April 21, 2015 • 46 mins
Jesters of some sort have been around since ancient Egypt and China. Our modern clown was invented around 1800 and ever since they have been getting steadily creepier.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Joe. Joe.
There's Chuckles, this is Stuff you should know the podcast.
And there's Jerry. She has a regular name. Hey. That
was pretty good. Thanks. They could have also this could
(00:22):
also be like how late night talk show hosts work too. Yeah,
Krusty the Clown was on my mind during a lot
of this. I thought that was your step Meyers. Non guy,
did you say that? It was just completely ludicrous joke.
I haven't watched this show yet. I haven't earn I
like the guy though, good guy. I don't watch anything
(00:43):
but Conan. Yeah, I don't even watch Conan really. Yeah,
I do want Hodgeman's on. I record it, you know,
and then watch it the next day. Yeah. I don't
stay at whatever times Canna say, geez, I guess you
don't go to Early Bird for dinner anymore either. You
have to watch Conan. Hey early. Speaking of Conan, big
shout out to Brian Kylie, Rob Kutner and Dan Cronin
(01:06):
and Seth Meyers. No, they are writers for Conan and
they treated me to a lunch that was very nice
at Warner Brothers. Thanks for inviting me, guys, and uh, Conan.
If you think we get neat fan gifts, you ought
to see the stuff Conan gets. Oh, man, like what
well there was? Well? I met the masterbaiting bear guy
(01:27):
who I won't reveal his name, but he's the guy
that's done it all these years. And someone sent him
like a four ft tall tree trunk hand carved bear
them bear. Really. Yeah, it was beautiful. I got pictures
all this. And then Conan has a life size Lego
Conan that someone sent him that's pretty, and a life
(01:48):
size a hundred thousand dollars worth of Legos probably is,
and then a life size ConA made of pencils that
was really neat looking. Yeah. Wow, So they just had
the stuff. I was like, man, I mean, I like
our little photoshop stuff, but you know, Cooper needs to
step it up. Nice life sized lego Josh and check.
It would be kind of cool. Anyway, I just want
(02:09):
to say thanks to those guys. Are awesome. Yes, and
they're supporters of us, Thanks guys, yeah, supporters of you
at least, and they're clowns. That was a great segaway, dude,
great is that why you thank them in this episode, sure,
because they're clowns. That that was good. You've scared of clowns.
(02:30):
I'm not scared of clowns, not at all. I mean
the scary clowns that are supposed to be scary and
horror movies are creepy, of course, But like, I don't
have any kind of a phobia. What's it called the
official phobia colura phobia? Right? Which also includes um It's unofficial,
by the way. UM. It also includes things like costumed
(02:53):
characters like Mickey Mouse and UM, stuff like that. It's
not just clowns, right, right, So it's the d s M,
which is the infallible Bible of psychology and psychiatry. UM
has an entry for fear of clowns, lumped together with
other childhood fear of costume characters. That one I can
I can identify what I think I ran away from,
(03:15):
like snow White or something at Disney World when I
was a kid, And there's just always been something about
somebody being dressed up in costume that I've found unnerving.
I'm gonna scare a lot of kids. I'm not overtly
afraid of clown sure, but just costume people, and I
get that, like I get like, you know, what are
you hiding kind of thing, which I think is informs
(03:35):
the basis of cool or a phobia. Yeah, and a
lot of the show, it turns out it is going
to be about that, because it's one of the most
interesting parts of clowning. But um, one guy later on
in this article put it, it makes sense. It's like
some clowns are just not great at it, and you know, well,
like yeah, like lungeon a kid or something. And he says,
they seem like they're on the attack. And he said
(03:58):
a big part of teaching clowning is to teach personal
space and like how to not come at a kid
because they think you look weird. Well change and if
you come at him like too fast, then it's it
might scare them. And especially these days, to like, clowns
today are still following a tradition from the early to
mid twentieth century. Kids today aren't really hip with the
(04:22):
mid twentieth century. They're not into like mid century modern
like art or design or anything like that, and so
clowns are about as creepy to them as like an
old wooden toy. It's just awful little. It's an uncanny
expet it And as a result, there's this two thousand
and eight UM study to the UK that the BBC
reported on that found that most of the children in
(04:45):
this study, I think there was like two fifty population
sample um feared and or disliked clowns. Most of the
kids in the study. That's a lot of sad clowns, yeah,
and a lot of scared kids. So think the point
is to just keep clowns and kids away from one another.
All right, are you ready to go back in time? Yes,
(05:08):
happen the old way back machine. It's London and it's
eighteen o three, and there's a man named Joseph Grimaldi
and he, for all intents and purposes, has just invented
the modern what we now think no as the clown. Yeah,
(05:31):
very purposefully too, got the white makeup. They still call
clowns Joey's because that was his character name. That's a
nickname for clowns. Oh. He was he huge, like not
only did he invent clowns, and like today still they
they you know, tip their clown hat at Grimaldi for
inventing the clown. He um in his day, he was huge.
(05:54):
There was a legend that supposedly an eighth of the
population of London had seen him on stage. A lot
of people and still today on London's East End there
um is a church that has an annual mass in
his honor and everyone comes in full clown makeup and
costume the church for Grimaldi, he was a big deal.
(06:18):
He was very, very famous for the time. He was
a very well known person. And he had a contemporary
too at about the same time in France named de Brow,
and both of them oddly were um. They had really
kind of sad backstories. Yeah, which we'll get to that
that's sort of lends itself, no mean to get ahead
(06:39):
of ourselves. That lends itself to the dark underbelly of
clowning and why it might have this reputation. But what
clowning really sprung from was uh, from the beginning of
time almost there were gestures essentially um and all types
of all over the world than all cultures. Yeah, it
(07:01):
seems to be universal. Um. There were at least as
far back as the like bc um in Egypt, in
China there are already jesters, uh, pranksters, clowns, tricksters, something
of that ilk mischief makers. Yeah, and and in totally
disparate societies that never met one another, like um in
(07:23):
Native America. Different Native American societies had some version of
the clown or the jester. Yeah. During a natural Navajo
ritual chance, they would clowns would come into disrupt performances,
bump into the dancers, Pueblo clowns. They would have a
sacred offering and they would come bouncing in and and
kind of mock what was going on and maybe like
(07:44):
do alude sex act in the middle of this very
serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah, or the spirits. That's
a that's a big deal. That's a an an unusual
role for someone to play. Sometimes they were considered shamans,
like they were imbued with some sort of power as well. Yeah,
they were. They were held in high esteem. The same
(08:05):
thing went on in Japan with the taikomochi. Yeah, right,
it means drum bearer. Drum bearer. They were in the
red light districts and apparently, uh in the late sixteen hundreds.
Their deal was when the when the party starts to wane,
they were to bounce in and like get the party
started again. Hey. Yeah, And they were actually the original Geisha.
(08:26):
They were men and they were later replaced by women.
But the Taychomochi were the original versions of the Geisha,
and the Taychomochi in the Red Light District actually ended
up there because this period of peace settled over Japan
because prior to that they were court jesters and also
like military advisors. So once they weren't needed for that,
they ended up in the Red Light District, like, let's
(08:49):
get this party. Party. So in India, the the official
jesters there were a member of the Brahmin, which was
the highest social class. Right, Yeah, that's where it's the
class that I who's a member of? Oh? Really did
he say that? But that's what his mom said. When
he thinks she thinks that who's married to Marge? She goes,
surely your children are aware of your bram inheritance embarkoes
(09:12):
so long as there's no follow up questions. Absolutely, fully, man,
that's a good one. Your knowledge is way deeper than mine.
For the Simpsons too much. I think I stopped watching
before you did too, But you still watch, right? Yeah?
I fell off again, yeah, on again, off again. Um.
(09:32):
All right, So we're in India and the brah mean
they One of the things you'll notice over and over
here with jesters is what they really are are satirists.
And their job is too and they were the only
ones that could do this really was to poke fun
at the leaders. They would they would never bounce in
and talk about how great the king is. They would
(09:53):
bounce in and talk about how fat the king is
and make jokes about like how many meals have you
had today? Well, yeah, and so there's their Their role
was to say, um, poke holes into the king's stupid ideas.
Whereas the rest of the court would be like, oh,
great idea, Um, you should paint the Great Wall of China,
whereas the jester would be like, yeah, that's a great idea.
(10:14):
Where you going to get all that paint from your dummy? Well,
speaking of China, I think they had some of the
best names, and they have a great tradition of clowning,
and they had legends named twisty Pole. Uh Baldi chun
you that's the name of the podcast. That's a good one.
And this one I don't get moving bucket. I don't
(10:34):
get that one either. It probably makes sense in Chinese.
Another one I came across was newly polished mirror. Really
with the name of a clown. That's no baldly chun,
you though. Interesting. Uh. And then in Poland, um, there
was a legendary jester named Stanzik and I looked up
this guy. He was He was a legend beyond clowning.
(10:57):
He was like the political satirist of his day. Uh.
He worked for three different kings and was very intelligent,
political philosopher and satirist. That uh, it's still like revered
in Poland, as you know, a necessary thing. Yeah. Supposedly
one of his most famous stories was the king of
(11:17):
Poland that he was working for had a bear imported
from I think Russia or something, maybe Prussia, and um
let it loose so he could hunt it. And the
bear came back the king and the court and the
queen and like almost killed everybody. And um, the king
later criticized stan Chick for running off, and stan Chick said, well,
(11:39):
I was smarter than letting a cage bear loose something
along those lines, And the King was like, oh touche,
and everyone laughed, and then the bear eight the king. Uh.
