Stuff You Should Know - How Clowns Work

Episode Date: April 21, 2015

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 more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

attention bachelor nation. He's back. The host of some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. During two decades in reality TV, Chris saw it all and now he's telling all. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. We have a lot to talk about. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable

happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change, too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HousefuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Jojo. There's Chuckles. This is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. And there's Jerry. She has a regular name. Hey hey! That was pretty good. Thanks. They could have also, this could 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 Seth Myers.

No. Funny guy. Did she say that? No. It was just a completely ludicrous joke. I haven't watched this show yet. I haven't either. I like the guy, though. Good guy. I don't watch anything but Conan. Yeah. I don't even watch Conan, really. Yeah. I do when Hodgman's on. I record it, you know, and then watch it the next day. Yeah. I don't stay up till whatever time it's on. I was gonna say, jeez. I guess you don't go to Early Bird for dinner anymore, either. Yeah. So, you don't have to watch Conan. Hey, Early Bird. Speaking of Conan, big shout out to Brian Kiley, Rob Kutner, and Dan Cronin. And Seth Myers. 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 Conan, if you think we get neat fan gifts, you ought to see the stuff Conan gets. Oh, man, like what? Well, I met the masturbating bear guy 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 foot tall tree trunk hand carved bear, m-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. That's like $100,000 worth of Lego. Probably is. And then a life size Conan made of pencils that was really neat looking. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So they just had this 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 Chuck. It would be kind of cool. Anyway, I just want to say thanks to those guys. They're awesome. Yes. And they're supporters of us. Oh, thanks guys. Yeah, supporters of you at least. And they're clowns. That was a great segue, dude. Great. Is that why you thank them in this episode? Sure. Because they're clowns. That was good. You've scared of clowns? I'm not scared of clowns. Not at all. I mean, the scary clowns that are supposed to be scary in horror movies are creepy, of course. Right. But like, I don't have any kind of phobia. What's it called? The official phobia? Chlorophobia. Right, which also includes. It's unofficial, by the way. It's not a real thing. It also includes things like

costumed characters like Mickey Mouse and stuff like that. It's not just clowns, right? Right. So it's the DSM, which is the infallible Bible of psychology and psychiatry, has an entry for fear of clowns lumped together with other childhood fear of costume characters. Right. That one I can identify with. I think I ran away from like Snow White or something at Disney World when I was a kid. There's always been something about somebody being dressed up in costume that I've found unnerving. I'm not scared a lot of kids. I'm not overtly afraid of clowns, but just costume people. And I get that. What are you hiding kind of thing, which I think informs the basis of chlorophobia. Yeah. And a lot of this show,

it turns out, is going to be about that because it's one of the most interesting parts of clowning. But one guy later on in this article put it, it makes sense is like some clowns are just not great at it. And, you know, well, like, yeah, like lunge at a kid or something. And he says they seem like they're on the attack. Yeah. 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 you look weird and strange. And if you come at him like too fast, then it's it might scare him. And especially these days, too, like clowns today are still following a tradition from the early to mid 20th century. Kids today aren't really hip with the mid 20th 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. Right, right. It's just awful at all. It's an uncanny experience. They don't get it. And as a result, there's this 2008 study to the UK that the BBC reported on that found that most of the children in the study, I think there was like 250 population sample, 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, you ready to go back in time? Yes. Hop in the old way back machine. It's London and it's 1803. And there's a man named Joseph Grimaldi. And he, for all intents and

purposes, has just invented the modern what we now think know 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 huge. Like not only did he invent clowns and like today's still they they, you know, tip their clown hat at Grimaldi for inventing the clown. He in his day, he was huge. Yeah, there was a legend that supposedly an eighth of the population of London had seen him on stage. Yeah, there's a lot of people. Yeah. And still today on London's east end, there is 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. Sure. He was very, very famous

for the time. He was a very well known person. And he had a contemporary to it about the same time in France named de Broglie. Yeah. And both of them oddly were they had really kind of sad back stories. Yeah, which we'll get to that. That's sort of lends itself to me to get ahead of ourselves. That lends itself to the dark underbelly of clowning and why it might have this reputation. Right. But what clowning really sprung from was from the beginning of time almost, there were gestures, essentially. Oh, yeah. All types of all over the world and all cultures. Yeah, it seems to be universal. There were at least as far back as the like 3500 BCE. Yeah. In Egypt, in China, there were already gestures, pranksters, clowns, tricksters,

something of that ilk mischief makers. Yeah. And in totally disparate societies that never met one another, like in Native America, different Native American societies had some version of the clown or the jester. Yeah, during a Navajo ritual chance, 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 kind of mock what was going on and maybe like do a lewd sex act. Right. In the middle of like this very serious ceremony to the gods. Yeah. Or the spirits. That's a big deal. Sure. That's 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 held in high esteem.

