October 1, 2022 • 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. Learn all about clowns in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, everyone. Are you scared of clowns? I'm not. I
think clowns are pretty fun and awesome. But a lot
of people are scared of clowns. So we explain why
because there is a reason. And we talked about all
things clowns in this episode from April, and it's called
How Clowns Work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
(00:28):
production of I Heart Radio. 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 also be like how late night talk show hosts
(00:49):
work too. Yeah, Krusty the clown was on my mind
during a lot of this. I thought that was your
Steth Meyers. No funny guy. I did he say that?
It was just completely ludicrous joke. I haven't watched this
show yet. I haven't even I like the guy though,
good guy. I don't watch anything but Conan. Yeah, I
(01:10):
don't even watch Conan really. Yeah. I do want Hodgemans on.
I record it, you know, and then watch it the
next day. Yeah. I don't stay up the whatever time.
I canna say geez, I guess you don't go to
Early Bird for dinner anymore either. Yeah, you have to watch. Hey.
Speaking of Conan, big shout out to Brian Kylie, Rob
Kuttner and Dan Cronin when seth Meyers. No, they are
(01:34):
writers for Conan and they treated me to launch. 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 master
baiting bear guy who I won't reveal his name he
probably should, but he's the guy that's done it all
(01:55):
these years. And someone sent him like a four ft
tall treat round can 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 neat, and a life size a hundred
thousand dollars worth of Legos probably is. And then a
(02:16):
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 size lego
Josh and chucking it would be kind of cool. Anyway,
I just want to say thanks to those guys. They
are awesome and they're supporters of us. Thanks guys, Yeah,
(02:39):
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. I'm not scared of clowns,
not at all. I mean the scary clowns that are
(03:01):
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 clurro phobia, right, which
also includes um it's unofficial, by the way, the real thing. Um.
It also includes things like costumed characters like Mickey Mouse
and um, stuff like that. It's not just clowns, right, right,
(03:23):
So it's a 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, like snow White
or something at Disney World when I was a kid,
And there's just always been something about somebody being dressed
(03:45):
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 in arms the basis of color
a phobia. Yeah, and a lot of the show, it
turns out it's going to be about that because it's
one of the most interesting parts of clowning. But um,
(04:08):
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 a big part
of teaching clowning is to teach personal space and like
how to not come at a kid because they think
(04:30):
you look weird exchange, and if you come at him
like too fast, then it's it might scare him. And
especially these days to like clowns today are still following
a tradition from the early to mid twentie century. Kids
today aren't really hip with the mid twenty century. They're
not into like mid century modern like art or design
(04:52):
or anything like that, and so clowns are about as
creepy to them as like an old wooden toy, right right,
It's just awful little, it's uncan ex don't get 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 this study,
I think there was like two fifty population sample UM
(05:15):
feared and or disliked clowns. Yeah, most of the kids
in the study. That's a lot of sad clowns, yeah,
and a lot of scared kids. So I 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, happen the old way back machine. It's
(05:42):
London and it's eight oh 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, very purposefully too, got the white makeup.
They still call clowns Joey's yeah, because that was his
character name. That's a nickname for clowns. Oh. He was.
(06:04):
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. There was a legend that
supposedly an eighth of the population of London had seen
him on stage. There's a lot of people and still
(06:26):
today on London's East End there um as a church
that has an annual mass in his honor and everyone
comes in full clown makeup and costume to church. For Grimaldi,
he was a big deal. He was very very famous
for the time. He was a very well known person.
(06:47):
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,
we'll get to that. That's sort of lends itself, I
don't mean to get ahead of ourselves. That lends itself
to the dark underbelly of clowning and why it might
(07:08):
have this reputation. But what clowning really sprung from was uh,
from the beginning of time almost there were jesters essentially
um and all types of all all over the world
and all cultures. Yeah, it seems to be universal. Um.
There were at least as far back as the like
(07:32):
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 Native America. Different Native American society has had some
(07:52):
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 to elude sex act in the middle of
(08:12):
very serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah, it was the spirits.
That's a that's a big deal. That's 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
thing went on in Japan with the Taikomochi. Right, it
(08:34):
means drum bear, drum bearer. Uh. 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 hey yeah, And they were actually the
original geisha. They were men and they were later replaced
by women. But the Tychomochi were the original versions of
(08:56):
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 get this party party started. Yeah. So in India,
(09:18):
the the official jesters there were a member of the Brahmin,
which was the highest social class. Right, Yeah, that's where
that's the class that up. Who's a member of? Oh?
Really did he say that? 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 brahm
in heritage embarkoes, so long as there's no follow up questions. Absolutely, fully, man,
(09:42):
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,
all right. So we're in India and the Brahmin they uh.
One of the things you'll notice over and over here
(10:03):
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 bounce
in and talk about how fat the king is and
make jokes about like how many meals have you had today? Well, yeah,
(10:24):
and so there. 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
gesture would be like, yeah, that's a great idea. Where
you going to get all that paint from your dummy. Well,
speaking of China, I think they had some of the
(10:45):
best names. Um, they have a great tradition of clowning,
and they had legends named twisty pole. Uh, Baldi Chuny
that's the name of the podcast. That's a good one.