In ancient room chuckers they used to call the court
jester's stupidest stupidest Huh, yeah, that makes sense. Uh. Grimaldi
(12:00):
himself came out of the rich tradition in Italy, um
called the Comedia del arte tradition. And uh, this is
in the fourteenth century, and it was some people say
these were like the first professional actors in the world
were coming out of Italy at the time in this program. Right.
So at the time, you were basically if you were
(12:20):
a clown or a jester or something, you were probably
a member of a court. If you're a member of
a Native American tribe or um in most parts of Africa,
and you were a jester, you belong to the community
rather than the specific leader. UM. But in Europe and
China and Egypt and all over wherever there was royalty,
(12:43):
there was usually a jester of some sort, right, Yeah.
But one of the ways that jester spread, especially saying
in Europe, was from um a jester being forced to
hit the road first, stepping over the line, getting kicked doubt.
And that's one way that it kind of spread. Clowning
(13:03):
originally spread to the masses was you may run across
the court jesters down on his luck traveling along the
road because he's kicked out a court all this great
material exactly, but he's still a jester. He's gonna make
you laugh, you know. Yeah, that makes sense, so that
it's interesting. I think the king's tolerated to a certain degree,
but if they're having a bad day, they're just like,
all right, you're out here exactly. Yeah. And there's there's
(13:26):
um at least some debate over whether how how much
of the idea that a jester was the only one
who could speak his mind towards the king. Um. Not
that the idea was that more people in the court
could speak their mind, but that the jester couldn't even
speak their mind. In some cases, there were some documented
versions like um, the one in Persia Kareem Charay who
(13:50):
um told the king the Shahnaz Sardin apparently said there
a short of shortage of food, and uh Kareem said, yes,
I see that, your majesty is eating only five times
a day, and then he made this little boatie spin,
but he got the point across that, Yeah, it's a
shortage of food and you're not helping anything. Your cloister
(14:11):
it up here in your ivory tower, and um, you
need to open up your eyes, your majesty, I'd like
to see some of Baldi chunyus material. I would love
to see that too. I bet he killed Oh bet
he did as well, Chuck. So we'll get to what
clowning is specifically right after this. Alright, clowning, my friend,
(14:48):
is a lot of things, but what it is in
all cases is exaggeration. Um. Movements are exaggerated, your appearances exaggerated.
That's why they wear big goofy suits and big goofy
use the makeup to makeup. Of course, a lot of
people look at a clown and say you're disguising something.
The point of clown makeup is quite the opposite. It's
meant to exaggerate the emotions that are already there. Yeah,
(15:12):
like the big, huge smile or frown, the big frown. Yeah. Um.
And I read one pro clowns um description of what
clowning means, and he said, clowns aren't actors. We're not
supposed to pretend. What clowns do is exaggerate the the
emotions that we already have inside. So if you're a
really good clown, you're going to play up. You know
(15:34):
that the anger at being rebuffed when you're trying to
get a laugh from somebody, or you're gonna play up
your stage fright at performing in front of some people.
Like when you see a clown like acting a certain way,
you're you're supposed to understand that what they're they're actually
feeling that, right, then it's just being it's it's being
broadcast on a clown scale. Yeah, And part of that
(15:56):
is for comedic effect, and part of it is uh
quite literally because in a circus, uh, you have a
lot of people and you may may be sitting very
far away from you. So these big movements and the
slapstick um which actually I never knew this slapstick was
an actual physical tool. Never heard of that. Yeah, it was.
(16:18):
It's like looks like a paddle with another paddle hinge
to it. And back in the old days of the
Comedia dell Art in Italy, they would um strike someone
with this paddle and then of course the other paddle
on the hinge would smack really hard on the on
the wood and so they could hit someone not too hard,
but make it sound huge, sound like they had been
hit really hard. And that's where slapstick comes from. That's
(16:40):
the word slaps and um, we keep mentioning Comedia dell Art. Um,
that's where Grimaldi came out of. And this was the
original place where the clown really first made it on
the stage. Because remember when Comedia dell Art was establishing itself,
for the most part, clowns were relegated to court gester
ship right, yeah, than mimes later yea, so exactly. Um,
(17:05):
So Comedia dell Art was this, um, this player production,
and in the middle of it, or in different points, um,
there'd be like a break or an intermission or something
like that, and that would come like the jugglers and
the baton twirlers. And there were also little skits and
sketches and plays themselves that were intended for comic relief.
And one of those is called the harlequin Aide, and
(17:26):
Harlequin you recognize Harlequin as one of the jokers, the jesters,
that kind of thing. Um, there's actually a character in
the Harlequin Aide that was a clown, and Grimaldi originally
played that character. And that character was, um kind of
a bumpkin, a rustic rube. And as a matter of fact,
the word clown supposedly comes from a sixteenth century German
(17:47):
word for like a country bumpkin um. So that was
the original character. Well, Grimaldi came along in about eighteen
hundred and started playing this in the pantomime, which was
that break in the media dell Art for comic relief exactly.
And then the Harlequinade was a a little mini play
that was a panomime in the Comedia dell Art, right,
(18:10):
and then the clown was a character in the Harlequinade,
and Grimaldi played it, but he said, you know what,
I'm not feeling this country bumpkin thing. I think this
guy's actually highly sophisticated, very smart, hilarious and body and
he started to play the character like that, and all
of a sudden, the clown went from a minor supporting
character to the reason the people were coming to the
(18:32):
Comedia dell Art productions the panomime, so they were stealing
the thunder of the legit actors exactly. And from that
moment the clown went from specifically a rustic country boob
to the clown that we start to understand today with
face pain and like colored hair and everything. Did you
just laugh as I said, boom, No, I just rustic
(18:54):
country boob sounded like the name of like my memoir
or something. It just struck me as a nice title.
I just want a small, small royalty when you publish those, Okay,
except I would be Rustic City boob. Yeah, you know,
sort of play on that whole thing. Yeah, that big
(19:15):
it's even better n Sharknado and now the title for
your memoirs, you're on fire. Um, So clowning. One thing
that you'll also notice the clowns do a lot and
this is not every clown, but a lot of clowning involves,
um play violence like slapstick. Yeah, like they're hitting. It's
like the three students, they're hitting each other a lot.
(19:35):
They're knocking each other down. Um. A big clown thing
to do is to like disrupt the the legit act.
Like we're clowns and we're gonna do, uh this neat
thing where we all hold this ladder and climate and
then another clown will come in and bust the ladder
down and everyone will fall and it's all part of
(19:56):
the act. But a lot of the Navajo clowns, yeah,
same thing, basically to disrupt the act. That's that's happening
through violence, or they may just be jerks and like
smell my flour ops you get a squirt in the face.
So if you're paying attention to a group of clowns
in their routine, you'll actually notice that, Um, there's usually
(20:16):
a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's a hierarchy
for sure, there actually is, and it depends on you
can tell who's in charge before the show even starts
based on their makeup. Actually it's it's um delineated by that.
So first you've got the white face clown, which Grimaldi
was one, so is Boza, the clown who will talk
about later. Um, but the white face clown is the
(20:38):
one who's in charge. And going back to the three stooges,
they actually um get across the hierarchy of clowns pretty clearly.
So the white face clown is mostly he's still a clown, um,
but he's Boston the other ones around. He's a signing job. Yeah,
and he might be the the most um hostile out
of all of them. And then after that, and again,
(21:01):
the white face clown has completely white paint all over
his face and head and neck. Her fringe counterpart, you're
talking about, the clown that he created was a white
flace clown. Um, the perrot p I e r r
O t po sounds good and that's a kind of
clown as well. But the pierrot is a white face clown, right,
(21:21):
So the white face clown is in charge of he
or she is at the top of the heat of
the After that you have the August clown. The August
clown is the one that um Usually they have that sloppy,
oversized um outfit, huge like suspenders hanging on hanging even
(21:42):
bigger pants up. Um. The makeup is probably like flesh toned, yeah,
but like the eyes will like be super arched and
like the smile will be really big and red. Probably
a big red nose, although I think the the white
face clown can have that too. But if you have
a white face and an August clown next to each other,
the August clown's red ball nose is probably going to
(22:03):
be a little bit bigger. And the August clown is
um definitely the one who takes orders from the white
faced clown, but um also a little more um hilarious maybe,
so like the August clown would be um maybe Larry
Larry probably curly though, because you get he's kind of
(22:25):
a boob. You know, Yeah, he's not a rustic country boom,
but he's just you know, kind of fun and lovable
and and he's still taking orders. What about simp sm
completely breaks this whole analogy apart. So with the Augusta clown,
it was um invented by a man named lu Jacobs,
(22:47):
and there was there was a team Albert Freatellini and
Lu Jacobs a clown team, and Fredlini was also part
of the Fredellini Brothers and he was the one who
invented the red nose. Oh yeah, which I thought it
was pretty interest Yeah it is. Yeah. But then then
we have the tramp or the hobo, right, that's the
next guy. Yeah, that one was invented by a dude
named Emmett Kelly, and he actually invented the sad Hobo clown,
(23:09):
which you can immediately bring to mind. I would imagine
just you're hearing sad Hobo clown, the downcasts, frown face,
the stubble like five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed
jacket patches, and the bendle bendel bag on the stick.
