I have a friend who has seen my work before and is interested in starting clowning himself. The only thing is, he wants to be an "evil clown". I'm not sure what to say.:???:

I know quite a few evil clowns and unfortunatly the only time they are even remotely called for is in late october. I would let your friend know that being an evil clown would be a very limiting experiance. I can put you in touch with some evil clowns on myspace.com but again not a very rewarding avenue to follow.

I have done a couple of haunted houses myself and I have had a number of people who want me to do a evil clown face on them and I refuse. I have made a pledge to myself never to do a evil clown. And I agree that the only time I have seen evil clowns is at halloween.

and part of the reason that people are afraid of clowns is because of movies with evil clowns. I would never as an instructor encourage any of my students to use an evil clown face.

But then that is just me.

The handful of evil clowns I've seen have been a great disappointment. There is nothing clownish about being evil! "Clowns" like the members of Insane Clown Posse are such a detrament to clowning and clowns everywhere.

I did see one evil clown on one of those channels like E! where he was in Japan and basically walked around with gruesome make up on getting his picture taken with people.

The only venues I can really see for this kind of clown is at heavy metal concerts or perhaps in their own "dark" or nightmarish circus which could be done with some success if done right I would imagine. Not something I'm into but diff'rent strokes (Whatchoo talking bout Willis!) for different folks.

If he really wants to be an evil clown I would think joining/creating a more maturely themed circus would be a way to persue it. There is a circus out here in Seattle called Pure Cirkus (http://www.purecirkus.com) that is a bit dark and more adult themed.

I met a guy from it during a juggling session and he was cool but that group is a bit out there for me. Almost freakish to some extent. Still there is a market for dark stuff like that.

Buzzo, tell him to find another career, please, it's hard enough to just get kids to come to us in make up without these idiots going around scaring the bejeebers out of them more than they already have.!!!!There's something wrong with people who want to destroy an nice innocent profession like ours by bringing evil into it, You meant to tell me that there's not enough evil already in the world that these yo-yo's have to make more? I feel sorry for them but wish they would stay away form the industry.

In my many years of experience I have found that, just because there's a market for for something bad, there's no truly good reason to market it. This goes hand in hand with evil clowns to guns.
I for one am a very non violent person, and do not see guns as a good marketing device, however because there is so many people , so anxious to make the guns, there are just as many "nuts" out there to use them for all the wrong reasons. Beofre supporting an "evil clown" we should first consider what our profession is all about. In the ealry stages of mid-evil times the clown or jester, if you will, was a person full of mischeif and mirth, a person to bring smiles in an otherwise , fairly evil atmosphere, what with fighting , and conquering and the like , a king and queen had to smile sometime. There was also the theory of how the clown face became so, with the white out being the death of the old character or person and the new colors bringing forth a new persona of joy and mirth. The clown was there to reflect and make fun of the surrounding environment, to bring to light those bad things almost like a mirror image of the society around him , back then most were men, so no offense ladies when I say him... ;o)
A clown's true job is to bring joy and merriment , along with some great smiles in a society where there seems little of that. It was an enjoyable position unless of course you ticked off the royalty, or caught them on a bad da and were beheaded, which of course was another type of amusement for those horrid people. You have to rememeber that in the tiem they were into jousting, beheading, sword fights and the like in an arena, the only bright spot was that of the Jester/clown .
Today our jobs are not much removed from that as we witness horrid things like unneccessary wars, college massacres, daily destruction via nature and the like, there is more than enough evil nature or man made out there. It is our job and duty to take away from this and bring comedy relief in a world that is very self destructive. We are symbols of the thread of hope every day.
So where have I gone with all this, you ask? Well is there truly room , or need for evil clowns... I think not, it destroys the very idealism of true clowning. It also undermines what we are truly about, money or no marketable or not, we do not need any more greif or sadness in the world today.... This is my stand. If someone approaches you to become an evil clown , make them a challenge, it is easy to bring pain and sorrow into the world , it is easy to bring fear, but , it is a true goal to bring smiles an happiness in a world where they are very much needed, turn that evil clown upside down and get them to actually work at true clowning, it will be much more wrewarding for both you as a mentor and the other person who now has a happy goal. Just a thought!

I can put you in touch with some evil clowns on myspace.com but again not a very rewarding avenue to follow.

