Speaker 1: Hello, everyone. Are you scared of clowns? I'm not. I
Speaker 1: think clowns are pretty fun and awesome. But a lot
Speaker 1: of people are scared of clowns. So we explain why
Speaker 1: because there is a reason. And we talked about all
Speaker 1: things clowns in this episode from April, and it's called
Speaker 1: How Clowns Work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe, Joe. There's Chuckles. This is Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know the podcast, and there's Jerry. She has a regular name. Hey.
Speaker 1: That was pretty good. Thanks. They could have also this
Speaker 1: could also be like how late night talk show hosts
Speaker 1: work too. Yeah, Krusty the clown was on my mind
Speaker 1: during a lot of this. I thought that was your
Speaker 1: Steth Meyers. No funny guy. I did he say that?
Speaker 1: It was just completely ludicrous joke. I haven't watched this
Speaker 1: show yet. I haven't even I like the guy though,
Speaker 1: good guy. I don't watch anything but Conan. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't even watch Conan really. Yeah. I do want Hodgemans on.
Speaker 1: I record it, you know, and then watch it the
Speaker 1: next day. Yeah. I don't stay up the whatever time.
Speaker 1: I canna say geez, I guess you don't go to
Speaker 1: Early Bird for dinner anymore either. Yeah, you have to watch. Hey.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Conan, big shout out to Brian Kylie, Rob
Speaker 1: Kuttner and Dan Cronin when seth Meyers. No, they are
Speaker 1: writers for Conan and they treated me to launch. That
Speaker 1: was very nice at Warner Brothers. Thanks for inviting me, guys,
Speaker 1: and uh, Conan. If you think we get neat fan gifts,
Speaker 1: you ought to see the stuff Conan gets. Oh, man,
Speaker 1: like what well there was? Well, I met the master
Speaker 1: baiting bear guy who I won't reveal his name he
Speaker 1: probably should, but he's the guy that's done it all
Speaker 1: these years. And someone sent him like a four ft
Speaker 1: tall treat round can carved bear them bear. Really Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was beautiful. I got pictures all this. And then
Speaker 1: Conan has a life size Lego Conan that someone sent
Speaker 1: him that's pretty neat, and a life size a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars worth of Legos probably is. And then a
Speaker 1: life size ConA made of pencils that was really neat looking. Yeah. Wow,
Speaker 1: So they just had the stuff. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I mean, I like our little photoshop stuff, but you know,
Speaker 1: Cooper needs to step it up. Nice life size lego
Speaker 1: Josh and chucking it would be kind of cool. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thanks to those guys. They
Speaker 1: are awesome and they're supporters of us. Thanks guys, Yeah,
Speaker 1: supporters of you at least. And they're clowns. That was
Speaker 1: a great segaway, Dude, great Is that why you thank
Speaker 1: them in this episode? Sure? Because they're clowns. That that
Speaker 1: was good. You've scared of clowns. I'm not scared of clowns,
Speaker 1: not at all. I mean the scary clowns that are
Speaker 1: supposed to be scary and horror movies are creepy, of course,
Speaker 1: But like, I don't have any kind of a phobia.
Speaker 1: What's it called the official phobia clurro phobia, right, which
Speaker 1: also includes um it's unofficial, by the way, the real thing. Um.
Speaker 1: It also includes things like costumed characters like Mickey Mouse
Speaker 1: and um, stuff like that. It's not just clowns, right, right,
Speaker 1: So it's a The d s M, which is the
Speaker 1: infallible Bible of psychology and psychiatry, UM has an entry
Speaker 1: for fear of clowns, lumped together with other childhood fear
Speaker 1: of costume characters that one I can I can identify
Speaker 1: what I think I ran away from, like snow White
Speaker 1: or something at Disney World when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: And there's just always been something about somebody being dressed
Speaker 1: up in costume that I've found unnerving. I'm gonna scare
Speaker 1: a lot of kids. I'm not overtly afraid of clown sure,
Speaker 1: but just costume people. And I get that, like I
Speaker 1: get like, you know, what are you hiding kind of thing,
Speaker 1: which I think is in arms the basis of color
Speaker 1: a phobia. Yeah, and a lot of the show, it
Speaker 1: turns out it's going to be about that because it's
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting parts of clowning. But um,
Speaker 1: one guy later on in this article put it, it
Speaker 1: makes sense. It's like some clowns are just not great
Speaker 1: at it, and you know, well, like yeah, like lungeon
Speaker 1: a kid or something. And he says, they seem like
Speaker 1: they're on the attack. And he said a big part
Speaker 1: of teaching clowning is to teach personal space and like
Speaker 1: how to not come at a kid because they think
Speaker 1: you look weird exchange, and if you come at him
Speaker 1: like too fast, then it's it might scare him. And
Speaker 1: especially these days to like clowns today are still following
Speaker 1: a tradition from the early to mid twentie century. Kids
Speaker 1: today aren't really hip with the mid twenty century. They're
Speaker 1: not into like mid century modern like art or design
Speaker 1: or anything like that, and so clowns are about as
Speaker 1: creepy to them as like an old wooden toy, right right,
Speaker 1: It's just awful little, it's uncan ex don't get it.
