North America facing a clown shortage

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Stop clowning around! This place is a circus! Don’t be a clown!

Maybe your attitude toward clowns will change… once they’re gone.

The biggest clown trade association in the US has seen membership plummet over the last decade, with few young people picking up the banana cream pie, squirty flower and oversized hoopy pants of the profession.

Why? We went to the experts to find out.

Tickles the Clown and her husband Yowza point out clown colleges have closed, the old timers don’t train anymore, and modern kids just don’t respect the red nose.

“Often, the clown is looked as the bottom of the ring… oops, or the rung,” laughs Tickles.

“I think there’s a certain idea that society has — they say ‘Stop acting like a clown’ like it’s a derogatory thing. There’s a certain portion of the population where being a clown wouldn’t necessarily stroke their ego and that’s what a clown is about: the selfless soul. I think that might not appeal to more self-serving people. When you do clowning, you put everybody else first and try to nurture others,” she tells News1130, suggesting that often comes as people mature.

However, Tickles and Yowza’s three children may be the exception to the rule; they’re following in their parents’ big floppy footsteps. They have performed together all over BC and Alberta, doing anywhere from 250 to 350 shows a year.

Even so, the clown couple admits it is tough to attract young people to the profession these days, and those who do take it up may have a harder time finding training, with major clown colleges closing down.

“I went to training at clown college at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse; 2008 was the last year they offered it and they had been pulling people from all around the word. They had the old Barnum & Bailey clowns there and that’s who both my husband and myself trained with. They operated for 30 years but the campus decided it was too much of a liability to have 300 or 400 clowns falling down and getting pied,” says Tickles.

Even if you do get good training, circus job prospects aren’t great.

“Out of the 500 people who apply at Barnum & Bailey, they maybe look at about 50 and then only hire about 32 for their three shows,” she tells us.

Yowza says low pay is also a factor.

“The best of the trainees had to sign a waiver stating they would go work at the circus for $145 a week for a period of two years. They just couldn’t find people who would do it. Of course, you get your room and board and you get to live on a train and it’s exotic. But it was just not enough to cut it for a lot of people,” he explains.

“On the other hand, they’ve had problems with splinter groups that have gotten into clowning. I know at the University of Wisconsin, they had a huge influx of people who were interested in Christian clowning. For the old-school clowns, it was all about fun and slapstick comedy and I think a number of people became disenfranchised by the whole idea of trying to tell Bible stories via clowning. It just didn’t seem to fit.”

Tickles and Yowza also believe people’s perceptions about how animals are treated at circuses have turned many potential clowns away from the job.

“No one wants that hung around their neck,” says Yowza. “But I don’t really think it’s true [that the animals are treated poorly]. These people have to survive with their animals, the animals are their meal tickets, and I know that most of the animals that are involved live far beyond the age they would in the wild. They are cared for, they become part of the family.”

And don’t get him started on Pennywise, the terrifying clown of horror from Stephen King’s “It.”

“Tim Curry acted as a clown who comes out of the sewer and eats little kids! I’ve done birthday parties for kids as young as three years old whose parents let them watch that movie. They literally flip out as soon as they see a clown. It’s astounding to me that parents let little kids watch something like that. It has put a bad taste in a lot of children’s mouths when it comes to the clown arts.”

Now who will fill those big red shoes?

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