And this one I don't get moving bucket. I don't
get that one either. It probably makes sense in Chinese.
Another one I came across was newly polished mirror. Really
(11:06):
was the name of a clown. That's no Bally chun 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. He was
like the political satirist of his day. He worked for
three different kings and was very intelligent, political philosopher and satirist.
(11:31):
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 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
(11:51):
hunt it, and the bear came back with the king
and the court and the queen and like almost killed everybody.
And um, the king later criticised stand Chick for running off,
and stan Chick said, well, it was smarter than letting
a cage bear loose something along those lines, and the
king was like, oh touche, and everyone laughed, and then
(12:13):
the bear eight the king. Uh. In ancient Rome, chuckers, Yeah,
they used to call the court jester's stupidest stupidest Huh, yeah,
that makes sense. Uh. Grimaldi 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
(12:34):
was some people say these were like the first professional
actors in the world. We're coming out of Italy at
the time in this program, right. So at the time,
you were basically if you were a clown or a
jester or something, you were probably a member of a court.
If you're an member of a Native American tribe or
um in most parts of Africa, and you were a jester,
(12:57):
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, there was usually a jester of
some sort, right, But one of the ways that jester spread,
especially saying in Europe, was from UM a jester being
(13:18):
forced to hit the road first, stepping over the line,
basically getting kicked out. And that's one way that it
kind of spread. Clowning originally spread to the masses was
you may run across the court jesters down on his
luck traveling along the road because he's got kicked out
of courts, like I got all this great material exactly,
but he's still a jester. He's gonna make you laugh,
(13:40):
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 of here, exactly. Yeah. And there's there's 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
(14:01):
the idea was that more people in the court could
speak their mind, but that the jesture couldn't even speak
their mind. In some cases, there were some documented versions
like UM, the one in Persia Kareem Charay, who um
told the king has the shahnzzardin apparently said is there
a short of shortage of food? And uh Kareem Sharay said, yes,
(14:25):
I see that, your majesty is eating only five times
a day. And he made this little bow tie spin,
but he got the point across that, Yeah, it's a
shortage of food and you're not helping anything. You're cloister
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
(14:46):
he did as well, Chuck. So we'll get to what
clowning is specifically right after this. All right, clowning, my friend,
(15:13):
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 shoes.
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
(15:33):
to exaggerate the emotions that are already there. Yeah, like
the big, huge smile or frown, the big frown yeah. Um.
And I've 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
(15:56):
really good clown, you're going to play up, you know,
the the um anger at being rebuffed when you're trying
to get a laugh from somebody, or you're gonna play
up your stage fight 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
(16:18):
broadcast on a clown scale. Yeah. And part of that
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
(16:39):
an actual physical tool. Never heard of that. Yeah, it was.
It's like looks like a paddle with another paddle hinge
to it. And back in the old days of the
Comedia dell Arte 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,
(17:01):
but make a sound, huge sound like they had been
hit really hard. And that's where slapstick comes from. That's
the word slapstick. 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 onto
stage because remember when Comedia dell Art was establishing itself,
for the most part, clowns were relegated to court gester
(17:23):
ship right yeah, and then mimes later, Yeah, we're relegated
to parks. I guess so, right exactly. Um, 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
(17:46):
themselves that were intended for comic relief. And one of
those is called the harlequin Aide, and Harlequin you recognize
Harlequin is one of the jokers, the jesters, that kind
of thing. Um, there's actually a character in the harlequin
Aie that was a clown, and Grimaldi originally played that character.
And that character was um, kind of a bumpkin, a
(18:07):
rustic rube. And as a matter of fact, the word
clown supposedly comes from a sixteenth century German word for
like a country bumpkin. Um, So that was the original character. Well,
Grimaldi came along in about eight hundred and started playing
this in the pantomime, which was that break in the
Comedia dell Art relief exactly. And then the Harlequinade was
(18:29):
a a little mini play that was a panomime in
the Comedia dell Art, right, 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 embody. And he started to play the character like that,
(18:51):
and all of a sudden, the clown went from a
minor supporting character to the reason that people were coming
to the Comedia dell Art Productions the pan mine. Yeah,
so they were stealing the thunder of the legit actors. Yeah.
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.