Same thing went on in Japan with the taika mochi. Yeah. Right. Means drum bearer. Drum bearer. They were in the red light districts and apparently in the late 1600s, their deal was 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 taika mochi were the original versions of the geisha. Yeah. And the taika mochi in the red light district actually ended up there because this period of peace settled over Japan because prior to that they were court gestures and also like military advisors. Yeah. So once they weren't needed for that, they ended up in the red light district like. Let's get this party started.

Get it party started. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So in India, the official gestures there were a member of the Brahmin, which was the highest social class, right? Yeah. That's where that's the class that a Pooza member of. Oh, really? Did he say that? That's what his mom said when she thinks that a Poozmeri de Marge. She goes, surely your children are aware of your Brahmin heritage. And Bart goes, 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. All right. So we're in India in the Brahmin. One of the things you'll notice over and over here

with gestures is what they really are are satirists. And their job is to, and they were the only ones that could do this really, was to poke fun at the leaders. 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 how many meals have you had today. Well, yeah. And so their role was to say poke holes into the king's stupid ideas. Whereas the rest of the court would be like, oh, great idea. You should paint the Great Wall of China. Whereas the gesture would be like, yeah, that's a great idea. Where are you going to get all that paint from? You dummy. Well, speaking of China, I think they had some of the best names. They have a great tradition

of clowning. They had legends named Twisty Pole, Baldi Chunyu. 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. Right. Another one I came across was newly polished mirror. Really? Was the name of a clown? That's no Baldi Chunyu though. Interesting. Chunyu. And then in Poland, there was a legendary gesture named Stanzik. And I looked up this guy. He was a legend beyond clowning. He was like the political satirist of his day. He worked for three different kings and was a very intelligent political philosopher and satirist that is still revered in Poland as 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. Yeah. And let it loose so he could hunt it. Right. And the bear came at the king and the court and the queen and almost killed everybody. And the king later criticized Stanzik for running off. Yeah. And Stanzik said, well, I was smarter than letting a caged bear loose something along those lines. And the king was like, oh, touche. And everyone laughed. Yeah. And then the bear ate the king. In ancient Rome, Chuckers. Yeah. They used to call the court gestures stupidus. Stupidus, huh? Yeah. That makes sense. Grimaldi himself came out of the rich tradition in Italy called the Comedia dell'Art tradition. And this is in the 14th century. And

it was, some people say these were like the first professional actors in the world. Yeah. Were 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 a member of a Native American tribe or in most parts of Africa, and you were a jester, you belong to the community rather than the specific leader. But in Europe and China and Egypt and all over, wherever there was royalty, there was usually a jester of some sort, right? Yeah. But one of the ways that jester spread, especially say in Europe, was from a jester being forced to hit the road for stepping over the line. Really? Getting kicked out. Wow. And that's one way that it kind of

spread clowning, originally spread to the masses, was you may run across a court jester who's down on his luck traveling along the road because he just got kicked out of court. He's like, I got all this great material. Exactly. But he's still a jester. He's going to make you laugh, you know? Wow. Yeah. That makes sense. So it's interesting. I think the kings tolerate it 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 at least some debate over whether how much of the idea that a jester was the only one who could speak his mind toward the king. 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. Right. There were some documented versions like the one in Persia, Karim Shirei, who told the king, Shah Nazaritan apparently said, is there a shortage of food? And Karim Shirei said, yes, I see that your majesty is eating only five times a day. And then he made this little bow tie spin. But he got the point across that there's a shortage of food and you're not helping anything. You're cloistered up here in your ivory tower and you need to open up your eyes, your majesty. I'd like to see some of Baldi Chunyu's material. I would love to see that too. I bet he killed. I bet he did as well, Chuck. So we'll get to what clowning is specifically right after this. Attention Bachelor Nation. He's back. The man

who hosted some of America's most dramatic TV moments returns with a brand new Tell All podcast. The most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this, we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all. And now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward and letting everybody hear from me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this. And I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life,