So Emmett Kelly comes up with the sad Hobo clown,
(23:30):
and that's become a fixture of clowning, and that tramp
hobo or bag lady clown is the one that's the
lowest rung on the ladder, the highest on the totem pole.
It kind of occurred to me when I was reading
this that they're sort of I mean, are they making
fun of the homeless? You know, in a way. I
(23:52):
think that's probably a sticky thing that clowns don't like
to address, but very very much so. I mean that's
clearly what they're they're aping is you know, closes or tattered.
I don't have a place to lay my head, and
I'm a sad hobo. And you have to understand, like
Emmet Kelly came up with this in the thirties or forties,
maybe at a time when it was okay to make
(24:12):
fun of people who were down on their luck like that.
I don't know why, but yes, And I thought the
same thing too. I was like, wow, this is like
making a clown version of homeless people. Yeah. I think
what they would say, my guess is that they would say, there,
you should have a lot of sympathy for the hobo clown.
Oh yeah, and you're we're trying to elicit sympathy, not
(24:32):
necessarily laughs at my expense. Yeah, even though they do that,
But they're the ones who are like, um, sweeping the
mess that the other one's made up when the spotlight
goes out, trying on the inside and outside to sweep
sweeping the circus debt. Those are the three big ones.
There's also a character clown, which is makes up a
fourth class of clown. Rodeo clowns fall into that, although
(24:55):
they're technically more like the working clown there, like a
sheep dog clown, but a character clown would be like
a keystone cop or an astronaut clown. Basically, if you
can come up with the profession that uses a costume
and then make a clown version of it, that's a
character clown. So those are the doctor clown. Oh yeah,
what was that video hospital clowning on Found Footage Festival. Yeah,
(25:21):
this video Josh found is a guy that made a
series of clown instructional videos. A medical clown which they
do valuable, valuable service by going to children's hospitals and
things and kids feel better. But this guy did some
instructional videos on how to do this and what to
do and what not to do. What not to do
(25:41):
is very important. Don't touch a covered part because you
never know if they've just had their leg amputated, was
one piece of advice. It's so funny. Um, yeah, so go. Actually,
if you go, if you're listening to this on our
website on that the podcast page for this EPISOD it
should be in the links. Yeah, we'll definitely put that
(26:02):
in there. If not, and you don't feel like going
to our website, just look up Hospital Clowning Found Footage
Festival and it will come up. It's wonderful, it is.
It is delightful. We we talked about it on our
Internet round Up video show as well. So the big
question here is why is this funny? Why do we
need this? Why do people indulge clowns? Um, we're not indulge.
(26:24):
Why do they like clowns? It's a better way to
put Why do we let clowns get away with making
fun of the homeless? Um? I think a good reason
that's pointed out in the article on how stuff works
is that, um, we have a very rigid, complex society
that we live in, and there are rules in their
social order and uh, you know, we have to maintain
our good behavior, and so clowning is a safety valve,
(26:48):
is how this author put it. Two. You know, we
can live vicariously through the clown who breaks down those
social norms and says, I'll do whatever I want. I'll
make fun of the king, or I'll know, squirt this
little kid in the face with water. Everybody hates that.
And um, you know since the French clown he'd beat
(27:09):
a kid to death with his cane in the street
from making fun of him. That's taking it too far.
Well he did, and he I looked this up. He
went to trial and was acquitted, but um, apparently it
was like the trial of the century because everyone wanted
to hear him speak. Oh he was a silent clown.
Was a silent clown. Um the pioas So, yeah, he
had a kid that was making fun of him and
(27:29):
he killed him. He didn't mean to you meant to
hit him. He didn't get me to kill him. He
said it was a single blow, and I imagine he
was just like not again, yeah, or he would mind
whatever that is. So I want to address what you said.
The role of clowns are and this is gonna be
like the most sour puss thing you've heard today, but
(27:50):
it really makes sense in a way. So, yes, the
role of the clown is to vent the general populations
frustrations that abuse heaped on us by the ruling class,
or the conventions of society or what happened, and the
clown allows us to to feel better about things because
this is being made fun of, its being addressed. But
(28:10):
you can also make the case that in that sense,
the clown satire anything that provides that function in society
actually just keeps the status quo in place, because rather
than any real change coming about from those simmering frustrations
that are aren't allowed to event that once they're released
(28:33):
then we can just move along. But nothing's actually really changed.
It's been satirized, and so we're satisfied to a certain degree.
You know. I know it's a really like kind of
view of clowns in general, but it really does keep
the status quo in place, and a really effective ruler
will allow him or herself to have just enough fun
(28:56):
poke that so that um he or she appears to
have been brought down a peg, but really the power
is totally unchecked by that. Yeah, interesting, we should do
one on satire. That's a pretty rich subject. I think
the function of a satirist is um important. But um,
you do raise a good point, like at the end
of the day, what does change come about because of it?
(29:17):
Or is it just well, at least we all got
to laugh right at this, which serves, which serves a function?
It does serve a function, It serves to play kate. Yeah, interesting,
thanks man, that is that's all mine, Josh right, copyright.
So we should probably take a break, um, and then
we'll come back and talk a little more about you
(29:38):
guessed it clowns. All right, we're back. And by the way, yeah,
(30:00):
if you have heard some weird sounds in the background
of this one, it's because some jerk in this building
is using a drill. You're not insane, and they're not
supposed to be doing that right now. But it's hopefully
it's not too distracting. It's sort of here and there.
I just want to mention that, Yeah, you're not hearing
the hume. So careers and clowning, my friend, Yeah, you
mentioned hospital clowning. That's definitely a way to go. University
(30:21):
of Haifa in Israel has a I think a bachelor's
degree in medical clowning, and it's exactly what it sounds like.
You're you learn to go into hospitals and raise the spirits,
usually of kids, but I think it applies to just
about anybody in a hospital who wants to have their
spirits picked up and react. Well, the clowns think kids
mainly medical clown I know, I like, get out of
(30:44):
my hospital room. Yeah, an adult that's going in for
like a bypasser. Try it's a clown in the room. No,
that's just my thing. That just makes a clown want
to try harder. Just no bad touch, don't touch any
covered parts. So, UM, membership is waning these days, as
in the World Clown Association. UM, they don't keep exact stats,
(31:04):
but they UM anecdotally say that it's drop by about
a third in recent years. Um. But like I said,
you can be a pro clown. You can go to
Wringling Brothers as a clown college in Sarasota. Dude, it
is brutal as far as competition goes what to get in. Yeah,
I'm sure. So in two thousand and thirteen they had
five thirty one applicants from around the world and they
(31:26):
let in two clowns. They selected fourteen to come to camp.
They hired eleven. Yeah, that's pretty pretty competitive. Um, and
there's only twenty six total clowns that work for all
of England. Brothers, Barnum and Bailor. They shuffle them around
the three circuses that are going on, and they didn't
give him point in time. Interesting, but it pays pretty well.
(31:47):
They inject them with formalde hyde and put them in
a cryogenic chamber. You will never die, ship them to
a different part of the country, regenerate them, put on
their red nose. Then it's all good show time circusl A,
you can do a lot worse than that, my friend,
if you want to go that route. It's a different
kind of clowning, but it's I think a little more
(32:07):
of the old Italian and European style. It depends w
they go for both. Yea, they go for like a
character comedy and then I think like physical slapsticks straight up. Yeah,
but you can make up to two k a year
at circus. I think that's like for all performers. Yeah,
(32:28):
at Wrinkling Brothers. Apparently for clowns they can make up
to nine two K a year. K means a thousand,
that's right, and by that I mean dollars. Uh, if
you're into French clowning and can go to Paris and
study at the ecole A international de Theater Jacques leco
Jacques Lecoq theater, Jacques Lecoq. That was pronounced Yeah, sure,
(32:53):
it's not leco No. It's definitely the coup, okay, So
he don't you remember lacock sportief like um tennis ware
from the eighties. I called it leco No, it's lacoc okay.
I mean either that I have been saying things wrong
for thirty years, which is entirely possible, but I'm almost
positive because think about he's a clown, Jacques Lecoq. I
mean it's very funny. I know, it's hilarious. It's way
(33:15):
funnier than Jacques leco So if it is Jacques leco
this guy should have thought his name out a little better.
It's a good point. So Jacques Lecoq was a big
innovator in clowning, and he had a school um that
this is still based on, you know, in Paris. But
he had a school back in the day where his
big thing was um called the via negativa or negativa,
(33:37):
which is basically basically like, he doesn't say what you're
doing is right or wrong. Um, he's he's not there
to teach you a set of skills. He's to teach
you to do what you do best right and to
embrace your own style. It's pretty neat. I found that
just about anywhere um I saw like how to clown
or anything like that. During research. One of the main
(33:58):
things was figure out your style of clown and it's
based on who you are, and then just figure out
how to bring that out as big as possible, but
that it was all about you and and figuring out
your own jam um. They also suggest that you should
probably have at least one talent like still walking, juggling
balloon animals is a big one too, something like that.
(34:23):
But they pointed out that you should be able to
be funny with no props whatsoever. And then you start
incorporating props, well, it's probably good to practice them along
the way. Give up that rubber chicken though, and really
work for a little while and and be funny without
the rubber chicken. Then when you add the rubber chicken,
you're really going to be funny, right, Um, but that
(34:43):
all is based on Remember, clowns are exaggerations of a
human personality and specifically that person's personality, and so that's
what you're supposed to work on. Initially. Yeah, so, um,
I think are we now at the the colerophobia? Yeah?