(19:17):
Did you just laugh because I said boom, No, I
just rustic Country Boob sounded like the name of like
my memoir or something. It just struck me as a
nice titles. 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,
(19:39):
that big it's even better man 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
(20:00):
other a lot 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
(20:20):
all part of 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 oaps 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,
(20:41):
there's usually a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's
a hierarchy for sure. There actually is. That 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. Yeah. So first you've got the white
face clown, which Grimaldi was one. So is are the
clown who will talk about later. Um, but the white
(21:02):
face clown is the 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 mo. Absolutely, he's still a clown, um, but
he's Boston the other ones around. He's as signing job. Yeah,
and he might be the the most um hostile out
(21:23):
of all of them. And then after that, and again,
the white face clown has completely white paint all over
his face and head and neck. Yeah, fringe counterpart you're
talking about, the clown that he created was a white
face clown. Um. The perrot p i e r r
O t pro sounds good and that's a kind of
clown as well. But the pierrot is a white face clown, right,
(21:46):
So the white face clown is in charge of he
or she is at the top of the heap. After
that you have the August clown. The August clown is
the one that um Usually they have that sloppy ver
sized um outfit, huge like suspenders hanging on hanging even
(22:07):
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 them 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
(22:28):
be a little bit bigger, and the August clown is
um definitely the one who takes orders from the white
face clown, but um also a little more um hilarious maybe,
so like the August clown would be um maybe Larry,
probably curly though, because you get he's kind of a boob.
(22:51):
You know, 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 shimp? Chimp completely breaks
this whole analogy apart. So with the augusta clown, it
was um invented by a man named lu Jacobs, and
(23:12):
there was there was a team, Albert Freatellini and Lu
Jacobs a clown team, and Fredellini was also part of
the Fredlini brothers, and he was the one who invented
the red nose. Oh yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting.
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, which you
(23:36):
can immediately bring to mind. I would imagine just hearing
sad hobo clown, the downcasts, frown face, the stubble like
five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed jacket patches, and
the bendel bendel bag on the stick. So Emmett Kelly
comes up with the sad hobo clown and that's become
(23:56):
a fixture of clowning, and that tramp hobo or bag
lady clown is the one that's the lowest, wrong 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 think that's
(24:17):
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, my clothes are tattered,
I don't have a place to lay my head on them.
A sad hobo. And you have to understand like Emmett
Kelly came up with this in the thirties or forties,
maybe at a time when it was okay to make
fun people who were down on their luck like that.
(24:40):
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
necessarily laughs at my expense. Yeah, even though they do that,
(25:01):
But they're the ones who are like, um, sweeping the
mess that the other one's made up when the spotlight
goes out, crying 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
they're technically more like the working clown there, like a
(25:23):
sheep dog clown, um, 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,
(25:46):
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 scaring the making it 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 is very important. Don't touch a covered
(26:10):
part because you never know if they've just had their
leg amputated, was one piece of advice. Oh 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 episode, it should be in the links. Yeah, we'll
definitely put that in there. If not, and you don't
feel like going to our website, just look up hospital
(26:31):
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. We did.
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. Why do they like clowns? It's a
better way to put Why do we let clowns get
(26:52):
away with making fun of the homeless? Um? I think
a good reason that it'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, is how this author put it. Two.
(27:16):
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,
you know, squirt this little kid in the face with
water everybody, And um, you know since the French clown
he beat a kid to death of his cane in
the street from making fun of him, and that's taking
(27:37):
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 piroas. So, yeah,
he be had a kid that was making fun of
him and he killed him. He didn't mean to you
meant to hit him. He meant to kill him. He
(27:59):
said it is 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 going to
be like the most sour puss thing you've heard today,
but it really makes sense in a way. So, yes,
the role of the clown is to vent the general
(28:20):
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 feel better about things because this
is being made fun of, its being addressed. But you
can also make the case that in that sense, the
clown satire, anything that provides that function in society actually
(28:45):
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 vent, just to release that once
they're released, then we can just move a long. But
nothing's actually really changed. It's been satirized, and so we're
satisfied to a certain degree. Interesting, you know, I know
(29:07):
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 poked at so that um,
here she appears to have been brought down a peg,
but really the power is totally unchecked by that. Yeah. Interesting,
(29:30):
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? Or is it just well, at least
we all got to laugh right at this. It serves
what serves a function. It does serve a function. It
(29:51):
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 guessed it clowns. All right,
(30:24):
we're back and by the way, yeah, 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
(30:45):
definitely a way to go. University 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 applied just about anybody in a
hospital who wants to have their spirits picked up and react. Well,
the clowns, I think kids mainly medical clown I know,
(31:08):
I like, get out of my hospital room. Yeah, an
adult that's going in for like a bypasser train, 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 membership
is waning these days in the World Clown Association. Um,
they don't keep exact stats, but they um anecdotally say
(31:32):
that it's dropped 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 let in two clowns.
(31:52):
They selected fourteen to come to camp. They hired eleven. Yeah,
that's pretty to be competitive. Um, and there's only twenty
six total clowns that work for all of England. Brothers,
Barnum and Bailey. 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. They inject
(32:12):
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 but on their red nose,
and it's all good show time. Circus A. You can
do a lot worse than that. My friend if you
want to go that route. It's different kind of clowning,
but it's I think a little more of the old
(32:34):
Italian and European style. It depends they go for both. Yeah,
they go for a like character comedy and then I
think like physical slapsticks straight up. Yeah. But you can
make up to two K a year at circu to Sola.