I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What I saw as a weakness of his, I wanted to embrace. The way I thought of it was whatever love I have from you is extra for me. Like, I already love myself enough. Do I need you to validate me as a partner? Yes. Is it required for me to feel good about myself? No. Listen to Cheekies and Chill on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. Clowning, my friend, is a lot of things. But what it is in all cases is exaggeration. Movements are exaggerated. Your appearance is exaggerated. That's why they wear big,

goofy suits and big, goofy shoes. The makeup, too. 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. Like the big, huge smile or frown. It's a big frown. Yeah. I read one pro clown's description of what clowning means. He said, clowns aren't actors. We're not supposed to pretend what clowns do is exaggerate the emotions that we already have inside. If you're a really good clown, you're going to play up the anger at being rebuffed when you're trying to get a laugh from somebody or you're going to play up your stage fright at performing in front of some people. When you see a clown acting a

certain way, you're supposed to understand that. They're actually feeling that right then. It's being broadcast on a clown scale. Yeah. Part of that is for comedic effect. Part of it is quite literally because in a circus, you have a lot of people and you may be sitting very far away from you. Right. So these big movements and the slapstick, which actually I'd never knew this, slapstick was an actual physical tool. Never heard of that. Yeah. It looks like a paddle with another paddle hinge to it. Right. And back in the old days of the Comedia dell'Art in Italy, they would strike someone with this paddle and then of course the other paddle on the hinge would smack really hard on the wood and so they could hit someone not too hard 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. Pretty neat. And we keep mentioning Comedia dell'Art. 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 jester ship. Right. Yeah. And then mimes later were relegated to parks, I guess. So Comedia dell'Art was this play or production and in the middle of it or in different points, there'd be like a break or an intermission or something like that and that would come like the jugglers and the baton twirlers. Yeah. 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 aid. And Harlequin, you recognize Harlequin as one of the jokers, the jester, that kind of thing. There's actually a character in the Harlequin aid that was a clown and Grimaldi originally played that character. And that character was kind of a bumpkin, a rustic rube. And as a matter of fact, the word clown supposedly comes from a 16th century German word for like a country bumpkin. Yeah. So that was the original character. Well, Grimaldi came along in about 1800 and started playing this in the pantomime. Right. Which was that break in the Comedia dell'Art for comic relief. Exactly. Yeah. And then the Harlequin aid was a little mini play

that was a pantomime in the Comedia dell'Art. Right. Yeah. And then the clown was a character in the Harlequin aid 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 bawdy. And he started to play the character like that. Yeah. 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 pantomime. Yeah. So they were stealing the thunder of the legit actors. Exactly. 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.

Did you just laugh because I said boob? No, I just rustic 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. Well, except I would be rustic city boob. Yeah. You know, sort of play on that whole thing. Yeah, that'd be even better. Rustic city boob. Yeah. Man, Sharknado. And now the title for your memoirs. You're on fire. So clowning, one thing that you'll also notice that clowns do a lot, and this is not every clown, but a lot of clowning involves play violence. Like slapstick. Yeah, like they're hitting, it's like the three students, they're hitting each other a lot, they're knocking each other down.

A big clown thing to do is to like disrupt the legit act. Like we're clowns and we're going to do this neat thing where we all hold this ladder and climb it. And then another clown will come in and bust the ladder down and everyone will fall. Right. And it's all part of the act. But a lot of the Navajo clowns. Yeah, same thing, basically, to disrupt the act that's happening through violence. Or they may just be jerks and like smell my flower. Oops, 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 there's usually a very clear line of command. Yeah, there's a hierarchy for sure. There actually is. It depends on you can tell who's in charge before the show even starts based on their makeup

actually. It's delineated by that. Yeah. So first, you've got the whiteface clown, which Grimaldi was one. So was Bosa, the clown who we'll talk about later. But the whiteface clown is the one who's in charge. And going back to the three Stooges, they actually get across the hierarchy of clowns pretty clearly. So the whiteface clown is Moe. Absolutely. He's still a clown. But he's Boston, the other ones around, he's assigning jobs. He's the head boob. Yeah, and he might be the most hostile out of all of them. And then after that, and again, the whiteface clown has completely white paint all over his face and head and neck. Yeah, the French counterpart you're talking about, the clown that he created was a whiteface clown, the Perot, P-I-E-R-R-O-T