Speaker 1: And as a result, there's this two thousand and eight
Speaker 1: UM study to the UK that the BBC reported on
Speaker 1: that found that most of the children in this study,
Speaker 1: I think there was like two fifty population sample UM
Speaker 1: feared and or disliked clowns. Yeah, most of the kids
Speaker 1: in the study. That's a lot of sad clowns, yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of scared kids. So I think the
Speaker 1: point is to just keep clowns and kids away from
Speaker 1: one another. All right, are you ready to go back
Speaker 1: in time? Yes, happen the old way back machine. It's
Speaker 1: London and it's eight oh three, and there's a man
Speaker 1: named Joseph Grimaldi, and he, for all intents and purposes,
Speaker 1: has just invented the modern what we now think no
Speaker 1: as the clown yeah, very purposefully too, got the white makeup.
Speaker 1: They still call clowns Joey's yeah, because that was his
Speaker 1: character name. That's a nickname for clowns. Oh. He was.
Speaker 1: He huge, like not only did he invent clowns, and
Speaker 1: like today still they they you know, tip their clown
Speaker 1: hat at Grimaldi for inventing the clown he um. In
Speaker 1: his day he was huge. There was a legend that
Speaker 1: supposedly an eighth of the population of London had seen
Speaker 1: him on stage. There's a lot of people and still
Speaker 1: today on London's East End there um as a church
Speaker 1: that has an annual mass in his honor and everyone
Speaker 1: comes in full clown makeup and costume to church. For Grimaldi,
Speaker 1: he was a big deal. He was very very famous
Speaker 1: for the time. He was a very well known person.
Speaker 1: And he had a contemporary too at about the same
Speaker 1: time in France named de Brow, and both of them
Speaker 1: oddly were um they had really kind of sad backstories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. That's sort of lends itself, I
Speaker 1: don't mean to get ahead of ourselves. That lends itself
Speaker 1: to the dark underbelly of clowning and why it might
Speaker 1: have this reputation. But what clowning really sprung from was uh,
Speaker 1: from the beginning of time almost there were jesters essentially
Speaker 1: um and all types of all all over the world
Speaker 1: and all cultures. Yeah, it seems to be universal. Um.
Speaker 1: There were at least as far back as the like
Speaker 1: bc UM in Egypt, in China there are already jesters, uh, pranksters, clowns, tricksters,
Speaker 1: something of that ilk mischief makers. Yeah, and and in
Speaker 1: totally disparate societies that never met one another, like um
Speaker 1: in Native America. Different Native American society has had some
Speaker 1: version of the clown or the jester. Yeah. During a
Speaker 1: natural Navajo ritual, chance they would clowns would come into
Speaker 1: disrupt performances, bump into the dancers, Pueblo clowns they would
Speaker 1: have a sacred offering and they would come bouncing in
Speaker 1: and and kind of mock what was going on and
Speaker 1: maybe like to elude sex act in the middle of
Speaker 1: very serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah, it was the spirits.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a big deal. That's 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. Right, it
Speaker 1: means drum bear, drum bearer. Uh. 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 hey yeah, And they were actually the
Speaker 1: original geisha. They were men and they were later replaced
Speaker 1: by women. But the Tychomochi were the original versions of
Speaker 1: the geisha, and the Taychomochi in the red light district
Speaker 1: actually ended up there because this period of peace settled
Speaker 1: over Japan. Because prior to that they were court jesters
Speaker 1: and also like military advisors. So once they weren't needed
Speaker 1: for that, they ended up in the red light district,
Speaker 1: like let's get this party party started. Yeah. So in India,
Speaker 1: the the official jesters there were a member of the Brahmin,
Speaker 1: which was the highest social class. Right, Yeah, that's where
Speaker 1: that's the class that up. Who's a member of? Oh?