I think so? Why do people hate clowns? Why are
(35:07):
people afraid of clowns? So initially we talked about Grimaldi
and Debrow having pretty grim backstories, and like everybody knew
it at the time. Everyone went to de bros Um trial.
Grimaldi apparently used to crack that he was grim all day,
but he made you, he delighted you at night, right, Yeah,
(35:27):
play on his name, right, So everyone knew that he
had this depressing life. His son was an alcoholic clown
who died of drink at thirty one. Yeah, his father
was a stage father, a tyrant. Supposedly his first wife
died during childbirth. Um. Grimaldi was in bad physical shape
from all the slapstick that he performed over the years,
(35:49):
and everyone knew this, and yet he was a clown
and no one thought, oh, that's kind of weird for
a clown, or very ironic for a clown to have
a terrible life, in part because Grimaldi invented the modern clown.
So that was the conception of the modern clown for
a very long time. It wasn't until the early twentieth
century that clowns were taken away from this idea that
(36:12):
they were adults, pranksters um kind of body humor and
placed squarely in the realm of little kids, and they
were expected to be happy all the time and kind
of these fantastic creatures that cannot possibly ever really be
that way. So automatically clowns were set up to be
(36:34):
something kind of creepy because they were held to these
really high standards that they could never meet. And for
a little while it worked like Bose of the Clown
was huge. There was apparently, so Bose of the Clown
on TV was a franchise, right, so if you were
a local TV station, you could have your own Bows
of the Clown and put on your own Bows of
(36:54):
the Clown show. But at the main one at w
g N in Chicago, the waiting list for tickets to
the studio audience was ten years long, and as a
matter of fact, Willard Scott played Bozo and Willard Scott
went on to become Ronald McDonald from playing Bozo and
the Ronald McDonald was inspired by Bozo because McDonald sponsored
(37:15):
the Bozo Show and they saw how crazy popular this
clown was with the kids, so they made their own clown,
Ronald McDonald, so that they could better market to kids exactly.
And it worked, it did. But then eventually, I think
there was always this idea that this is a little weird,
this is creepy, like nobody can be that happy. What
do you you know, what's going on there? Well, Charles
(37:37):
Dickens wrote Um the Memoir, He edited the memoir of
Grimaldi when he died, and he basically laid it all
out there about what a ghastly, you know, sort of
person that this guy was in real life. And it
was a huge hit, Like people bought this book like crazy.
So you coupled that with um Pierrot or what was
(38:00):
his real name, Debrow who killed a kid, goes on trial,
and so you have this very sort of dark seed planet.
And then, like you said, years later, all of a sudden,
it's not meant for body adults at you know, getting
drunk watching Shakespeare's Let's take these guys and put them
around our kids. Yeah, exactly, So you have a recipe
(38:22):
for at the very least clowns to be confusing and
then all of a sudden chuck out of nowhere. In
the worst case scenario, nightmare comes to pass. John Wayne Gacy. Yeah, yeah,
the idea that was in all the parents back to
their heads, like this is a little creepy. This is
a grown man hanging out with my kids, and he's
(38:44):
he's he's sort of acting out these weird, happy, happy
violent things, like he's tripping people and squirting them, and
he looks creepy. And now he's another killer. Yes, he's
a serial killer as a clown, Pogo to the clown,
but yet serial killer of the worst variety. And he
was larger in charge because I think Polo the clown
(39:05):
was a white faced clown I remember correctly. Oh yeah,
I mean there's you look up the pictures of Gaycey
as a clown. That's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah.
So he, uh, you know how many kids he killed?
Like thirty three young boys? Yeah, thirty five and he
was convicted of thirty three, I believe. But he didn't
help the case of clowns. Uh, by like when he
(39:26):
went to prison, he would still paint pictures of clowns
and of himself as as a clown, and it was
like he had he had quite a collection of paintings
from prison that did not do anything but reinforced the
fact that clowns are creepy, right, And of course there
was like international news a clown found to be a
killer and sexual predatory serial version of it. It definitely
(39:50):
captured the public imagination from that point on. It was like,
clowns are now overtly sinister. Yeah, and in movies, killer
clowns from outer space or it. Well, yeah, Stephen King's
Pennywise the Clown, Yeah, that was one of the legendary
scary clowns. That new one on American Horror Story, Twisty. Yeah,
have you seen that one? But if you look at
(40:11):
it so so John Wayne Gaze is scary in real life.
Pennywise the Clown pretty scary, but still you know, masterfully scary.
Now you've gotten to Twisty the Clown on American Horror Story,
and he's like, he's as scary as it comes. But
think about the amount of violence they're having to imbue
in this guy and show graphically because this frightening clown
(40:36):
has become such a trope over time, it's just got
to get more intense and extreme, right Like, eventually, just
to really get the full thrill, like theater promoters are
going to have to stand the clown and to kill
half the audience to scare the other half in real life,
So what you're saying is it's a loop, an endless
(40:58):
loop where clowns are getting worse and worse and worse.
I don't know. I think eventually it'll just be so
played out that people be like, oh, a scary clown. Seriously,
you actually use this. And eventually what will happen was,
or will I think be that clowns can There'll be
a door and opening for clowns to regain some of
(41:20):
their innocence from that, but to a negotiated degree, because
they'll have gone through that period of being overtly frightening
and associated with something really sinister lurking beneath the surface,
and maybe we'll expect a little less from clowns and
then therefore they can take their rightful place once more.
But having to go through this, it sounds to me
(41:42):
like you're predicting a clown renaissance, A clown renaissance, A
well maintained and tasteful clown renaissance. Maybe not a Golden
Age or a Heyday, but something that's stable indefinitely. Well.
You know, the other thing I think we talked about
this on the internet roundup is the French teenagers that
were dressing a clowns, causing mayhem and they're not helping anything.
(42:03):
None of that helps. And then there's other cases I've
seen where where was it I don't think it was
England where there was just this creepy clown just just
sit there hanging around. I think it was in Canada, Canada.
It might have been in both actutions. None of these
things are helping legit clowns. I'm sure they're all like, thanks, guys,
(42:23):
we're just dressing up and being creepy on a bench,
just sitting midnight. Yeah, at midnight. But when you think
about it, there's it could just be a clown that
got up work. I mean, why is that so creepy?
I don't think that's it. Um. I want to give
a shout out to a Smithsonian article that we used
in part for this. It's called The History and Psychology
of clowns being scary, which is pretty clunky title, but
(42:46):
it was a very good, comprehensive, exhaustive article on that,
So go check that out. Agreed, Uh, you got anything
else right now? No, if you want to know more
about clowns, type that word in the search bar at
how stuff works dot com. And we should do one
on just how circus is in general works someday. Have
we not done that? No, we haven't. We've done circusy things.
We've done like flame meeting, daredevil's juggling, swords, swallowing like
(43:10):
human cannonballs, all that jam. But no, no, what's left circuses,
how circus work? Yeah? But I mean what's left that's
not those things? We can? We can, We'll find it. Okay. Uh,
I think I said search part, didn't I? I think so? Well,
it's time for the listener maw. I'm gonna call this
(43:33):
um oh, saving a marriage. Okay, Hey guys, my wife,
I want to give you credit for making two young
love birds fall deeper in love. My wife Lindsay and
I have been married for almost a year a our anniversary,
so oh congrat Like, yeah, this is probably pretty close
to that. Um we are a perfect match in almost
(43:53):
every aspect of our relationship except for one major area,
but to listen to on the radio on road trips.
She can't stand listening to my off some rock music,
and I can't barely tolerate her country. He's like, definitely
a rule. What's your problem? This is the Donnie and Marie.
Actually they were brother and sisters, so that's cross. Yeah. Yeah,
she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rock
(44:13):
and roll. We spent a lot of time in the car,
though we always end up taking turns with one person
singing along with their favorite hits, the other one sulking
until it's their turn to control the dial, or even
times when we would just drive in silence instead of compromising.
I think I know where this is going. One day
we stumbled upon stuff you should know when our lives
were changed forever. Turns out we both love the podcast,
and the driving portion of our road trips now has
(44:35):
gone from a frustrating compromise to an amazing bonding experience,
and it's all your fault. We've even spent a few
evenings listening to podcasts instead of watching TV at home.
What we're interfering with TV dealing turned the podcast off. Communists.
We started from the most recent and are working our
way backwards. Um, so prepare for them to get less
(44:58):
good good luck. We have about four hundred episodes to
go until we run out. We've been discussing how we're
gonna deal with the inevitable s y s A withdrawal
once we reach episode one. I hope you guys keep
coming up with new ideas for the next fifty to
sixty years, because I don't want to have to go
back spending half of my time listening to country music
fifty or sixty years. We can swing that. And that
has Ben Brown and uh Lindsay Brown or Lindsay his wife.
(45:23):
I don't know if she took his name or not.
Ben and Lindsay from Guntersville, Alabama. I'm sure they're the
only Ben and Lindsay there. Yeah, so Ben and Lindsay
from Guntersville Happy in verse, Congratulations. Yeah, we're glad we
could make life a little easier for you. Go turn
your TV back on for real. Come on, seriously, if
(45:44):
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dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(46:12):
is it how stuff Works dot com, m
Welcome to you Stuff you should know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Joe. Joe.