Piro. Sounds good, Chuck. And that's a kind of clown as well. But the Piro was a whiteface clown. Right. So the whiteface clown is in charge. He or she is at the top of the heap. After that, you have the Auguste clown. The Auguste clown is the one that usually they have that sloppy, oversized outfit, huge suspenders hanging on, even bigger pants up. The makeup's probably like flesh toned. Yeah, but the eyes will be super arched and the smile will be really big and red. Yeah, yeah. Probably a big red nose, although I think the whiteface clown can have that too. But if you have a whiteface and an Auguste clown next to each other, the Auguste clown's red ball nose is probably going to be a little bit bigger. And the Auguste

clown is definitely the one who takes orders from the whiteface clown, but also a little more hilarious, maybe. Right. So the Auguste clown would be maybe Larry. Larry? Probably Curly, though, because he's kind of a boob, you know? Yeah. He's not a rustic country boob, but he's just kind of fun and lovable and he's still taking orders. What about Shemp? Shemp completely breaks this whole analogy apart. Yeah. So with the Auguste clown, it was invented by a man named Lou Jacobs. And there was a team, Albert Fratellini and Lou Jacobs, a clown team. And Fratellini was also part of the Fratellini brothers. And he was the one who invented the red nose, which I thought was pretty interesting.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. But 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 can immediately bring to mind, I would imagine, just hearing sad hobo clown, the downcast frown face, the stubble, like five o'clock shadow. Yeah, the tattered tweed jacket, right, patches and the the bendle. Yeah, bendle bag on the stick. So Emmett Kelly comes up with the sad hobo clown 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. But the highest on the totem pole. Yeah, 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 probably a sticky thing that clowns don't like to address. But very, very much so. Yeah, 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 a sad hobo. And you have to understand, like Emmett Kelly came up with this in the 30s or 40s, maybe at a time when it was okay to make fun of people who are 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 necessarily laughs at my expense. Yeah, even though they do that. But they're the ones who are like, sweeping the mess that the other ones made up when the spotlight goes out, trying on the inside, right and outside to 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, they're like a sheepdog clown. Yeah. But a character clown would be like a keystone cop, right, 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. Yeah. So those are the

doctor clown. Oh, yeah. What was that video? Hospital clowning on found footage festival. Yeah, this video Josh found is a guy that made a series of clown instructional videos, a medical clown, yeah, which they do valuable, valuable service by going to children's hospitals and things and scaring the 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 is very important. Like things like funny, don't touch a covered part, because you never know if they just had their leg amputated was one piece of advice. Oh, it's so funny. Yeah, so go actually if you go if you're listening to this on our website on 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 clowning found footage festival and it will come up. It's wonderful. It is. It is delightful. We talked about it on our internet roundup 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? We're not indulge. Why do they like clowns? That's a better way to put it. Why do we let clowns get away with making fun of the homeless? I think a good reason that's pointed out in the article on how stuff works is that we have a very rigid, complex society that we live in and there are rules and there is a social order and we have to maintain our good behavior. And so clowning is

a safety valve is how this author put it to, 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 hates that kid. And you know, De Bro, the French clown, he'd beat a kid to death with his cane in the street for making fun of him. That's taken it too far. Well, he did. And I looked this up. He went to trial and was acquitted, but apparently it was like the trial of the century because everyone wanted to hear him speak. Oh, he was a silent clown. He was a silent clown. The pyro was. So yeah, he beat a kid that was making fun of him. I mean, he killed him. He didn't mean to.

He meant to hit him. I think he meant to kill him. He said it was a single blow. Yeah. And I imagine he was just like, oh boy. Not again. Yeah. Or he would mime whatever that is. So I want to address what you've said the role of clowns are. And this is going to be like the most sourpuss thing you've heard today. Okay. But it really makes sense in a way. So yes, the role of the clown is to vent the general population's frustrations that abuse heaped on us by the ruling class or the conventions of society or what have you. And the clown allows us to feel better about things because this is being made fun of. It's being addressed. But 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 aren't allowed to vent. Yeah. It's just a release that once they're released, 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. Interesting. 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 poked at so that that 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. It is. I think the function of a satirist is important. But 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 at this? Which serves a function? It does serve a function, but it serves to change. It serves to play cake. Yeah, interesting. Thanks, man. That's all mine. Josh, right? Copyright 2015. So we should probably take a break. And then we'll come back and talk a little more about, you guessed it, clowns. It's going to be difficult at times. It'll be funny. We'll push the envelope. But I promise you this,

we have a lot to talk about. For two decades, Chris Harrison saw it all, and now he's sharing the things he can't unsee. I'm looking forward to getting this off my shoulders and repairing this, moving forward, and letting everybody hear for me. What does Chris Harrison have to say now? You're going to want to find out. I have not spoken publicly for two years about this. And I have a lot of thoughts. I think about this every day. Truly, every day of my life, I think about this and what I want to say. Listen to the most dramatic podcast ever with Chris Harrison on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright, we're back. And by the way, 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 are not insane. And they're not supposed to be doing that right now. But hopefully, it's not too distracting. It's sort of here and there. Just wanted to mention that. Yeah, you're not hearing the hum. So, careers in clowning, my friend. Yeah, you mentioned hospital clowning. That's definitely a way to go. Sure. University of Haifa in Israel has, I think, a bachelor's degree in medical clowning. And it's exactly what it sounds like. 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 to clowns. Yeah, I think kids mainly. Medical clown.