I think that's like yeah at Wrinkling Brothers. Apparently for
(32:55):
clowns they can make up too K a year. K
means a thousand, that's and buy that, I mean dollars. Uh.
If you're into French clowning, you can go to Paris
and study at the Ecole a Internationale de Theatra Jacques
leco Jacques Lecoq theater Jacques lecoq I was pronounced yeah, sure,
(33:18):
it's not leco no, it's definitely the coup okay. So
he do you remember leacock sportif like um tennis ware
from the eighties, I called it leco No, it's lecoc 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 it's a clown Jacques Lecoq. I mean,
it's very funny. I know, it's hilarious. It's way funnier
(33:41):
than Jacques leco So if it is Jacque 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 negative the or negativa,
(34:02):
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
(34:23):
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, like something like
(34:47):
that water squirting. 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, right,
and really work just put it in a drawer 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 all is based
(35:09):
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 like that, Yeah, so, um, I
think are we now at the at the the colerophobia? Yeah?
I think so? Why do people hate clowns? Why are
(35:32):
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,
(35:52):
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.
(36:14):
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
(36:37):
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
(36:59):
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 Bozo the Clown was huge.
There was apparently so Bozo 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 the Clown show. But
(37:20):
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 the Bozo Show and
(37:42):
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 two kids. 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 you you know, what's
going on there? Well? Charles Dickens wrote um the Memoir.
(38:04):
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 his real name, Debrow who
(38:27):
killed a kid. This king 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 for
(38:48):
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 Gaycy. Yeah, yeah,
the idea that was in all the parents backs to
their heads, right, like this is a little creepy. This
is a grown man hanging out with my kids, and
(39:08):
he's he's he's sort of acting out these weird happy,
half 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 the clown,
but yes, serial killer of the worst variety, and he
was larger and in charge because I think Pogo the
(39:30):
Clown was a white faced clown I remember correctly. Oh yeah,
I mean there's you look up the pictures of Gaycey
as a clown. It's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah.
So he, uh you know how many kids you 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
(39:51):
went to prison, he would still paint pictures of clowns
and of himself 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 it was
like international news a clown found to be a killer
and sexual predator, a serial version of that. It definitely
(40:15):
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
Kings 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
(40:36):
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
(41:01):
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 send a 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
(41:23):
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, scary clown, Seriously,
you actually use this, And eventually what will happen was
or will I think be that clowns can. They'll be
a door and opening for clowns to regain some of
(41:45):
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
(42:05):
having to go through this. It sounds to me like
you're predicting a clown renaissance, clown renaissance, a well maintained
and tasteful clown renaissance. Maybe not a Golden Age or
a Heyday, but something that's stable, indefinitely got you well.
You know. The other thing I think we talked about
this on the Internet round up is the French teenagers
that were dressing up as clowns causing mayhem and they're
(42:27):
not helping anything. 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, with Canada it might have been in
both actual none of these things are helping legit clowns.
I'm sure they're all like, thanks, guys, We're just dressing
(42:49):
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
(43:10):
pretty clunky title, but 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 eating, Daredevil's juggling,
(43:34):
sword swallowing, like human cannonballs, all that jam. But no, no,
what's left circus is 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 bar,
didn't I? I think so. Well, it's time for a
listener maw. I'm gonna call this um saving a marriage. Okay,
(44:02):
Hey guys, my wife, I want to give you credit
for making two young love birds fall deeper in love.
My wife Lindsey and I have been married for almost
a year April our anniversary, so congrat Yeah, this is
probably pretty close to that. Um. We are a perfect
match in almost every aspect of our relationship except for
one major area, what to listen to on the radio
on road trips. She can't stand listening to my awesome
(44:25):
ROC music, and I can't barely tolerate her country. He's like,
definit Lupper ruled, what's your problem? This is the Donnie
and Marie. Actually they were brother and sisters, so that's gross.
But yeah, she's a little bit country, he's a little
bit rock and roll. We spent a lot of time
in the car, though, and 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,
(44:48):
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, and
our lives were changed forever. Turns out we both love
the podcast, and the driving portion of our road trip
now has gone from a frustrating compromise to an amazing
bonding experience. And it's all your faults. We have even
spent a few evenings listening to the podcast instead of
(45:08):
watching TV at home. What we're interfering with TV feeling
turned the podcast off branded communists. We started from the
most recent and are working our way backwards. UM, so
prepare for them to get less good good luck. We
have about four episodes to go until we run out.
We've been discussing how we're going to deal with the
(45:30):
inevitable s y SK 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 is Ben Brown and uh
Lindsay Brown or Lindsay his wife. I don't know if
she took his name or not. Ben and Lindsay from Guntersville, Alabama.
(45:54):
I'm sure they're the only Ben and Lindsay there. Yeah.
So Ben and Lindsay from Guntersville, Happy in verse. Congratulations,
We're glad we could make life a little easier for you.