Speaker 1: Really did he say that? That's what his mom said
Speaker 1: when he thinks she thinks that who's married to Marge.
Speaker 1: She goes, surely your children are aware of your brahm
Speaker 1: in heritage embarkoes, 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 Brahmin they uh.
Speaker 1: One of the things you'll notice over and over here
Speaker 1: with jesters is what they really are are satirists. And
Speaker 1: their job is too and they were the only ones
Speaker 1: that could do this really was to poke fun at
Speaker 1: the leaders. They would they would never bounce in and
Speaker 1: talk about how great the king is. They would bounce
Speaker 1: in and talk about how fat the king is and
Speaker 1: make jokes about like how many meals have you had today? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so there. Their Their role was to say, um,
Speaker 1: poke holes into the king's stupid ideas. Whereas the rest
Speaker 1: of the court would be like, oh, great idea, Um,
Speaker 1: you should paint the Great Wall of China. Whereas the
Speaker 1: gesture would be like, yeah, that's a great idea. Where
Speaker 1: 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. Um, they have a great tradition of clowning,
Speaker 1: and they had legends named twisty pole. Uh, Baldi Chuny
Speaker 1: 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: was the name of a clown. That's no Bally chun though.
Speaker 1: Interesting uh. And then in Poland, Um, there was a
Speaker 1: legendary jester named Stanzik and I looked up this guy.
Speaker 1: He was. He was a legend beyond clowning. He was
Speaker 1: like the political satirist of his day. He worked for
Speaker 1: three different kings and was very intelligent, political philosopher and satirist.
Speaker 1: That Uh, it's still like revered in Poland, as you know,
Speaker 1: a necessary thing. Yeah. Supposedly one of his most famous
Speaker 1: stories was the king of Poland that he was working
Speaker 1: for had a bear imported from I think Russia or something,
Speaker 1: maybe Prussia, and UM let it loose so he could
Speaker 1: hunt it, and the bear came back with the king
Speaker 1: and the court and the queen and like almost killed everybody.
Speaker 1: And um, the king later criticised stand Chick for running off,
Speaker 1: and stan Chick said, well, it was smarter than letting
Speaker 1: a cage bear loose something along those lines, and the
Speaker 1: king was like, oh touche, and everyone laughed, and then
Speaker 1: the bear eight the king. Uh. In ancient Rome, chuckers, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they used to call the court jester's stupidest stupidest Huh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Uh. Grimaldi himself came out of the
Speaker 1: rich tradition in Italy, um called the Comedia del Arte tradition.
Speaker 1: And uh, this is in the fourteenth century, and it
Speaker 1: was some people say these were like the first professional
Speaker 1: actors in the world. We're coming out of Italy at
Speaker 1: the time in this program, right. So at the time,
Speaker 1: you were basically if you were a clown or a
Speaker 1: jester or something, you were probably a member of a court.
Speaker 1: If you're an member of a Native American tribe or
Speaker 1: um in most parts of Africa, and you were a jester,
Speaker 1: you belong to the community rather than the specific leader. Um.
Speaker 1: But in Europe and China and Egypt and all over
Speaker 1: wherever there was royalty, there was usually a jester of
Speaker 1: some sort, right, But one of the ways that jester spread,
Speaker 1: especially saying in Europe, was from UM a jester being
Speaker 1: forced to hit the road first, stepping over the line,
Speaker 1: basically getting kicked out. And that's one way that it
Speaker 1: kind of spread. Clowning originally spread to the masses was
Speaker 1: you may run across the court jesters down on his
Speaker 1: luck traveling along the road because he's got kicked out
Speaker 1: of courts, like I got all this great material exactly,
Speaker 1: but he's still a jester. He's gonna make you laugh,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, that makes sense, so that it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I think the king's tolerated to a certain degree, but
Speaker 1: if they're having a bad day, they're just like, all right,
Speaker 1: you're out of here, exactly. Yeah. And there's there's UM
Speaker 1: at least some debate over whether how how much of
Speaker 1: the idea that a jester was the only one who
Speaker 1: could speak his mind towards the king UM. Not that
Speaker 1: the idea was that more people in the court could
Speaker 1: speak their mind, but that the jesture couldn't even speak
Speaker 1: their mind. In some cases, there were some documented versions
Speaker 1: like UM, the one in Persia Kareem Charay, who um
Speaker 1: told the king has the shahnzzardin apparently said is there
Speaker 1: a short of shortage of food? And uh Kareem Sharay said, yes,
Speaker 1: I see that, your majesty is eating only five times
Speaker 1: a day. And he made this little bow tie 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. You're 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. All right, 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 shoes.