There's Chuckles, this is Stuff you should know the podcast.
And there's Jerry. She has a regular name. Hey. That
was pretty good. Thanks. They could have also this could
(00:22):
also be like how late night talk show hosts work too. Yeah,
Krusty the Clown was on my mind during a lot
of this. I thought that was your step Meyers. Non guy,
did you say that? It was just completely ludicrous joke.
I haven't watched this show yet. I haven't earn I
like the guy though, good guy. I don't watch anything
(00:43):
but Conan. Yeah, I don't even watch Conan really. Yeah,
I do want Hodgeman's on. I record it, you know,
and then watch it the next day. Yeah. I don't
stay at whatever times Canna say, geez, I guess you
don't go to Early Bird for dinner anymore either. You
have to watch Conan. Hey early. Speaking of Conan, big
shout out to Brian Kylie, Rob Kutner and Dan Cronin
(01:06):
and Seth Meyers. No, they are writers for Conan and
they treated me to a lunch that was very nice
at Warner Brothers. Thanks for inviting me, guys, and uh, Conan.
If you think we get neat fan gifts, you ought
to see the stuff Conan gets. Oh, man, like what
well there was? Well? I met the masterbaiting bear guy
(01:27):
who I won't reveal his name, but he's the guy
that's done it all these years. And someone sent him
like a four ft tall tree trunk hand carved bear
them bear. Really. Yeah, it was beautiful. I got pictures
all this. And then Conan has a life size Lego
Conan that someone sent him that's pretty, and a life
(01:48):
size a hundred thousand dollars worth of Legos probably is,
and then a life size ConA made of pencils that
was really neat looking. Yeah. Wow, So they just had
the stuff. I was like, man, I mean, I like
our little photoshop stuff, but you know, Cooper needs to
step it up. Nice life sized lego Josh and check.
It would be kind of cool. Anyway, I just want
(02:09):
to say thanks to those guys. Are awesome. Yes, and
they're supporters of us, Thanks guys, yeah, supporters of you
at least, and they're clowns. That was a great segaway, dude,
great is that why you thank them in this episode, sure,
because they're clowns. That that was good. You've scared of clowns.
(02:30):
I'm not scared of clowns, not at all. I mean
the scary clowns that are supposed to be scary and
horror movies are creepy, of course, But like, I don't
have any kind of a phobia. What's it called the
official phobia colura phobia? Right? Which also includes um It's unofficial,
by the way. UM. It also includes things like costumed
(02:53):
characters like Mickey Mouse and UM, stuff like that. It's
not just clowns, right, right, So it's the d s M,
which is the infallible Bible of psychology and psychiatry. UM
has an entry for fear of clowns, lumped together with
other childhood fear of costume characters. That one I can
I can identify what I think I ran away from,
(03:15):
like snow White or something at Disney World when I
was a kid, And there's just always been something about
somebody being dressed up in costume that I've found unnerving.
I'm gonna scare a lot of kids. I'm not overtly
afraid of clown sure, but just costume people, and I
get that, like I get like, you know, what are
you hiding kind of thing, which I think is informs
(03:35):
the basis of cool or a phobia. Yeah, and a
lot of the show, it turns out it is going
to be about that, because it's one of the most
interesting parts of clowning. But um, one guy later on
in this article put it, it makes sense. It's like
some clowns are just not great at it, and you know, well,
like yeah, like lungeon a kid or something. And he says,
they seem like they're on the attack. And he said
(03:58):
a big part of teaching clowning is to teach personal
space and like how to not come at a kid
because they think you look weird. Well change and if
you come at him like too fast, then it's it
might scare them. And especially these days, to like, clowns
today are still following a tradition from the early to
mid twentieth century. Kids today aren't really hip with the
(04:22):
mid twentieth century. They're not into like mid century modern
like art or design or anything like that, and so
clowns are about as creepy to them as like an
old wooden toy. It's just awful little. It's an uncanny
expet it And as a result, there's this two thousand
and eight UM study to the UK that the BBC
reported on that found that most of the children in
(04:45):
this study, I think there was like two fifty population
sample um feared and or disliked clowns. Most of the
kids in the study. That's a lot of sad clowns, yeah,
and a lot of scared kids. So think the point
is to just keep clowns and kids away from one another.
All right, are you ready to go back in time? Yes,
(05:08):
happen the old way back machine. It's London and it's
eighteen o three, and there's a man named Joseph Grimaldi
and he, for all intents and purposes, has just invented
the modern what we now think no as the clown. Yeah,
(05:31):
very purposefully too, got the white makeup. They still call
clowns Joey's because that was his character name. That's a
nickname for clowns. Oh. He was he huge, like not
only did he invent clowns, and like today still they
they you know, tip their clown hat at Grimaldi for
inventing the clown. He um in his day, he was huge.
(05:54):
There was a legend that supposedly an eighth of the
population of London had seen him on stage. A lot
of people and still today on London's East End there
um is a church that has an annual mass in
his honor and everyone comes in full clown makeup and
costume the church for Grimaldi, he was a big deal.
(06:18):
He was very, very famous for the time. He was
a very well known person. And he had a contemporary
too at about the same time in France named de Brow,
and both of them oddly were um. They had really
kind of sad backstories. Yeah, which we'll get to that
that's sort of lends itself, no mean to get ahead
(06:39):
of ourselves. That lends itself to the dark underbelly of
clowning and why it might have this reputation. But what
clowning really sprung from was uh, from the beginning of
time almost there were gestures essentially um and all types
of all over the world than all cultures. Yeah, it
(07:01):
seems to be universal. Um. There were at least as
far back as the like bc um in Egypt, in
China there are already jesters, uh, pranksters, clowns, tricksters, something
of that ilk mischief makers. Yeah, and and in totally
disparate societies that never met one another, like um in
(07:23):
Native America. Different Native American societies had some version of
the clown or the jester. Yeah. During a natural Navajo
ritual chance, they would clowns would come into disrupt performances,
bump into the dancers, Pueblo clowns. They would have a
sacred offering and they would come bouncing in and and
kind of mock what was going on and maybe like
(07:44):
do alude sex act in the middle of this very
serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah, or the spirits. That's
a that's a big deal. That's a an an unusual
role for someone to play. Sometimes they were considered shamans,
like they were imbued with some sort of power as well. Yeah,
they were. They were held in high esteem. The same
(08:05):
thing went on in Japan with the taikomochi. Yeah, right,
it means drum bearer. Drum bearer. They were in the
red light districts and apparently, uh in the late sixteen hundreds.
Their deal was when the when the party starts to wane,
they were to bounce in and like get the party
started again. Hey. Yeah, And they were actually the original Geisha.
(08:26):
They were men and they were later replaced by women.
But the Taychomochi were the original versions of the Geisha,
and the Taychomochi in the Red Light District actually ended
up there because this period of peace settled over Japan
because prior to that they were court jesters and also
like military advisors. So once they weren't needed for that,
they ended up in the Red Light District, like, let's
(08:49):
get this party. Party. So in India, the the official
jesters there were a member of the Brahmin, which was
the highest social class. Right, Yeah, that's where it's the
class that I who's a member of? Oh? Really did
he say that? But that's what his mom said. When
he thinks she thinks that who's married to Marge? She goes,
surely your children are aware of your bram inheritance embarkoes
(09:12):
so long as there's no follow up questions. Absolutely, fully, man,
that's a good one. Your knowledge is way deeper than mine.
For the Simpsons too much. I think I stopped watching
before you did too, But you still watch, right? Yeah?
I fell off again, yeah, on again, off again. Um.
(09:32):
All right, So we're in India and the brah mean
they One of the things you'll notice over and over
here with jesters is what they really are are satirists.
And their job is too and they were the only
ones that could do this really was to poke fun
at the leaders. They would they would never bounce in
and talk about how great the king is. They would
(09:53):
bounce in and talk about how fat the king is
and make jokes about like how many meals have you
had today? Well, yeah, and so there's their Their role
was to say, um, poke holes into the king's stupid ideas.
Whereas the rest of the court would be like, oh,
great idea, Um, you should paint the Great Wall of China,
whereas the jester would be like, yeah, that's a great idea.
(10:14):
Where you going to get all that paint from your dummy? Well,
speaking of China, I think they had some of the
best names, and they have a great tradition of clowning,
and they had legends named twisty Pole. Uh Baldi chun
you that's the name of the podcast. That's a good one.
And this one I don't get moving bucket. I don't
(10:34):
get that one either. It probably makes sense in Chinese.
Another one I came across was newly polished mirror. Really
with the name of a clown. That's no baldly chun,
you though. Interesting. Uh. And then in Poland, um, there
was a legendary jester named Stanzik and I looked up
this guy. He was He was a legend beyond clowning.
(10:57):
He was like the political satirist of his day. Uh.
He worked for three different kings and was very intelligent,
political philosopher and satirist. That uh, it's still like revered
in Poland, as you know, a necessary thing. Yeah. Supposedly
one of his most famous stories was the king of
(11:17):
Poland that he was working for had a bear imported
from I think Russia or something, maybe Prussia, and um
let it loose so he could hunt it. And the
bear came back the king and the court and the
queen and like almost killed everybody. And um, the king
later criticized stan Chick for running off, and stan Chick said, well,
(11:39):
I was smarter than letting a cage bear loose something
along those lines, And the King was like, oh touche,
and everyone laughed, and then the bear eight the king. Uh.