I know I'd be like, get out of my hospital room. Yeah, an adult that's going in for like a bypass or treat. Yeah, it's a clown in the room. No, that's just my thing. That just makes a clown want to try harder. That's true. Just no bad touch. Don't touch any covered parts. So, membership is waning these days and the World Clown Association. They don't keep exact stats, but they anecdotally say that it's about a third in recent years. But like I said, you can be a pro clown. You can go to Ringling 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 2013, they had 531 applicants from around the world. And they let in two clowns. They selected 14 to come to camp. They hired 11.

Yeah. That's pretty competitive. And there's only 26 total clowns that work for all of Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey. Really? They shuffle them around the three circuses that are going on at any given point in time. Interesting. But it pays pretty well. They inject them with formaldehyde and put them in a cryogenic chamber. You will never die. Ship them to a different part of the country. Yeah. Regenerate them. But on their red nose. Yeah. And it's all good. Showtime. Cirque du Soleil, 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 of the old Italian and European style. It depends. They go for both. Oh, really? Yeah. They go for like character comedy.

And then I think like physical slapstick. Straight up yucks. Yeah. Okay. But you can make up to 200 K a year at Cirque du Soleil. I think that's like for all performers. Yeah. Yeah. At Ringling Brothers, apparently for clowns, they can make up to 92 K a year. K means a thousand. That's right. And by that, I mean dollars. If you're into French clowning, you can go to Paris and study at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lacocque. Jacques Lacocque. Théâtre Jacques Lacocque. Is that how it's pronounced? Yeah. You sure it's not Lacocque? No, it's definitely Lacocque. Okay. So he... Don't you remember Lacocque Sportif, like tennis wear from the 80s? I called it Lacocque. No, it's Lacocque. Okay. I mean,

neither that or I've been saying things wrong for 30 years, which is entirely possible. But I'm almost positive. Just think about it. He's a clown. Jacques Lacocque. I mean, it's very funny. I know. It's hilarious. Yeah. It's way funnier than Jacques Lacocque. So if it is Jacques Lacocque, this guy should have thought his name out a little better. It's a good point. So Jacques Lacocque was a big innovator in clowning and he had a school that this is still based on, you know, in Paris, but he had a school back in the day where his big thing was called the Via Negativia or Negativa, which is basically like he doesn't say what you're doing is right or wrong. 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. Right. It's pretty neat. I found that just about anywhere I saw like how to clown or anything like that during research. One of the main 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. Right. But that it was all about you and figuring out your own jam. They also suggest that you should probably have at least one talent, like stilt walking, sure, juggling both balloon animals is a big one too. Unicycling, sure. Something like that. Water squirting. But they pointed out that you should be able to be funny with no props whatsoever. Oh yeah. 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 on it. Put it in the drawer for a little while and be funny without the rubber chicken. Then when you add the rubber chicken. Oh boy. You're really going to be funny, right? Yeah. But that all is based on remember clowns or exaggerations of a human personality and specifically that person's personality. And so that's what you're supposed to work on initially. I like that. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Sure. So I think are we now at the Kohlrophobia? Yeah, I think so. Why do people hate clowns? Why are people afraid of clowns? So initially we talked about Grimaldi and De Bro having pretty grim backstories. Yeah. And like everybody knew it at the time. Everyone went to De Bro's

trial. Grimaldi apparently used to crack that he was grim all day, but he made you, he delighted you at night, right? Yeah. 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 31. Yeah. His father was a stagefather, a tyrant supposedly. His first wife died during childbirth. Grimaldi was in bad physical shape from all the slapstick that he performed over the years. And everyone knew this. Yeah. 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. Yeah. So that was the conception of the modern clown for a very long time. It wasn't until the early 20th century