Speaker 1: The makeup to makeup. Of course, a lot of people
Speaker 1: look at a clown and say you're disguising something. The
Speaker 1: point of clown makeup is quite the opposite. It's meant
Speaker 1: to exaggerate the emotions that are already there. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: the big, huge smile or frown, the big frown yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: And I've 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: the the um anger at being rebuffed when you're trying
Speaker 1: to get a laugh from somebody, or you're gonna play
Speaker 1: up your stage fight 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 Arte 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 a 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 slapstick. 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 onto
Speaker 1: 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, and then mimes later, Yeah, we're relegated
Speaker 1: to parks. I guess so, right exactly. Um, So Comedia
Speaker 1: dell Art was this, um, this player production, and in
Speaker 1: the middle of it, or in different points, um, there'd
Speaker 1: be like a break or an intermission or something like that,
Speaker 1: and that would come like the jugglers and the baton twirlers,
Speaker 1: and there were also little skits and sketches and plays
Speaker 1: themselves that were intended for comic relief. And one of
Speaker 1: those is called the harlequin Aide, and Harlequin you recognize
Speaker 1: Harlequin is one of the jokers, the jesters, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Um, there's actually a character in the harlequin
Speaker 1: Aie that was a clown, and Grimaldi originally played that character.
Speaker 1: And that character was um, kind of a bumpkin, a
Speaker 1: rustic rube. And as a matter of fact, the word
Speaker 1: clown supposedly comes from a sixteenth century German word for
Speaker 1: like a country bumpkin. Um, So that was the original character. Well,
Speaker 1: Grimaldi came along in about eight hundred and started playing
Speaker 1: this in the pantomime, which was that break in the
Speaker 1: Comedia dell Art relief exactly. And then the Harlequinade was
Speaker 1: a a little mini play that was a panomime in
Speaker 1: the Comedia dell Art, right, And then the clown was
Speaker 1: a character in the Harlequinade, and Grimaldi played it. But
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, I'm not feeling this country
Speaker 1: bumpkin thing. I think this guy's actually highly sophisticated, very smart,
Speaker 1: hilarious embody. And he started to play the character like that,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the clown went from a
Speaker 1: minor supporting character to the reason that people were coming
Speaker 1: to the Comedia dell Art Productions the pan mine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they were stealing the thunder of the legit actors. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And from that moment, the clown went from specifically a
Speaker 1: rustic country boob to the clown that we start to
Speaker 1: understand today with face pain and like colored hair and everything.
Speaker 1: Did you just laugh because I said boom, No, I
Speaker 1: just rustic Country Boob sounded like the name of like
Speaker 1: my memoir or something. It just struck me as a
Speaker 1: nice titles. I just want a small, small royalty when
Speaker 1: you publish those, Okay, except I would be Rustic City Boob. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of play on that whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that big it's even better man Sharknado and now the
Speaker 1: title for your memoirs, You're on fire. Um So clowning.
Speaker 1: One thing that you'll also notice the clowns do a
Speaker 1: lot and this is not every clown, but a lot
Speaker 1: of clowning involves um play violence like slapstick. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: they're hitting It's like the three students, they're hitting each
Speaker 1: other a lot they're knocking each other down. Um, A
Speaker 1: big clown thing to do is to like disrupt the
Speaker 1: the legit act, Like we're clowns and we're gonna do
Speaker 1: uh this neat thing where we all hold this ladder
Speaker 1: and climate and then another clown will come in and
Speaker 1: bust the ladder down and everyone will fall and it's
Speaker 1: all part of the act. But a lot of the
Speaker 1: Navajo clowns, yeah, same thing basically to disrupt the act.