In ancient room chuckers they used to call the court
jester's stupidest stupidest Huh, yeah, that makes sense. Uh. Grimaldi
(12:00):
himself came out of the rich tradition in Italy, um
called the Comedia del arte tradition. And uh, this is
in the fourteenth century, and it was some people say
these were like the first professional actors in the world
were coming out of Italy at the time in this program. Right.
So at the time, you were basically if you were
(12:20):
a clown or a jester or something, you were probably
a member of a court. If you're a member of
a Native American tribe or um in most parts of Africa,
and you were a jester, you belong to the community
rather than the specific leader. UM. But in Europe and
China and Egypt and all over wherever there was royalty,
(12:43):
there was usually a jester of some sort, right, Yeah.
But one of the ways that jester spread, especially saying
in Europe, was from um a jester being forced to
hit the road first, stepping over the line, getting kicked doubt.
And that's one way that it kind of spread. Clowning
(13:03):
originally spread to the masses was you may run across
the court jesters down on his luck traveling along the
road because he's kicked out a court all this great
material exactly, but he's still a jester. He's gonna make
you laugh, you know. Yeah, that makes sense, so that
it's interesting. I think the king's tolerated to a certain degree,
but if they're having a bad day, they're just like,
all right, you're out here exactly. Yeah. And there's there's
(13:26):
um at least some debate over whether how how much
of the idea that a jester was the only one
who could speak his mind towards the king. Um. Not
that the idea was that more people in the court
could speak their mind, but that the jester couldn't even
speak their mind. In some cases, there were some documented
versions like um, the one in Persia Kareem Charay who
(13:50):
um told the king the Shahnaz Sardin apparently said there
a short of shortage of food, and uh Kareem said, yes,
I see that, your majesty is eating only five times
a day, and then he made this little boatie spin,
but he got the point across that, Yeah, it's a
shortage of food and you're not helping anything. Your cloister
(14:11):
it up here in your ivory tower, and um, you
need to open up your eyes, your majesty, I'd like
to see some of Baldi chunyus material. I would love
to see that too. I bet he killed Oh bet
he did as well, Chuck. So we'll get to what
clowning is specifically right after this. Alright, clowning, my friend,
(14:48):
is a lot of things, but what it is in
all cases is exaggeration. Um. Movements are exaggerated, your appearances exaggerated.
That's why they wear big goofy suits and big goofy
use the makeup to makeup. Of course, a lot of
people look at a clown and say you're disguising something.
The point of clown makeup is quite the opposite. It's
meant to exaggerate the emotions that are already there. Yeah,
(15:12):
like the big, huge smile or frown, the big frown. Yeah. Um.
And I read one pro clowns um description of what
clowning means, and he said, clowns aren't actors. We're not
supposed to pretend. What clowns do is exaggerate the the
emotions that we already have inside. So if you're a
really good clown, you're going to play up. You know
(15:34):
that the anger at being rebuffed when you're trying to
get a laugh from somebody, or you're gonna play up
your stage fright at performing in front of some people.
Like when you see a clown like acting a certain way,
you're you're supposed to understand that what they're they're actually
feeling that, right, then it's just being it's it's being
broadcast on a clown scale. Yeah, And part of that
(15:56):
is for comedic effect, and part of it is uh
quite literally because in a circus, uh, you have a
lot of people and you may may be sitting very
far away from you. So these big movements and the
slapstick um which actually I never knew this slapstick was
an actual physical tool. Never heard of that. Yeah, it was.
(16:18):
It's like looks like a paddle with another paddle hinge
to it. And back in the old days of the
Comedia dell Art in Italy, they would um strike someone
with this paddle and then of course the other paddle
on the hinge would smack really hard on the on
the wood and so they could hit someone not too hard,
but make it sound huge, sound like they had been
hit really hard. And that's where slapstick comes from. That's
(16:40):
the word slaps and um, we keep mentioning Comedia dell Art. Um,
that's where Grimaldi came out of. And this was the
original place where the clown really first made it on
the stage. Because remember when Comedia dell Art was establishing itself,
for the most part, clowns were relegated to court gester
ship right, yeah, than mimes later yea, so exactly. Um,
(17:05):
So Comedia dell Art was this, um, this player production,
and in the middle of it, or in different points, um,
there'd be like a break or an intermission or something
like that, and that would come like the jugglers and
the baton twirlers. And there were also little skits and
sketches and plays themselves that were intended for comic relief.
And one of those is called the harlequin Aide, and
(17:26):
Harlequin you recognize Harlequin as one of the jokers, the jesters,
that kind of thing. Um, there's actually a character in
the Harlequin Aide that was a clown, and Grimaldi originally
played that character. And that character was, um kind of
a bumpkin, a rustic rube. And as a matter of fact,
the word clown supposedly comes from a sixteenth century German
(17:47):
word for like a country bumpkin um. So that was
the original character. Well, Grimaldi came along in about eighteen
hundred and started playing this in the pantomime, which was
that break in the media dell Art for comic relief exactly.
And then the Harlequinade was a a little mini play
that was a panomime in the Comedia dell Art, right,
(18:10):
and then the clown was a character in the Harlequinade,
and Grimaldi played it, but he said, you know what,
I'm not feeling this country bumpkin thing. I think this
guy's actually highly sophisticated, very smart, hilarious and body and
he started to play the character like that, and all
of a sudden, the clown went from a minor supporting
character to the reason the people were coming to the
(18:32):
Comedia dell Art productions the panomime, so they were stealing
the thunder of the legit actors exactly. And from that
moment the clown went from specifically a rustic country boob
to the clown that we start to understand today with
face pain and like colored hair and everything. Did you
just laugh as I said, boom, No, I just rustic
(18:54):
country boob sounded like the name of like my memoir
or something. It just struck me as a nice title.
I just want a small, small royalty when you publish those, Okay,
except I would be Rustic City boob. Yeah, you know,
sort of play on that whole thing. Yeah, that big
(19:15):
it's even better n Sharknado and now the title for
your memoirs, you're on fire. Um, So clowning. One thing
that you'll also notice the clowns do a lot and
this is not every clown, but a lot of clowning involves,
um play violence like slapstick. Yeah, like they're hitting. It's
like the three students, they're hitting each other a lot.
(19:35):
They're knocking each other down. Um. A big clown thing
to do is to like disrupt the the legit act.
Like we're clowns and we're gonna do, uh this neat
thing where we all hold this ladder and climate and
then another clown will come in and bust the ladder
down and everyone will fall and it's all part of
(19:56):
the act. But a lot of the Navajo clowns, yeah,
same thing, basically to disrupt the act. That's that's happening
through violence, or they may just be jerks and like
smell my flour ops you get a squirt in the face.
So if you're paying attention to a group of clowns
in their routine, you'll actually notice that, Um, there's usually
(20:16):
a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's a hierarchy
for sure, there actually is, and it depends on you
can tell who's in charge before the show even starts
based on their makeup. Actually it's it's um delineated by that.
So first you've got the white face clown, which Grimaldi
was one, so is Boza, the clown who will talk
about later. Um, but the white face clown is the
(20:38):
one who's in charge. And going back to the three stooges,
they actually um get across the hierarchy of clowns pretty clearly.
So the white face clown is mostly he's still a clown, um,
but he's Boston the other ones around. He's a signing job. Yeah,
and he might be the the most um hostile out
of all of them. And then after that, and again,
(21:01):
the white face clown has completely white paint all over
his face and head and neck. Her fringe counterpart, you're
talking about, the clown that he created was a white
flace clown. Um, the perrot p I e r r
O t po sounds good and that's a kind of
clown as well. But the pierrot is a white face clown, right,
(21:21):
So the white face clown is in charge of he
or she is at the top of the heat of
the After that you have the August clown. The August
clown is the one that um Usually they have that sloppy,
oversized um outfit, huge like suspenders hanging on hanging even
(21:42):
bigger pants up. Um. The makeup is probably like flesh toned, yeah,
but like the eyes will like be super arched and
like the smile will be really big and red. Probably
a big red nose, although I think the the white
face clown can have that too. But if you have
a white face and an August clown next to each other,
the August clown's red ball nose is probably going to
(22:03):
be a little bit bigger. And the August clown is
um definitely the one who takes orders from the white
faced clown, but um also a little more um hilarious maybe,
so like the August clown would be um maybe Larry
Larry probably curly though, because you get he's kind of
(22:25):
a boob. You know, Yeah, he's not a rustic country boom,
but he's just you know, kind of fun and lovable
and and he's still taking orders. What about simp sm
completely breaks this whole analogy apart. So with the Augusta clown,
it was um invented by a man named lu Jacobs,
(22:47):
and there was there was a team Albert Freatellini and
Lu Jacobs a clown team, and Fredlini was also part
of the Fredellini Brothers and he was the one who
invented the red nose. Oh yeah, which I thought it
was pretty interest Yeah it is. Yeah. But then then
we have the tramp or the hobo, right, that's the
next guy. Yeah, that one was invented by a dude
named Emmett Kelly, and he actually invented the sad Hobo clown,
(23:09):
which you can immediately bring to mind. I would imagine
just you're hearing sad Hobo clown, the downcasts, frown face,
the stubble like five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed
jacket patches, and the bendle bendel bag on the stick.
So Emmett Kelly comes up with the sad Hobo clown,
(23:30):
and that's become a fixture of clowning, and that tramp
hobo or bag lady clown is the one that's the
lowest rung on the ladder, the highest on the totem pole.