that clowns were taken away from this idea that they were adults, pranksters. Right. Kind of body humor and placed squarely in the realm of little kids. Yeah. 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 something kind of creepy. Yeah. Because they were held to these really high standards that they could never meet. And for a little while at work, 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 Bozo the Clown and put on your own Bozo the Clown show. But at the main one at WGN in Chicago, the waiting list for tickets to the studio audience

was 10 years long. Yeah. And as a matter of fact, Willard Scott played Bozo and Willard Scott went on to become Ronald McDonald from playing Bozo. And Ronald McDonald was inspired by Bozo because McDonald sponsored 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 the 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 are you, you know, what's going on there? Well, Charles Dickens wrote 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 couple that with Pierrot or what was this real name? Debrot. Debrot who killed a kid. With his cane. In the street. It goes on trial. And so you have this very sort of dark seed planted. And then, like you said, years later, all of a sudden, it's not meant for body adults that, you know, getting drunk watching Shakespeare. It's let's take these guys and put them around our kids. Yeah, exactly. So you have a recipe for the very least clowns to be confusing. And then all of a sudden Chuck out of nowhere in 1980, 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. Right.

Like this is a little creepy. This is a grown man hanging out with my kids. And he's, he's, he's sort of acting out these weird, happy, happy, happy, violent things like he's tripping people and squirting them. And yeah, he looks creepy. And now he's another killer. Yes. He's a serial killer. Yeah. As a clown, Pogo, the clown. But yeah, serial killer of the worst variety. And he was largely in charge because I think Pogo, the clown was a whiteface clown. If I remember correctly. Oh yeah. I mean, there's, you look up the pictures of Gacy as a clown. It's about the creepiest thing on the internet. Yeah. So he, you know, how many kids he killed? Like 33 young boys? Yeah. 35 and he was convicted of 33, I believe. But he didn't help the case of

clowns by like, when he went to prison, he would still paint pictures of clowns of himself as a clown. And it was like, he had quite a collection of paintings from prison that did not do anything but reinforce the fact that clowns are creepy. Right. And of course, it was like international news that a clown found to be a killer and sexual predator. Yeah. Serial version of it. It definitely 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 it. Pennywise the clown. Yeah. That was one of the legendary scary clowns. Right. That new one on American Horror Story. Twisty. Yeah. Have you seen that one?

But look at it. So John Wayne Gates is scary in real life. Sure. 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. Yeah, sure. Because this frightening clown 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 in 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 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 will be like, oh, a scary clown seriously. Right. You actually use this. And eventually what'll happen was will I think be that clowns can, there'll be a door and opening for clowns to regain some of 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 will expect a little less from clowns and then therefore they can take their rightful place once more. They're having to go through this. It sounds to me 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. Gotcha. Well, you know, the other thing I think we talked about this on Internet Roundup is the French teenagers that were dressing up as clowns causing mayhem and attacking people. They're not helping anything. None of that helps. No. And then there's other cases I've seen where where was it? I don't think it was England where they would just this creepy clown just just sit there hanging around. I think it was in Canada. Was it Canada? It might have been in both actually. None of these things are helping legit clowns. I'm sure they're all like, thanks guys for just dressing up and being creepy on a bench at midnight. Yeah, at midnight. But when you think about it, it could just be

a clown that got up work. I mean, why is it so creepy? I don't think that's it. 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. Yeah, it was good. Which is a pretty clunky title, but it was a very good comprehensive, exhaustive article on that. So go check that out. Agreed. You got anything else right now? No. If you want to know more about clowns, type that word in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. And we should do one on just how circuses in general work someday. Have we not done that? No, we haven't. We've done circusy things. We've done like flame eating, daredevil, juggling, sword swallowing, like human cannonballs, all that jam.

But no, no. What's left? Circuses, how circus works. Yeah, but I mean, what's left? That's not those things. We can, we can, we'll find it. Okay. I think I said search bar tonight. I think so. Well, it's time for Listener Mail. I'm going to call this... Oh, Saving a Marriage. Okay. Hey guys, my wife, I want to give you credit for making two young lovebirds fall deeper in love. My wife, Lindsay, and I have been married for almost a year. April 25th is our anniversary, so... Oh, congratulations. Yeah, this is probably pretty close to that. 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 rock music,

and I can't barely tolerate her country. He's like, Def Leppard rules, what's your problem? This is the Donnie and Marie. Actually, they were brother and sister, so that's gross. She's a little bit country. He's a little bit rock and roll. Got you. 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's sulking until it's their turn to control the dial. There are 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 in our lives for change forever. Turns out we both love the podcast, and the driving portion of our road

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