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(46:15):
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(46:37):
the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hello, everyone. Are you scared of clowns? I'm not. I
think clowns are pretty fun and awesome. But a lot
of people are scared of clowns. So we explain why
because there is a reason. And we talked about all
things clowns in this episode from April, and it's called
How Clowns Work. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
(00:28):
production of I Heart Radio. 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 also be like how late night talk show hosts
(00:49):
work too. Yeah, Krusty the clown was on my mind
during a lot of this. I thought that was your
Steth Meyers. No funny guy. I did he say that?
It was just completely ludicrous joke. I haven't watched this
show yet. I haven't even I like the guy though,
good guy. I don't watch anything but Conan. Yeah, I
(01:10):
don't even watch Conan really. Yeah. I do want Hodgemans on.
I record it, you know, and then watch it the
next day. Yeah. I don't stay up the whatever time.
I canna say geez, I guess you don't go to
Early Bird for dinner anymore either. Yeah, you have to watch. Hey.
Speaking of Conan, big shout out to Brian Kylie, Rob
Kuttner and Dan Cronin when seth Meyers. No, they are
(01:34):
writers for Conan and they treated me to launch. 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 master
baiting bear guy who I won't reveal his name he
probably should, but he's the guy that's done it all
(01:55):
these years. And someone sent him like a four ft
tall treat round can 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 neat, and a life size a hundred
thousand dollars worth of Legos probably is. And then a
(02:16):
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 size lego
Josh and chucking it would be kind of cool. Anyway,
I just want to say thanks to those guys. They
are awesome and they're supporters of us. Thanks guys, Yeah,
(02:39):
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. I'm not scared of clowns,
not at all. I mean the scary clowns that are
(03:01):
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 clurro phobia, right, which
also includes um it's unofficial, by the way, the real thing. Um.
It also includes things like costumed characters like Mickey Mouse
and um, stuff like that. It's not just clowns, right, right,
(03:23):
So it's a 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, like snow White
or something at Disney World when I was a kid,
And there's just always been something about somebody being dressed
(03:45):
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 in arms the basis of color
a phobia. Yeah, and a lot of the show, it
turns out it's going to be about that because it's
one of the most interesting parts of clowning. But um,
(04:08):
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 a big part
of teaching clowning is to teach personal space and like
how to not come at a kid because they think
(04:30):
you look weird exchange, and if you come at him
like too fast, then it's it might scare him. And
especially these days to like clowns today are still following
a tradition from the early to mid twentie century. Kids
today aren't really hip with the mid twenty century. They're
not into like mid century modern like art or design
(04:52):
or anything like that, and so clowns are about as
creepy to them as like an old wooden toy, right right,
It's just awful little, it's uncan ex don't get 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 this study,
I think there was like two fifty population sample UM
(05:15):
feared and or disliked clowns. Yeah, most of the kids
in the study. That's a lot of sad clowns, yeah,
and a lot of scared kids. So I 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, happen the old way back machine. It's
(05:42):
London and it's eight oh 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, very purposefully too, got the white makeup.
They still call clowns Joey's yeah, because that was his
character name. That's a nickname for clowns. Oh. He was.
(06:04):
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. There was a legend that
supposedly an eighth of the population of London had seen
him on stage. There's a lot of people and still
(06:26):
today on London's East End there um as a church
that has an annual mass in his honor and everyone
comes in full clown makeup and costume to church. For Grimaldi,
he was a big deal. He was very very famous
for the time. He was a very well known person.
(06:47):
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,
we'll get to that. That's sort of lends itself, I
don't mean to get ahead of ourselves. That lends itself
to the dark underbelly of clowning and why it might
(07:08):
have this reputation. But what clowning really sprung from was uh,
from the beginning of time almost there were jesters essentially
um and all types of all all over the world
and all cultures. Yeah, it seems to be universal. Um.
There were at least as far back as the like
(07:32):
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 Native America. Different Native American society has had some
(07:52):
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 to elude sex act in the middle of
(08:12):
very serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah, it was the spirits.
That's a that's a big deal. That's 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
thing went on in Japan with the Taikomochi. Right, it
(08:34):
means drum bear, drum bearer. Uh. 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 hey yeah, And they were actually the
original geisha. They were men and they were later replaced
by women. But the Tychomochi were the original versions of
(08:56):
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 get this party party started. Yeah. So in India,
(09:18):
the the official jesters there were a member of the Brahmin,
which was the highest social class. Right, Yeah, that's where
that's the class that up. Who's a member of? Oh?
Really did he say that? 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 brahm
in heritage embarkoes, so long as there's no follow up questions. Absolutely, fully, man,
(09:42):
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,
all right. So we're in India and the Brahmin they uh.
One of the things you'll notice over and over here
(10:03):
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 bounce
in and talk about how fat the king is and
make jokes about like how many meals have you had today? Well, yeah,
(10:24):
and so there. 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
gesture would be like, yeah, that's a great idea. Where
you going to get all that paint from your dummy. Well,
speaking of China, I think they had some of the
(10:45):
best names. Um, they have a great tradition of clowning,
and they had legends named twisty pole. Uh, Baldi Chuny
that's the name of the podcast. That's a good one.
