adults, pranksters um kind of body humor and
Speaker 1: placed squarely in the realm of little kids, and they
Speaker 1: were expected to be happy all the time and kind
Speaker 1: of these fantastic creatures that cannot possibly ever really be
Speaker 1: that way. So automatically clowns were set up to be
Speaker 1: something kind of creepy because they were held to these
Speaker 1: really high standards that they could never meet. And for
Speaker 1: a little while it worked like Bose of the Clown
Speaker 1: was huge. There was apparently, so Bose of the Clown
Speaker 1: on TV was a franchise, right, so if you were
Speaker 1: a local TV station, you could have your own Bows
Speaker 1: of the Clown and put on your own Bows of
Speaker 1: the Clown show. But at the main one at w
Speaker 1: g N in Chicago, the waiting list for tickets to
Speaker 1: the studio audience was ten years long, and as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Willard Scott played Bozo and Willard Scott
Speaker 1: went on to become Ronald McDonald from playing Bozo and
Speaker 1: the Ronald McDonald was inspired by Bozo because McDonald sponsored
Speaker 1: the Bozo Show and they saw how crazy popular this
Speaker 1: clown was with the kids, so they made their own clown,
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald, so that they could better market to kids exactly.
Speaker 1: And it worked, it did. But then eventually, I think
Speaker 1: there was always this idea that this is a little weird,
Speaker 1: this is creepy, like nobody can be that happy. What
Speaker 1: do you you know, what's going on there? Well, Charles
Speaker 1: Dickens wrote Um the Memoir, He edited the memoir of
Speaker 1: Grimaldi when he died, and he basically laid it all
Speaker 1: out there about what a ghastly, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: person that this guy was in real life. And it
Speaker 1: was a huge hit, Like people bought this book like crazy.
Speaker 1: So you coupled that with um Pierrot or what was
Speaker 1: his real name, Debrow who killed a kid, goes on trial,
Speaker 1: and so you have this very sort of dark seed planet.
Speaker 1: And then, like you said, years later, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's not meant for body adults at you know, getting
Speaker 1: drunk watching Shakespeare's Let's take these guys and put them
Speaker 1: around our kids. Yeah, exactly, So you have a recipe
Speaker 1: for at the very least clowns to be confusing and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden chuck out of nowhere. In
Speaker 1: the worst case scenario, nightmare comes to pass. John Wayne Gacy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that was in all the parents back to
Speaker 1: their heads, like this is a little creepy. This is
Speaker 1: a grown man hanging out with my kids, and he's
Speaker 1: he's he's sort of acting out these weird, happy, happy
Speaker 1: violent things, like he's tripping people and squirting them, and
Speaker 1: he looks creepy. And now he's another killer. Yes, he's
Speaker 1: a serial killer as a clown, Pogo to the clown,
Speaker 1: but yet serial killer of the worst variety. And he
Speaker 1: was larger in charge because I think Polo the clown
Speaker 1: was a white faced clown I remember correctly. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's you look up the pictures of Gaycey
Speaker 1: as a clown. That's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he, uh, you know how many kids he killed?
Speaker 1: Like thirty three young boys? Yeah, thirty five and he
Speaker 1: was convicted of thirty three, I believe. But he didn't
Speaker 1: help the case of clowns. Uh, by like when he
Speaker 1: went to prison, he would still paint pictures of clowns
Speaker 1: and of himself as as a clown, and it was
Speaker 1: like he had he had quite a collection of paintings
Speaker 1: from prison that did not do anything but reinforced the
Speaker 1: fact that clowns are creepy, right, And of course there
Speaker 1: was like international news a clown found to be a
Speaker 1: killer and sexual predatory serial version of it. It definitely
Speaker 1: captured the public imagination from that point on. It was like,
Speaker 1: clowns are now overtly sinister. Yeah, and in movies, killer
Speaker 1: clowns from outer space or it. Well, yeah, Stephen King's
Speaker 1: Pennywise the Clown, Yeah, that was one of the legendary
Speaker 1: scary clowns. That new one on American Horror Story, Twisty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you seen that one? But if you look at
Speaker 1: it so so John Wayne Gaze is scary in real life.