Speaker 1: That's that's happening through violence, or they may just be
Speaker 1: jerks and like smell my flour oaps you get a
Speaker 1: squirt in the face. So if you're paying attention to
Speaker 1: a group of clowns in their routine, you'll actually notice that, Um,
Speaker 1: there's usually a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a hierarchy for sure. There actually is. That it depends
Speaker 1: on You can tell who's in charge before the show
Speaker 1: even starts based on their makeup. Actually it's it's um
Speaker 1: delineated by that. Yeah. So first you've got the white
Speaker 1: face clown, which Grimaldi was one. So is are the
Speaker 1: clown who will talk about later. Um, but the white
Speaker 1: face clown is the one who's in charge and going
Speaker 1: back to the three stooges, They actually um get across
Speaker 1: the hierarchy of clowns pretty clearly. So the white face
Speaker 1: clown is mo. Absolutely, he's still a clown, um, but
Speaker 1: he's Boston the other ones around. He's as 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. Yeah, fringe counterpart you're
Speaker 1: talking about, the clown that he created was a white
Speaker 1: face clown. Um. The perrot p i e r r
Speaker 1: O t pro 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 heap. After
Speaker 1: that you have the August clown. The August clown is
Speaker 1: the one that um Usually they have that sloppy ver
Speaker 1: sized 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 them 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: face clown, but um also a little more um hilarious maybe,
Speaker 1: so like the August clown would be um maybe Larry,
Speaker 1: probably curly though, because you get he's kind of a boob.
Speaker 1: You know, he's not a rustic country boom, but he's
Speaker 1: just you know, kind of fun and lovable and and
Speaker 1: he's still taking orders. What about shimp? Chimp completely breaks
Speaker 1: this whole analogy apart. So with the augusta clown, it
Speaker 1: was um invented by a man named lu Jacobs, and
Speaker 1: there was there was a team, Albert Freatellini and Lu
Speaker 1: Jacobs a clown team, and Fredellini was also part of
Speaker 1: the Fredlini brothers, and he was the one who invented
Speaker 1: the red nose. Oh yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, yeah, But then then we have the
Speaker 1: tramp or the hobo, right, that's the next guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that one was invented by a dude named Emmett Kelly,
Speaker 1: and he actually invented the sad hobo clown, which you
Speaker 1: can immediately bring to mind. I would imagine just hearing
Speaker 1: sad hobo clown, the downcasts, frown face, the stubble like
Speaker 1: five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed jacket patches, and
Speaker 1: the bendel bendel bag on the stick. So Emmett Kelly
Speaker 1: comes up with the sad hobo clown and that's become
Speaker 1: a fixture of clowning, and that tramp hobo or bag
Speaker 1: lady clown is the one that's the lowest, wrong on
Speaker 1: the ladder, the highest on the totem pole. It kind
Speaker 1: of occurred to me when I was reading this that
Speaker 1: they're sort of I mean, are they making fun of
Speaker 1: the homeless? You know in a way. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably a sticky thing that clowns don't like to address,
Speaker 1: but very very much so. I mean that's clearly what
Speaker 1: they're they're aping is you know, my clothes are tattered,
Speaker 1: I don't have a place to lay my head on them.
Speaker 1: A sad hobo. And you have to understand like Emmett
Speaker 1: 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 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, crying 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, um, but a character clown would be
Speaker 1: like a keystone cop or an astronaut clown. Basically, if
Speaker 1: you can come up with the profession that uses a
Speaker 1: costume and then make a clown version of it. That's
Speaker 1: a 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 scaring the making it feel better. But this
Speaker 1: guy did some instructional videos on how to do this
Speaker 1: and what to do and what not to do. What
Speaker 1: not to do is very important. Don't touch a covered
Speaker 1: part because you never know if they've just had their
Speaker 1: leg amputated, was one piece of advice. Oh it's so funny. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: so go. Actually, if you go, if you're listening to
Speaker 1: this on our website, on that the podcast page for
Speaker 1: this episode, it should be in the links. Yeah, we'll
Speaker 1: definitely put that in there. If not, and you don't
Speaker 1: feel like going to our website, just look up hospital
Speaker 1: Clowning Found Footage Festival and it will come up. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It is. It is delightful. We we talked about it
Speaker 1: on our Internet round Up video show. As well. We did.
Speaker 1: So the big question here is why is this funny?