Could you? That might be useful. thanks :D

Thanks SillyWilly for this bit of history. I still find it very hard to react on this thread while in the mean time I do feel the urge to react. To me it just sounds so weird; 'an evil clown', to me it's like 'hot icecream'. And reading this history explains a bit why I can't connect evilness with being a clown. Is it a cultural difference that for me in my head I really, really just can't connect evilness with being a clown? Sure you can dress like a clown and be evil, the question is if you are really a clown then. To me a clown can be angry, sad, gruffy etc. but evil?

Next to that I don't think it fits with what the purpose of clowning is also doesn't fit with what I think are some of the basic principles of clowning. One of these principles is that a clown lives here and now. It doesn't bear the lumber of the past and his mind isn't occupied with the future. A clown isn't occupied with thoughts, experiences and judgements. He is totally living here and now and accepts the things as they are. If you're in this stage of mind you can't be evil because evilnes is build on lumber of the past, thoughts obout the future, experiences and judgements.

Jeremy the Clown in Japan you were talking about sounds like a friend of mine on My Space named Stiches the mad Clown. Buzzo there is a Clown on here named Smacky he dose a evil like clown for halloween but he uses it as a ugly clown kicked out of clown school for being ugly more or less. I have a clown named Spooky i use for halloween who was kicked out of his home town of Halloweenville for not wanting to scare people but i would do hunted houses as him if asked for the kids plus i want to do a halloween thing useing halloweenville

Smacky is a character unto himself. I was hoping that he'd grab this thread an explain his character. Smacky's premise is that he tries to be bad and fails at it. Showing kids that it okay, things don't go right for him Kids know that things don't go the way they want them. Smacky looks like he is scarry, but just isn't bad.
Truly a unique twist on this.

This is an interesting take , Scruffy! I never though of it as a way to teach acceptance, this Smacky may be one in a few good "evil clowns" On the whole the evil clowns are not teaching anythin of value though... they are related to bad things, and hard rock and roll, which I won't comment on, we know the types of lives most of those guys have are not easy, some by choice. I wanted to thank you for this input, I like being able to set examples to kids, their lives are complicated enough without feeling obligated to accept the negatives in their lives, this way they can just laugh at those mistakes and move on.

Like the twist. This forum is giving me another look on clowning. Clownstyles, where I (and probably most european clowns) would never thought of. GREAT!

I've never seen an evil clown I've liked! I do like them a bit disagreeable though! Very funny!

Buzzo, tell him to find another career, please, it's hard enough to just get kids to come to us in make up without these idiots going around scaring the bejeebers out of them more than they already have.!!!!There's something wrong with people who want to destroy an nice innocent profession like ours by bringing evil into it, You meant to tell me that there's not enough evil already in the world that these yo-yo's have to make more? I feel sorry for them but wish they would stay away form the industry.


I think I know how we can all fight back againt the evil clown phenomena. We need to take another profession and insert the opposite into it so people can see the irony of the situation. For example clowns are nice and loving and people want to take the exact opposite and mix it in. Okay, here is my proposal... We need to become honest politicians.
(A drumroll and a rim shot.) You had to know a groaner was coming. Didn't you?

Okay, here is my proposal... We need to become honest politicians.

You know, this actually could be a GREAT character. I might have to do it sometime. Dress in colorful red white and blue and say I'm Sam, the honest Chicago politican. How can I help you today?

Tim, that would be perfect for you. Who would expect an honest politician from Chicago?

Yeah let all clown become politicians, or let al the politicians become clowns than the world would look a lot better and nicer.

Id Vote for a clown

Id Vote for a clown

Then I'm throwing my big colorful clown hat into the ring!

Republaphoon or Demaclown? Perhaps the red nose party?

...."And If Elected, I promise a Pie in every face, and a rubber chicken in every pot".


...."of course; Smaller clown cars is a issue facing every clown today. I stand firmly, AGAINST any attempts to increase the size of our clown cars."


....."Vote for ME! Send a real clown to Washington!"

PSA< Paid for by Hoboes for handouts.

It would be fun to have a real clown in the white house and not these so called clowns that give the rest of us a bad name. Very funny Luki, and I'd vote for you Fitzwilly I'd even campaign for you/

Evil Clowns Are Goths.. Lol And They Like Scare Kids One Scared My Kid Then I Throwed Pie In His Face :D

my sister is a Goth Clown name Gotho she isn't a evil clown nor tryes to scare people