It kind of occurred to me when I was reading
this that they're sort of I mean, are they making
fun of the homeless? You know, in a way. I
(23:52):
think that's probably a sticky thing that clowns don't like
to address, but very very much so. I mean that's
clearly what they're they're aping is you know, closes or tattered.
I don't have a place to lay my head, and
I'm a sad hobo. And you have to understand, like
Emmet Kelly came up with this in the thirties or forties,
maybe at a time when it was okay to make
(24:12):
fun of people who were down on their luck like that.
I don't know why, but yes, And I thought the
same thing too. I was like, wow, this is like
making a clown version of homeless people. Yeah. I think
what they would say, my guess is that they would say, there,
you should have a lot of sympathy for the hobo clown.
Oh yeah, and you're we're trying to elicit sympathy, not
(24:32):
necessarily laughs at my expense. Yeah, even though they do that,
But they're the ones who are like, um, sweeping the
mess that the other one's made up when the spotlight
goes out, trying on the inside and outside to sweep
sweeping the circus debt. Those are the three big ones.
There's also a character clown, which is makes up a
fourth class of clown. Rodeo clowns fall into that, although
(24:55):
they're technically more like the working clown there, like a
sheep dog clown, but a character clown would be like
a keystone cop or an astronaut clown. Basically, if you
can come up with the profession that uses a costume
and then make a clown version of it, that's a
character clown. So those are the doctor clown. Oh yeah,
what was that video hospital clowning on Found Footage Festival. Yeah,
(25:21):
this video Josh found is a guy that made a
series of clown instructional videos. A medical clown which they
do valuable, valuable service by going to children's hospitals and
things and kids feel better. But this guy did some
instructional videos on how to do this and what to
do and what not to do. What not to do
(25:41):
is very important. Don't touch a covered part because you
never know if they've just had their leg amputated, was
one piece of advice. It's so funny. Um, yeah, so go. Actually,
if you go, if you're listening to this on our
website on that the podcast page for this EPISOD it
should be in the links. Yeah, we'll definitely put that
(26:02):
in there. If not, and you don't feel like going
to our website, just look up Hospital Clowning Found Footage
Festival and it will come up. It's wonderful, it is.
It is delightful. We we talked about it on our
Internet round Up video show as well. So the big
question here is why is this funny? Why do we
need this? Why do people indulge clowns? Um, we're not indulge.
(26:24):
Why do they like clowns? It's a better way to
put Why do we let clowns get away with making
fun of the homeless? Um? I think a good reason
that's pointed out in the article on how stuff works
is that, um, we have a very rigid, complex society
that we live in, and there are rules in their
social order and uh, you know, we have to maintain
our good behavior, and so clowning is a safety valve,
(26:48):
is how this author put it. Two. You know, we
can live vicariously through the clown who breaks down those
social norms and says, I'll do whatever I want. I'll
make fun of the king, or I'll know, squirt this
little kid in the face with water. Everybody hates that.
And um, you know since the French clown he'd beat
(27:09):
a kid to death with his cane in the street
from making fun of him. That's taking it too far.
Well he did, and he I looked this up. He
went to trial and was acquitted, but um, apparently it
was like the trial of the century because everyone wanted
to hear him speak. Oh he was a silent clown.
Was a silent clown. Um the pioas So, yeah, he
had a kid that was making fun of him and
(27:29):
he killed him. He didn't mean to you meant to
hit him. He didn't get me to kill him. He
said it was a single blow, and I imagine he
was just like not again, yeah, or he would mind
whatever that is. So I want to address what you said.
The role of clowns are and this is gonna be
like the most sour puss thing you've heard today, but
(27:50):
it really makes sense in a way. So, yes, the
role of the clown is to vent the general populations
frustrations that abuse heaped on us by the ruling class,
or the conventions of society or what happened, and the
clown allows us to to feel better about things because
this is being made fun of, its being addressed. But
(28:10):
you can also make the case that in that sense,
the clown satire anything that provides that function in society
actually just keeps the status quo in place, because rather
than any real change coming about from those simmering frustrations
that are aren't allowed to event that once they're released
(28:33):
then we can just move along. But nothing's actually really changed.
It's been satirized, and so we're satisfied to a certain degree.
You know. I know it's a really like kind of
view of clowns in general, but it really does keep
the status quo in place, and a really effective ruler
will allow him or herself to have just enough fun
(28:56):
poke that so that um he or she appears to
have been brought down a peg, but really the power
is totally unchecked by that. Yeah, interesting, we should do
one on satire. That's a pretty rich subject. I think
the function of a satirist is um important. But um,
you do raise a good point, like at the end
of the day, what does change come about because of it?
(29:17):
Or is it just well, at least we all got
to laugh right at this, which serves, which serves a function?
It does serve a function, It serves to play kate. Yeah, interesting,
thanks man, that is that's all mine, Josh right, copyright.
So we should probably take a break, um, and then
we'll come back and talk a little more about you
(29:38):
guessed it clowns. All right, we're back. And by the way, yeah,
(30:00):
if you have heard some weird sounds in the background
of this one, it's because some jerk in this building
is using a drill. You're not insane, and they're not
supposed to be doing that right now. But it's hopefully
it's not too distracting. It's sort of here and there.
I just want to mention that, Yeah, you're not hearing
the hume. So careers and clowning, my friend, Yeah, you
mentioned hospital clowning. That's definitely a way to go. University
(30:21):
of Haifa in Israel has a I think a bachelor's
degree in medical clowning, and it's exactly what it sounds like.
You're you learn to go into hospitals and raise the spirits,
usually of kids, but I think it applies to just
about anybody in a hospital who wants to have their
spirits picked up and react. Well, the clowns think kids
mainly medical clown I know, I like, get out of
(30:44):
my hospital room. Yeah, an adult that's going in for
like a bypasser. Try it's a clown in the room. No,
that's just my thing. That just makes a clown want
to try harder. Just no bad touch, don't touch any
covered parts. So, UM, membership is waning these days, as
in the World Clown Association. UM, they don't keep exact stats,
(31:04):
but they UM anecdotally say that it's drop by about
a third in recent years. Um. But like I said,
you can be a pro clown. You can go to
Wringling Brothers as a clown college in Sarasota. Dude, it
is brutal as far as competition goes what to get in. Yeah,
I'm sure. So in two thousand and thirteen they had
five thirty one applicants from around the world and they
(31:26):
let in two clowns. They selected fourteen to come to camp.
They hired eleven. Yeah, that's pretty pretty competitive. Um, and
there's only twenty six total clowns that work for all
of England. Brothers, Barnum and Bailor. They shuffle them around
the three circuses that are going on, and they didn't
give him point in time. Interesting, but it pays pretty well.
(31:47):
They inject them with formalde hyde and put them in
a cryogenic chamber. You will never die, ship them to
a different part of the country, regenerate them, put on
their red nose. Then it's all good show time circusl A,
you can do a lot worse than that, my friend,
if you want to go that route. It's a different
kind of clowning, but it's I think a little more
(32:07):
of the old Italian and European style. It depends w
they go for both. Yea, they go for like a
character comedy and then I think like physical slapsticks straight up. Yeah,
but you can make up to two k a year
at circus. I think that's like for all performers. Yeah,
(32:28):
at Wrinkling Brothers. Apparently for clowns they can make up
to nine two K a year. K means a thousand,
that's right, and by that I mean dollars. Uh, if
you're into French clowning and can go to Paris and
study at the ecole A international de Theater Jacques leco
Jacques Lecoq theater, Jacques Lecoq. That was pronounced Yeah, sure,
(32:53):
it's not leco No. It's definitely the coup, okay, So
he don't you remember lacock sportief like um tennis ware
from the eighties. I called it leco No, it's lacoc okay.
I mean either that I have been saying things wrong
for thirty years, which is entirely possible, but I'm almost
positive because think about he's a clown, Jacques Lecoq. I
mean it's very funny. I know, it's hilarious. It's way
(33:15):
funnier than Jacques leco So if it is Jacques leco
this guy should have thought his name out a little better.
It's a good point. So Jacques Lecoq was a big
innovator in clowning, and he had a school um that
this is still based on, you know, in Paris. But
he had a school back in the day where his
big thing was um called the via negativa or negativa,
(33:37):
which is basically basically like, he doesn't say what you're
doing is right or wrong. Um, he's he's not there
to teach you a set of skills. He's to teach
you to do what you do best right and to
embrace your own style. It's pretty neat. I found that
just about anywhere um I saw like how to clown
or anything like that. During research. One of the main
(33:58):
things was figure out your style of clown and it's
based on who you are, and then just figure out
how to bring that out as big as possible, but
that it was all about you and and figuring out
your own jam um. They also suggest that you should
probably have at least one talent like still walking, juggling
balloon animals is a big one too, something like that.
(34:23):
But they pointed out that you should be able to
be funny with no props whatsoever. And then you start
incorporating props, well, it's probably good to practice them along
the way. Give up that rubber chicken though, and really
work for a little while and and be funny without
the rubber chicken. Then when you add the rubber chicken,
you're really going to be funny, right, Um, but that
(34:43):
all is based on Remember, clowns are exaggerations of a
human personality and specifically that person's personality, and so that's
what you're supposed to work on. Initially. Yeah, so, um,
I think are we now at the the colerophobia? Yeah?