Speaker 1: Why do we need this? Why do people indulge clowns? Um,
Speaker 1: we're not indulge. Why do they like clowns? It's a
Speaker 1: better way to put Why do we let clowns get
Speaker 1: away with making fun of the homeless? Um? I think
Speaker 1: a good reason that it's pointed out in the article
Speaker 1: on how stuff works, is that, Um, we have a
Speaker 1: very rigid, complex society that we live in, and there
Speaker 1: are rules in their social order, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we have to maintain our good behavior, and so clowning
Speaker 1: is a safety valve, is how this author put it. Two.
Speaker 1: You know, we can live vicariously through the clown who
Speaker 1: breaks down those social norms and says, I'll do whatever
Speaker 1: I want. I'll make fun of the king, or I'll,
Speaker 1: you know, squirt this little kid in the face with
Speaker 1: water everybody, And um, you know since the French clown
Speaker 1: he beat a kid to death of his cane in
Speaker 1: the street from making fun of him, and that's taking
Speaker 1: it too far. Well, he did, and he I looked
Speaker 1: this up. He went to trial and was acquitted. But um,
Speaker 1: apparently it was like the trial of the century because
Speaker 1: everyone wanted to hear him speak. Oh he was a
Speaker 1: silent clown. Was a silent clown. Um the piroas. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: he be had a kid that was making fun of
Speaker 1: him and he killed him. He didn't mean to you
Speaker 1: meant to hit him. He meant to kill him. He
Speaker 1: said it is 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 going to
Speaker 1: be like the most sour puss thing you've heard today,
Speaker 1: but it really makes sense in a way. So, yes,
Speaker 1: the role of the clown is to vent the general
Speaker 1: populations 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 feel better about things because this
Speaker 1: is being made fun of, its being addressed. But you
Speaker 1: can also make the case that in that sense, the
Speaker 1: clown satire, anything that provides that function in society actually
Speaker 1: just keeps the status quo in place, because rather than
Speaker 1: any real change coming about from those simmering frustrations that
Speaker 1: are aren't allowed to vent, just to release that once
Speaker 1: they're released, then we can just move a long. But
Speaker 1: nothing's actually really changed. It's been satirized, and so we're
Speaker 1: satisfied to a certain degree. Interesting, you know, I know
Speaker 1: it's a really like kind of view of clowns in general,
Speaker 1: but it really does keep the status quo in place,
Speaker 1: and a really effective ruler will allow him or herself
Speaker 1: to have just enough fun poked at so that um,
Speaker 1: here she appears to have been brought down a peg,
Speaker 1: but really the power is totally unchecked by that. Yeah. Interesting,
Speaker 1: We should do one on satire. That's a pretty rich subject.
Speaker 1: I think the function of a satirist is um important.
Speaker 1: But um, you do raise a good point, like at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, what does change come about
Speaker 1: because of it? Or is it just well, at least
Speaker 1: we all got to laugh right at this. It serves
Speaker 1: what serves a function. It does serve a function. It
Speaker 1: serves to play kate. Yeah. Interesting, thanks man, that is
Speaker 1: that's all mine, Josh right copyright. So we should probably
Speaker 1: take a break, um, and then we'll come back and
Speaker 1: talk a little more about you guessed it clowns. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back and by the way, yeah, if you have
Speaker 1: heard some weird sounds in the background of this one.
Speaker 1: It's because some jerk in this building is using a drill.
Speaker 1: You're not insane and they're not supposed to be doing
Speaker 1: that right now. But it's hopefully it's not too distracting.
Speaker 1: It's sort of here and there. I just want to
Speaker 1: mention that, Yeah, you're not hearing the hume. So careers
Speaker 1: and clowning, my friend, Yeah, you mentioned hospital clowning. That's
Speaker 1: definitely a way to go. University of Haifa in Israel
Speaker 1: has a i think a bachelor's degree in medical clowning,
Speaker 1: and it's exactly what it sounds like. You're you learn
Speaker 1: to go into hospitals and raise the spirits, usually of kids,
Speaker 1: but I think it applied just about anybody in a
Speaker 1: hospital who wants to have their spirits picked up and react. Well,
Speaker 1: the clowns, I think kids mainly medical clown I know,
Speaker 1: I like, get out of my hospital room. Yeah, an
Speaker 1: adult that's going in for like a bypasser train, it's
Speaker 1: a clown in the room. No, that's just my thing.