Speaker 1: Pennywise the Clown pretty scary, but still you know, masterfully scary.
Speaker 1: Now you've gotten to Twisty the Clown on American Horror Story,
Speaker 1: and he's like, he's as scary as it comes. But
Speaker 1: think about the amount of violence they're having to imbue
Speaker 1: in this guy and show graphically because this frightening clown
Speaker 1: has become such a trope over time, it's just got
Speaker 1: to get more intense and extreme, right Like, eventually, just
Speaker 1: to really get the full thrill, like theater promoters are
Speaker 1: going to have to stand the clown and to kill
Speaker 1: half the audience to scare the other half in real life,
Speaker 1: So what you're saying is it's a loop, an endless
Speaker 1: loop where clowns are getting worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think eventually it'll just be so
Speaker 1: played out that people be like, oh, a scary clown. Seriously,
Speaker 1: you actually use this. And eventually what will happen was,
Speaker 1: or will I think be that clowns can There'll be
Speaker 1: a door and opening for clowns to regain some of
Speaker 1: their innocence from that, but to a negotiated degree, because
Speaker 1: they'll have gone through that period of being overtly frightening
Speaker 1: and associated with something really sinister lurking beneath the surface,
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll expect a little less from clowns and
Speaker 1: then therefore they can take their rightful place once more.
Speaker 1: But having to go through this, it sounds to me
Speaker 1: like you're predicting a clown renaissance, A clown renaissance, A
Speaker 1: well maintained and tasteful clown renaissance. Maybe not a Golden
Speaker 1: Age or a Heyday, but something that's stable indefinitely. Well.
Speaker 1: You know, the other thing I think we talked about
Speaker 1: this on the internet roundup is the French teenagers that
Speaker 1: were dressing a clowns, causing mayhem and they're not helping anything.
Speaker 1: None of that helps. And then there's other cases I've
Speaker 1: seen where where was it I don't think it was
Speaker 1: England where there was just this creepy clown just just
Speaker 1: sit there hanging around. I think it was in Canada, Canada.
Speaker 1: It might have been in both actutions. None of these
Speaker 1: things are helping legit clowns. I'm sure they're all like, thanks, guys,
Speaker 1: we're just dressing up and being creepy on a bench,
Speaker 1: just sitting midnight. Yeah, at midnight. But when you think
Speaker 1: about it, there's it could just be a clown that
Speaker 1: got up work. I mean, why is that so creepy?
Speaker 1: I don't think that's it. Um. I want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to a Smithsonian article that we used
Speaker 1: in part for this. It's called The History and Psychology
Speaker 1: of clowns being scary, which is pretty clunky title, but
Speaker 1: it was a very good, comprehensive, exhaustive article on that,
Speaker 1: So go check that out. Agreed, Uh, you got anything
Speaker 1: else right now? No, if you want to know more
Speaker 1: about clowns, type that word in the search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. And we should do one
Speaker 1: on just how circus is in general works someday. Have
Speaker 1: we not done that? No, we haven't. We've done circusy things.
Speaker 1: We've done like flame meeting, daredevil's juggling, swords, swallowing like
Speaker 1: human cannonballs, all that jam. But no, no, what's left circuses,
Speaker 1: how circus work? Yeah? But I mean what's left that's
Speaker 1: not those things? We can? We can, We'll find it. Okay. Uh,
Speaker 1: I think I said search part, didn't I? I think so? Well,
Speaker 1: it's time for the listener maw. I'm gonna call this
Speaker 1: um oh, saving a marriage. Okay, Hey guys, my wife,
Speaker 1: I want to give you credit for making two young
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Speaker 1: I have been married for almost a year a our anniversary,
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Speaker 1: Actually they were brother and sisters, so that's cross. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rock
Speaker 1: and roll. We spent a lot of time in the car,
Speaker 1: though we always end up taking turns with one person
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