And this one I don't get moving bucket. I don't
get that one either. It probably makes sense in Chinese.
Another one I came across was newly polished mirror. Really
(11:06):
was the name of a clown. That's no Bally chun 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. He was
like the political satirist of his day. He worked for
three different kings and was very intelligent, political philosopher and satirist.
(11:31):
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 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
(11:51):
hunt it, and the bear came back with the king
and the court and the queen and like almost killed everybody.
And um, the king later criticised stand Chick for running off,
and stan Chick said, well, it was smarter than letting
a cage bear loose something along those lines, and the
king was like, oh touche, and everyone laughed, and then
(12:13):
the bear eight the king. Uh. In ancient Rome, chuckers, Yeah,
they used to call the court jester's stupidest stupidest Huh, yeah,
that makes sense. Uh. Grimaldi 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
(12:34):
was some people say these were like the first professional
actors in the world. We're coming out of Italy at
the time in this program, right. So at the time,
you were basically if you were a clown or a
jester or something, you were probably a member of a court.
If you're an member of a Native American tribe or
um in most parts of Africa, and you were a jester,
(12:57):
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, there was usually a jester of
some sort, right, But one of the ways that jester spread,
especially saying in Europe, was from UM a jester being
(13:18):
forced to hit the road first, stepping over the line,
basically getting kicked out. And that's one way that it
kind of spread. Clowning originally spread to the masses was
you may run across the court jesters down on his
luck traveling along the road because he's got kicked out
of courts, like I got all this great material exactly,
but he's still a jester. He's gonna make you laugh,
(13:40):
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 of here, exactly. Yeah. And there's there's 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
(14:01):
the idea was that more people in the court could
speak their mind, but that the jesture couldn't even speak
their mind. In some cases, there were some documented versions
like UM, the one in Persia Kareem Charay, who um
told the king has the shahnzzardin apparently said is there
a short of shortage of food? And uh Kareem Sharay said, yes,
(14:25):
I see that, your majesty is eating only five times
a day. And he made this little bow tie spin,
but he got the point across that, Yeah, it's a
shortage of food and you're not helping anything. You're cloister
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
(14:46):
he did as well, Chuck. So we'll get to what
clowning is specifically right after this. All right, clowning, my friend,
(15:13):
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 shoes.
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
(15:33):
to exaggerate the emotions that are already there. Yeah, like
the big, huge smile or frown, the big frown yeah. Um.
And I've 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
(15:56):
really good clown, you're going to play up, you know,
the the um anger at being rebuffed when you're trying
to get a laugh from somebody, or you're gonna play
up your stage fight 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
(16:18):
broadcast on a clown scale. Yeah. And part of that
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
(16:39):
an actual physical tool. Never heard of that. Yeah, it was.
It's like looks like a paddle with another paddle hinge
to it. And back in the old days of the
Comedia dell Arte 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,
(17:01):
but make a sound, huge sound like they had been
hit really hard. And that's where slapstick comes from. That's
the word slapstick. 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 onto
stage because remember when Comedia dell Art was establishing itself,
for the most part, clowns were relegated to court gester
(17:23):
ship right yeah, and then mimes later, Yeah, we're relegated
to parks. I guess so, right exactly. Um, 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
(17:46):
themselves that were intended for comic relief. And one of
those is called the harlequin Aide, and Harlequin you recognize
Harlequin is one of the jokers, the jesters, that kind
of thing. Um, there's actually a character in the harlequin
Aie that was a clown, and Grimaldi originally played that character.
And that character was um, kind of a bumpkin, a
(18:07):
rustic rube. And as a matter of fact, the word
clown supposedly comes from a sixteenth century German word for
like a country bumpkin. Um, So that was the original character. Well,
Grimaldi came along in about eight hundred and started playing
this in the pantomime, which was that break in the
Comedia dell Art relief exactly. And then the Harlequinade was
(18:29):
a a little mini play that was a panomime in
the Comedia dell Art, right, 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 embody. And he started to play the character like that,
(18:51):
and all of a sudden, the clown went from a
minor supporting character to the reason that people were coming
to the Comedia dell Art Productions the pan mine. Yeah,
so they were stealing the thunder of the legit actors. Yeah.
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.