Speaker 1: That just makes a clown want to try harder. Just
Speaker 1: no bad touch, don't touch any covered parts. So membership
Speaker 1: is waning these days in the World Clown Association. Um,
Speaker 1: they don't keep exact stats, but they um anecdotally say
Speaker 1: that it's dropped by about a third in recent years. Um.
Speaker 1: But like I said, you can be a pro clown.
Speaker 1: You can go to Wringling Brothers as a clown college
Speaker 1: in Sarasota. Dude, it is brutal as far as competition
Speaker 1: goes what to get in. Yeah, I'm sure. So. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and thirteen they had five thirty one applicants
Speaker 1: from around the world and they let in two clowns.
Speaker 1: They selected fourteen to come to camp. They hired eleven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty to be competitive. Um, and there's only twenty
Speaker 1: six total clowns that work for all of England. Brothers,
Speaker 1: Barnum and Bailey. They shuffle them around the three circuses
Speaker 1: that are going on and they didn't give him point
Speaker 1: in time. Interesting, but it pays pretty well. They inject
Speaker 1: them with formalde hyde and put them in a cryogenic chamber.
Speaker 1: You will never die, ship them to a different part
Speaker 1: of the country, regenerate them but on their red nose,
Speaker 1: and it's all good show time. Circus A. You can
Speaker 1: do a lot worse than that. My friend if you
Speaker 1: want to go that route. It's different kind of clowning,
Speaker 1: but it's I think a little more of the old
Speaker 1: Italian and European style. It depends they go for both. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they go for a like character comedy and then I
Speaker 1: think like physical slapsticks straight up. Yeah. But you can
Speaker 1: make up to two K a year at circu to Sola.
Speaker 1: I think that's like yeah at Wrinkling Brothers. Apparently for
Speaker 1: clowns they can make up too K a year. K
Speaker 1: means a thousand, that's and buy that, I mean dollars. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you're into French clowning, you can go to Paris
Speaker 1: and study at the Ecole a Internationale de Theatra Jacques
Speaker 1: leco Jacques Lecoq theater Jacques lecoq I was pronounced yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: it's not leco no, it's definitely the coup okay. So
Speaker 1: he do you remember leacock sportif like um tennis ware
Speaker 1: from the eighties, I called it leco No, it's lecoc 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 it's a clown Jacques Lecoq. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very funny. I know, it's hilarious. It's way funnier
Speaker 1: than Jacques leco So if it is Jacque leco this
Speaker 1: 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 negative the 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, like something like
Speaker 1: that water squirting. But they pointed out that you should
Speaker 1: be able to be funny with no props whatsoever. And
Speaker 1: then you start incorporating props, well, it's probably good to
Speaker 1: practice them along the way. Give up that rubber chicken, though, right,
Speaker 1: and really work just put it in a drawer for
Speaker 1: a little while and and be funny without the rubber chicken.
Speaker 1: Then when you add the rubber chicken, you're really going
Speaker 1: to be funny, right, Um, But that all is based
Speaker 1: on Remember, clowns are exaggerations of a human personality, and
Speaker 1: specifically that person's personality, and so that's what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to work on initially like that, Yeah, so, um, I
Speaker 1: think are we now at the 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 Bozo the Clown was huge.
Speaker 1: There was apparently so Bozo the Clown on TV was
Speaker 1: a franchise, right, so if you were a local TV station,
Speaker 1: you could have your own Bows of the Clown and
Speaker 1: put on your own Bows of the Clown show. But
Speaker 1: at the main one at w g N in Chicago,
Speaker 1: the waiting list for tickets to the studio audience was
Speaker 1: ten years long. And as a matter of fact, Willard
Speaker 1: Scott played Bozo, and Willard Scott went on to become
Speaker 1: Ronald McDonald from playing Bozo and the Ronald McDonald was
Speaker 1: inspired by Bozo because McDonald sponsored the Bozo Show and
Speaker 1: they saw how crazy popular this clown was with the kids,
Speaker 1: so they made their own clown, Ronald McDonald, so that
Speaker 1: they could better market two kids. And it worked, it did.
Speaker 1: But then eventually I think there was always this idea
Speaker 1: that this is a little weird, this is creepy, like
Speaker 1: nobody can be that happy? What you you know, what's
Speaker 1: going on there? Well? Charles Dickens wrote um the Memoir.
