I am new to both clowning and to this forum and I just wanted to say hello. I am here to learn and grow as a clown. HONK!!

Thanks,

Smacky!

Welcome you have come to the right place feel free to ask any questions and some one in the forum will have an answer for you
Join the chat on Thurs at nine E.S.T.

welcome smacky!
Glad you found us.

Howdy, glad to meet ya. Join us for chat if you can. We meet on Thur at 9:00 pm est.

Thanks for the replies!

A little more about my character (and please read it all before judging me too harshly):

Smacky is a haunt clown. My job is to entertain the people waiting in the queue so that they forget that they are standing out in the cold for an hour or more waiting to get inside. Before tackling this role I reviewed what all the other haunt clowns were doing and I discovered that they were all trying to be scary.

I wanted to be different.

Rather than playing a monster-clown or killer-clown I decided that I would play a “real” clown, a funny clown, just one who wasn’t very skilled (expelled from clown college). With this in mind I spent several months learning to twist balloons, collecting and practicing with my props and puppets, and preparing the best routine that I could. I decided early on that my face would be ugly (my makeup takes an average of two hours to apply) but the man inside would be sweet. I even read everything I could find (including here) on how NOT to scare kids.

It worked better than I could have ever imagined. From the littlest kids on up to adults it seemed that everyone loved the hideous but cool clown Smacky. Many people came back several times (they claimed) just to see me and we raised a record sixty-something thousand dollars, all of which went to help poor kids in our area.

More, I discovered that I loved being a clown, that I loved making people smile and laugh, and that I wanted to learn more and expand my clown activities beyond that one month a year venue. I signed up for a clown camp that wasn’t too far away, but sadly it got cancelled, so I guess I am stuck learning on my own for now.

My next appearance is in a couple weeks and I am pretty nervous about it.

Anyway, here I am. I might not be a pretty clown, but I am trying to be a good one and for whatever reason people seem to like me. Perhaps, it is the natural goodness in kids that allows them to look past my ugly appearance.

If you guys don’t think it is appropriate for me to be here then just let me know and I will bow out.

Cheers,

Chris “Smacky” Palko

Welcome to the forum I think most of the clowns here normally work with children I am not sure what type of clowning you do but it is not for me to judge what you do welcome to the forum and feel free to share your thoughts and ideas there are lots of people here that can help you along the way no matter what kind of clowning you do.

Smacky-

I for one am not here to judge, so as I'm sure the others feel we hope you will decide to stay and continue to learn.

You are on the right track it sounds. It is an exciting thing to entertain the children, and from your quill skills you've described what all of us that love to entertain go through when we first start to realize the true joy of clowning.

Stop by anytime. If you get a chance we have a Thursday night around 8pm central 7pm eastern chat thats a real blast.

Good Luck!

Welcome to the forum Smacky. :) That is truly incredible that your group raised so much to help poor kids; great work! What's your next appearance going to be?

March 18th.

I will be at a Beer Tasting Festival and, again, 100% of the proceeds will be going to benefit the kids. This assumes that there are any proceeds.

Apparently my job will be to entertain and raise awareness of the other programs they plan. Unfortunately, so far no one has provided me with a list of what those are or anything else really, beyond "Be There!".

Since I am still just learning to juggle and am really bad at it I will be forced to stick with balloon twisting, perhaps a puppet or two, and anything else I can dream up in the meantime. I could so some face painting I guess (I come from an art background) but I am not set up for that at this time and, being unsure of the venue and crowding, I probably wont mess with it.

Smacky were are you from :?:

Like most of us your face will change as you grow
Its whats inside that makes a good clown not the make up
Your face should be something you like and as long as your not trying to scare kids it shouldn,t be a problem for you

Like most of us your face will change as you grow
Its whats inside that makes a good clown not the make up
Your face should be something you like and as long as your not trying to scare kids it shouldn,t be a problem for you

I would never deliberately scare a kid (and so far, by following the advice here I have never yet failed to win one over).

As for the evolving face, I am already thinking along those lines. Over the next week I am going to try to come up with a new face that is more friendly (and hopefully less make-up intensive) than what I have now.

Anyway, thanks again for the warm welcome!

Hi ya Smacky, welcome to the Forum!

you're welcome,

Sound like you on to something there.

Welcome Smacky!

GiGi :D

i know its late but Welcome to the forum i have a halloween Clown named Spooky who use to live in a halloween town called Halloween land but was kicked out for wanting to make people happy insted of Scareing them. I got the idea cuz of all the storys where the scarey looking or monster looking person was the kind one with a heart of gold. so alot of times that is why children looks past how something looks into how they act