(19:17):
Did you just laugh because I said boom, No, I
just rustic Country Boob sounded like the name of like
my memoir or something. It just struck me as a
nice titles. 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,
(19:39):
that big it's even better man 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
(20:00):
other a lot 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
(20:20):
all part of 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 oaps 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,
(20:41):
there's usually a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's
a hierarchy for sure. There actually is. That 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. Yeah. So first you've got the white
face clown, which Grimaldi was one. So is are the
clown who will talk about later. Um, but the white
(21:02):
face clown is the 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 mo. Absolutely, he's still a clown, um, but
he's Boston the other ones around. He's as signing job. Yeah,
and he might be the the most um hostile out
(21:23):
of all of them. And then after that, and again,
the white face clown has completely white paint all over
his face and head and neck. Yeah, fringe counterpart you're
talking about, the clown that he created was a white
face clown. Um. The perrot p i e r r
O t pro sounds good and that's a kind of
clown as well. But the pierrot is a white face clown, right,
(21:46):
So the white face clown is in charge of he
or she is at the top of the heap. After
that you have the August clown. The August clown is
the one that um Usually they have that sloppy ver
sized um outfit, huge like suspenders hanging on hanging even
(22:07):
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 them 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
(22:28):
be a little bit bigger, and the August clown is
um definitely the one who takes orders from the white
face clown, but um also a little more um hilarious maybe,
so like the August clown would be um maybe Larry,
probably curly though, because you get he's kind of a boob.
(22:51):
You know, 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 shimp? Chimp completely breaks
this whole analogy apart. So with the augusta clown, it
was um invented by a man named lu Jacobs, and
(23:12):
there was there was a team, Albert Freatellini and Lu
Jacobs a clown team, and Fredellini was also part of
the Fredlini brothers, and he was the one who invented
the red nose. Oh yeah, I thought it was pretty interesting.
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, which you
(23:36):
can immediately bring to mind. I would imagine just hearing
sad hobo clown, the downcasts, frown face, the stubble like
five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed jacket patches, and
the bendel bendel bag on the stick. So Emmett Kelly
comes up with the sad hobo clown and that's become
(23:56):
a fixture of clowning, and that tramp hobo or bag
lady clown is the one that's the lowest, wrong 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 think that's
(24:17):
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, my clothes are tattered,
I don't have a place to lay my head on them.
A sad hobo. And you have to understand like Emmett
Kelly came up with this in the thirties or forties,
maybe at a time when it was okay to make
fun people who were down on their luck like that.
(24:40):
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
necessarily laughs at my expense. Yeah, even though they do that,
(25:01):
But they're the ones who are like, um, sweeping the
mess that the other one's made up when the spotlight
goes out, crying 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
they're technically more like the working clown there, like a
(25:23):
sheep dog clown, um, 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,
(25:46):
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 scaring the making it 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 is very important. Don't touch a covered
(26:10):
part because you never know if they've just had their
leg amputated, was one piece of advice. Oh 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 episode, it should be in the links. Yeah, we'll
definitely put that in there. If not, and you don't
feel like going to our website, just look up hospital
(26:31):
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. We did.
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. Why do they like clowns? It's a
better way to put Why do we let clowns get
(26:52):
away with making fun of the homeless? Um? I think
a good reason that it'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, is how this author put it. Two.
(27:16):
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,
you know, squirt this little kid in the face with
water everybody, And um, you know since the French clown
he beat a kid to death of his cane in
the street from making fun of him, and that's taking
(27:37):
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 piroas. So, yeah,
he be had a kid that was making fun of
him and he killed him. He didn't mean to you
meant to hit him. He meant to kill him. He
(27:59):
said it is 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 going to
be like the most sour puss thing you've heard today,
but it really makes sense in a way. So, yes,
the role of the clown is to vent the general
(28:20):
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 feel better about things because this
is being made fun of, its being addressed. But you
can also make the case that in that sense, the
clown satire, anything that provides that function in society actually
(28:45):
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 vent, just to release that once
they're released, then we can just move a long. But
nothing's actually really changed. It's been satirized, and so we're
satisfied to a certain degree. Interesting, you know, I know
(29:07):
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 poked at so that um,
here she appears to have been brought down a peg,
but really the power is totally unchecked by that. Yeah. Interesting,
(29:30):
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? Or is it just well, at least
we all got to laugh right at this. It serves
what serves a function. It does serve a function. It
(29:51):
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 guessed it clowns. All right,
(30:24):
we're back and by the way, yeah, 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
(30:45):
definitely a way to go. University 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 applied just about anybody in a
hospital who wants to have their spirits picked up and react. Well,
the clowns, I think kids mainly medical clown I know,
(31:08):
I like, get out of my hospital room. Yeah, an
adult that's going in for like a bypasser train, 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 membership
is waning these days in the World Clown Association. Um,
they don't keep exact stats, but they um anecdotally say
(31:32):
that it's dropped 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 let in two clowns.
(31:52):
They selected fourteen to come to camp. They hired eleven. Yeah,
that's pretty to be competitive. Um, and there's only twenty
six total clowns that work for all of England. Brothers,
Barnum and Bailey. 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. They inject
(32:12):
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 but on their red nose,
and it's all good show time. Circus A. You can
do a lot worse than that. My friend if you
want to go that route. It's different kind of clowning,
but it's I think a little more of the old
(32:34):
Italian and European style. It depends they go for both. Yeah,
they go for a like character comedy and then I
think like physical slapsticks straight up. Yeah. But you can
make up to two K a year at circu to Sola.