Speaker 1: He edited the Memoir of Grimaldi when he died, and
Speaker 1: he basically laid it all out there about what a ghastly,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of person that this guy was in
Speaker 1: real life, and it was a huge hit, Like people
Speaker 1: bought this book like crazy. So you coupled that with
Speaker 1: um Pierrot or what was his real name, Debrow who
Speaker 1: killed a kid. This king goes on trial, and so
Speaker 1: you have this very sort of dark seed planet and then,
Speaker 1: like you said, years later, all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: not meant for body adults at you know, getting drunk
Speaker 1: watching Shakespeare's Let's take these guys and put them around
Speaker 1: our kids. Yeah, exactly, So you have a recipe for
Speaker 1: at the very least clowns to be confusing and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, chuck out of nowhere in the
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, nightmare comes to pass John Wayne Gaycy. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that was in all the parents backs to
Speaker 1: their heads, right, like this is a little creepy. This
Speaker 1: is a grown man hanging out with my kids, and
Speaker 1: he's he's he's sort of acting out these weird happy,
Speaker 1: half happy happy violent things, like he's tripping people and
Speaker 1: squirting them and he looks creepy. And now he's another killer. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's a serial killer as a clown Pogo the clown,
Speaker 1: but yes, serial killer of the worst variety, and he
Speaker 1: was larger and in charge because I think Pogo the
Speaker 1: Clown 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. It's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So he, uh you know how many kids you 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 a clown. And it was like
Speaker 1: he had he had quite a collection of paintings from
Speaker 1: prison that did not do anything but reinforced the fact
Speaker 1: that clowns are creepy, right, And of course it was
Speaker 1: like international news a clown found to be a killer
Speaker 1: and sexual predator, a serial version of that. It definitely
Speaker 1: captured the public imagination from that point on. It was
Speaker 1: like clowns are now overtly sinister. Yeah, and in movies,
Speaker 1: killer clowns from outer space or it. Well, yeah, Stephen
Speaker 1: Kings Pennywise, the clown. Yeah, that was one of the
Speaker 1: legendary 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 send a 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, 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. They'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: having to go through this. It sounds to me like
Speaker 1: you're predicting a clown renaissance, clown renaissance, a well maintained
Speaker 1: and tasteful clown renaissance. Maybe not a Golden Age or
Speaker 1: a Heyday, but something that's stable, indefinitely got you well.
Speaker 1: You know. The other thing I think we talked about
Speaker 1: this on the Internet round up is the French teenagers
Speaker 1: that were dressing up as clowns causing mayhem and they're
Speaker 1: not helping anything. None of that helps. And then there's
Speaker 1: other cases I've seen where where was it. I don't
Speaker 1: think it was England where there was just this creepy
Speaker 1: clown just just sit there hanging around. I think it
Speaker 1: was in Canada, with Canada it might have been in
Speaker 1: both actual none of these things are helping legit clowns.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they're all like, thanks, guys, We're just dressing
Speaker 1: up and being creepy on a bench, just sitting midnight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at midnight. But when you think about it, there's it
Speaker 1: could just be a clown that got up work. I mean,
Speaker 1: why is that so creepy? I don't think that's it. Um.
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out to a Smithsonian
Speaker 1: article that we used in part for this. It's called
Speaker 1: The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary, which is
Speaker 1: pretty clunky title, but it was a very good, comprehensive,
Speaker 1: exhaustive article on that. So go check that out. Agreed, Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else right now? No, if you want
Speaker 1: to know more about clowns, type that word in the
Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. And we
Speaker 1: should do one on just how circus is in general
Speaker 1: works someday. Have we not done that? No we haven't.
Speaker 1: We've done circusy things. We've done like flame eating, Daredevil's juggling,
Speaker 1: sword swallowing, like human cannonballs, all that jam. But no, no,
Speaker 1: what's left circus is how circus work? Yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 1: what's left that's not those things? We can? We can,
Speaker 1: We'll find it. Okay, uh, I think I said search bar,
Speaker 1: didn't I? I think so. Well, it's time for a
Speaker 1: listener maw. I'm gonna call this um saving a marriage. Okay,
Speaker 1: Hey guys, my wife, I want to give you credit
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Speaker 1: My wife Lindsey and I have been married for almost
Speaker 1: a year April our anniversary, so congrat Yeah, this is
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Speaker 1: in the car, though, and we always end up taking turns,
Speaker 1: with one person singing along with their favorite hits, the
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Speaker 1: for the next fifty to sixty years, because I don't
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