I think so? Why do people hate clowns? Why are
(35:07):
people afraid of clowns? So initially we talked about Grimaldi
and Debrow having pretty grim backstories, and like everybody knew
it at the time. Everyone went to de bros Um trial.
Grimaldi apparently used to crack that he was grim all day,
but he made you, he delighted you at night, right, Yeah,
(35:27):
play on his name, right, So everyone knew that he
had this depressing life. His son was an alcoholic clown
who died of drink at thirty one. Yeah, his father
was a stage father, a tyrant. Supposedly his first wife
died during childbirth. Um. Grimaldi was in bad physical shape
from all the slapstick that he performed over the years,
(35:49):
and everyone knew this, and yet he was a clown
and no one thought, oh, that's kind of weird for
a clown, or very ironic for a clown to have
a terrible life, in part because Grimaldi invented the modern clown.
So that was the conception of the modern clown for
a very long time. It wasn't until the early twentieth
century that clowns were taken away from this idea that
(36:12):
they were adults, pranksters um kind of body humor and
placed squarely in the realm of little kids, and they
were expected to be happy all the time and kind
of these fantastic creatures that cannot possibly ever really be
that way. So automatically clowns were set up to be
(36:34):
something kind of creepy because they were held to these
really high standards that they could never meet. And for
a little while it worked like Bose of the Clown
was huge. There was apparently, so Bose of the Clown
on TV was a franchise, right, so if you were
a local TV station, you could have your own Bows
of the Clown and put on your own Bows of
(36:54):
the Clown show. But at the main one at w
g N in Chicago, the waiting list for tickets to
the studio audience was ten years long, and as a
matter of fact, Willard Scott played Bozo and Willard Scott
went on to become Ronald McDonald from playing Bozo and
the Ronald McDonald was inspired by Bozo because McDonald sponsored
(37:15):
the Bozo Show and they saw how crazy popular this
clown was with the kids, so they made their own clown,
Ronald McDonald, so that they could better market to kids exactly.
And it worked, it did. But then eventually, I think
there was always this idea that this is a little weird,
this is creepy, like nobody can be that happy. What
do you you know, what's going on there? Well, Charles
(37:37):
Dickens wrote Um the Memoir, He edited the memoir of
Grimaldi when he died, and he basically laid it all
out there about what a ghastly, you know, sort of
person that this guy was in real life. And it
was a huge hit, Like people bought this book like crazy.
So you coupled that with um Pierrot or what was
(38:00):
his real name, Debrow who killed a kid, goes on trial,
and so you have this very sort of dark seed planet.
And then, like you said, years later, all of a sudden,
it's not meant for body adults at you know, getting
drunk watching Shakespeare's Let's take these guys and put them
around our kids. Yeah, exactly, So you have a recipe
(38:22):
for at the very least clowns to be confusing and
then all of a sudden chuck out of nowhere. In
the worst case scenario, nightmare comes to pass. John Wayne Gacy. Yeah, yeah,
the idea that was in all the parents back to
their heads, like this is a little creepy. This is
a grown man hanging out with my kids, and he's
(38:44):
he's he's sort of acting out these weird, happy, happy
violent things, like he's tripping people and squirting them, and
he looks creepy. And now he's another killer. Yes, he's
a serial killer as a clown, Pogo to the clown,
but yet serial killer of the worst variety. And he
was larger in charge because I think Polo the clown
(39:05):
was a white faced clown I remember correctly. Oh yeah,
I mean there's you look up the pictures of Gaycey
as a clown. That's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah.
So he, uh, you know how many kids he killed?
Like thirty three young boys? Yeah, thirty five and he
was convicted of thirty three, I believe. But he didn't
help the case of clowns. Uh, by like when he
(39:26):
went to prison, he would still paint pictures of clowns
and of himself as as a clown, and it was
like he had he had quite a collection of paintings
from prison that did not do anything but reinforced the
fact that clowns are creepy, right, And of course there
was like international news a clown found to be a
killer and sexual predatory serial version of it. It definitely
(39:50):
captured the public imagination from that point on. It was like,
clowns are now overtly sinister. Yeah, and in movies, killer
clowns from outer space or it. Well, yeah, Stephen King's
Pennywise the Clown, Yeah, that was one of the legendary
scary clowns. That new one on American Horror Story, Twisty. Yeah,
have you seen that one? But if you look at
(40:11):
it so so John Wayne Gaze is scary in real life.
Pennywise the Clown pretty scary, but still you know, masterfully scary.
Now you've gotten to Twisty the Clown on American Horror Story,
and he's like, he's as scary as it comes. But
think about the amount of violence they're having to imbue
in this guy and show graphically because this frightening clown
(40:36):
has become such a trope over time, it's just got
to get more intense and extreme, right Like, eventually, just
to really get the full thrill, like theater promoters are
going to have to stand the clown and to kill
half the audience to scare the other half in real life,
So what you're saying is it's a loop, an endless
(40:58):
loop where clowns are getting worse and worse and worse.
I don't know. I think eventually it'll just be so
played out that people be like, oh, a scary clown. Seriously,
you actually use this. And eventually what will happen was,
or will I think be that clowns can There'll be
a door and opening for clowns to regain some of
(41:20):
their innocence from that, but to a negotiated degree, because
they'll have gone through that period of being overtly frightening
and associated with something really sinister lurking beneath the surface,
and maybe we'll expect a little less from clowns and
then therefore they can take their rightful place once more.
But having to go through this, it sounds to me
(41:42):
like you're predicting a clown renaissance, A clown renaissance, A
well maintained and tasteful clown renaissance. Maybe not a Golden
Age or a Heyday, but something that's stable indefinitely. Well.
You know, the other thing I think we talked about
this on the internet roundup is the French teenagers that
were dressing a clowns, causing mayhem and they're not helping anything.
(42:03):
None of that helps. And then there's other cases I've
seen where where was it I don't think it was
England where there was just this creepy clown just just
sit there hanging around. I think it was in Canada, Canada.
It might have been in both actutions. None of these
things are helping legit clowns. I'm sure they're all like, thanks, guys,
(42:23):
we're just dressing up and being creepy on a bench,
just sitting midnight. Yeah, at midnight. But when you think
about it, there's it could just be a clown that
got up work. I mean, why is that so creepy?
I don't think that's it. Um. I want to give
a shout out to a Smithsonian article that we used
in part for this. It's called The History and Psychology
of clowns being scary, which is pretty clunky title, but
(42:46):
it was a very good, comprehensive, exhaustive article on that,
So go check that out. Agreed, Uh, you got anything
else right now? No, if you want to know more
about clowns, type that word in the search bar at
how stuff works dot com. And we should do one
on just how circus is in general works someday. Have
we not done that? No, we haven't. We've done circusy things.
We've done like flame meeting, daredevil's juggling, swords, swallowing like
(43:10):
human cannonballs, all that jam. But no, no, what's left circuses,
how circus work? Yeah? But I mean what's left that's
not those things? We can? We can, We'll find it. Okay. Uh,
I think I said search part, didn't I? I think so? Well,
it's time for the listener maw. I'm gonna call this
(43:33):
um oh, saving a marriage. Okay, Hey guys, my wife,
I want to give you credit for making two young
love birds fall deeper in love. My wife Lindsay and
I have been married for almost a year a our anniversary,
so oh congrat Like, yeah, this is probably pretty close
to that. Um we are a perfect match in almost
(43:53):
every aspect of our relationship except for one major area,
but to listen to on the radio on road trips.
She can't stand listening to my off some rock music,
and I can't barely tolerate her country. He's like, definitely
a rule. What's your problem? This is the Donnie and Marie.
Actually they were brother and sisters, so that's cross. Yeah. Yeah,
she's a little bit country, he's a little bit rock
(44:13):
and roll. We spent a lot of time in the car,
though we always end up taking turns with one person
singing along with their favorite hits, the other one sulking
until it's their turn to control the dial, or even
times when we would just drive in silence instead of compromising.
I think I know where this is going. One day
we stumbled upon stuff you should know when our lives
were changed forever. Turns out we both love the podcast,
and the driving portion of our road trips now has
(44:35):
gone from a frustrating compromise to an amazing bonding experience,
and it's all your fault. We've even spent a few
evenings listening to podcasts instead of watching TV at home.
What we're interfering with TV dealing turned the podcast off. Communists.
We started from the most recent and are working our
way backwards. Um, so prepare for them to get less
(44:58):
good good luck. We have about four hundred episodes to
go until we run out. We've been discussing how we're
gonna deal with the inevitable s y s A withdrawal
once we reach episode one. I hope you guys keep
coming up with new ideas for the next fifty to
sixty years, because I don't want to have to go
back spending half of my time listening to country music
fifty or sixty years. We can swing that. And that
has Ben Brown and uh Lindsay Brown or Lindsay his wife.
(45:23):
I don't know if she took his name or not.
Ben and Lindsay from Guntersville, Alabama. I'm sure they're the
only Ben and Lindsay there. Yeah, so Ben and Lindsay
from Guntersville Happy in verse, Congratulations. Yeah, we're glad we
could make life a little easier for you. Go turn
your TV back on for real. Come on, seriously, if
(45:44):
you want to get in touch with us to tell
us how we are enhancing your life, we love to
hear that kind of stuff. You can tweet it to
us at s y s K Podcast. You can join
us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at
how stuff Works dot com, and, as always, join us
at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
(46:12):
is it how stuff Works dot com, m
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Josh Clark
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