I think that's like yeah at Wrinkling Brothers. Apparently for
(32:55):
clowns they can make up too K a year. K
means a thousand, that's and buy that, I mean dollars. Uh.
If you're into French clowning, you can go to Paris
and study at the Ecole a Internationale de Theatra Jacques
leco Jacques Lecoq theater Jacques lecoq I was pronounced yeah, sure,
(33:18):
it's not leco no, it's definitely the coup okay. So
he do you remember leacock sportif like um tennis ware
from the eighties, I called it leco No, it's lecoc 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 it's a clown Jacques Lecoq. I mean,
it's very funny. I know, it's hilarious. It's way funnier
(33:41):
than Jacques leco So if it is Jacque 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 negative the or negativa,
(34:02):
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
(34:23):
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, like something like
(34:47):
that water squirting. 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, right,
and really work just put it in a drawer 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 all is based
(35:09):
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 like that, Yeah, so, um, I
think are we now at the at the the colerophobia? Yeah?
I think so? Why do people hate clowns? Why are
(35:32):
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,
(35:52):
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.
(36:14):
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
(36:37):
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
(36:59):
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 Bozo the Clown was huge.
There was apparently so Bozo 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 the Clown show. But
(37:20):
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 the Bozo Show and
(37:42):
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 two kids. 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 you you know, what's
going on there? Well? Charles Dickens wrote um the Memoir.
(38:04):
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 his real name, Debrow who
(38:27):
killed a kid. This king 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 for
(38:48):
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 Gaycy. Yeah, yeah,
the idea that was in all the parents backs to
their heads, right, like this is a little creepy. This
is a grown man hanging out with my kids, and
(39:08):
he's he's he's sort of acting out these weird happy,
half 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 the clown,
but yes, serial killer of the worst variety, and he
was larger and in charge because I think Pogo the
(39:30):
Clown was a white faced clown I remember correctly. Oh yeah,
I mean there's you look up the pictures of Gaycey
as a clown. It's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah.
So he, uh you know how many kids you 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
(39:51):
went to prison, he would still paint pictures of clowns
and of himself 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 it was
like international news a clown found to be a killer
and sexual predator, a serial version of that. It definitely
(40:15):
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
Kings 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
(40:36):
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
(41:01):
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 send a 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
(41:23):
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, scary clown, Seriously,
you actually use this, And eventually what will happen was
or will I think be that clowns can. They'll be
a door and opening for clowns to regain some of
(41:45):
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
(42:05):
having to go through this. It sounds to me like
you're predicting a clown renaissance, clown renaissance, a well maintained
and tasteful clown renaissance. Maybe not a Golden Age or
a Heyday, but something that's stable, indefinitely got you well.
You know. The other thing I think we talked about
this on the Internet round up is the French teenagers
that were dressing up as clowns causing mayhem and they're
(42:27):
not helping anything. 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, with Canada it might have been in
both actual none of these things are helping legit clowns.
I'm sure they're all like, thanks, guys, We're just dressing
(42:49):
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
(43:10):
pretty clunky title, but 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 eating, Daredevil's juggling,
(43:34):
sword swallowing, like human cannonballs, all that jam. But no, no,
what's left circus is 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 bar,
didn't I? I think so. Well, it's time for a
listener maw. I'm gonna call this um saving a marriage. Okay,
(44:02):
Hey guys, my wife, I want to give you credit
for making two young love birds fall deeper in love.
My wife Lindsey and I have been married for almost
a year April our anniversary, so congrat Yeah, this is
probably pretty close to that. Um. We are a perfect
match in almost every aspect of our relationship except for
one major area, what to listen to on the radio
on road trips. She can't stand listening to my awesome
(44:25):
ROC music, and I can't barely tolerate her country. He's like,
definit Lupper ruled, what's your problem? This is the Donnie
and Marie. Actually they were brother and sisters, so that's gross.
But yeah, she's a little bit country, he's a little
bit rock and roll. We spent a lot of time
in the car, though, and 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,
(44:48):
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, and
our lives were changed forever. Turns out we both love
the podcast, and the driving portion of our road trip
now has gone from a frustrating compromise to an amazing
bonding experience. And it's all your faults. We have even
spent a few evenings listening to the podcast instead of
(45:08):
watching TV at home. What we're interfering with TV feeling
turned the podcast off branded communists. We started from the
most recent and are working our way backwards. UM, so
prepare for them to get less good good luck. We
have about four episodes to go until we run out.
We've been discussing how we're going to deal with the
(45:30):
inevitable s y SK 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 is Ben Brown and uh
Lindsay Brown or Lindsay his wife. I don't know if
she took his name or not. Ben and Lindsay from Guntersville, Alabama.
(45:54):
I'm sure they're the only Ben and Lindsay there. Yeah.
So Ben and Lindsay from Guntersville, Happy in verse. Congratulations,
We're glad we could make life a little easier for you.
Go turn your TV back on for real. Come on, seriously,
if 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
(46:15):
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. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my Heart Radio, visit
(46:37):
the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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