Ringling Brothers was a publicity juggernaut. It never played a town without first inundating the local media with press kits, posters, advance performers, and billboards. While the show was in town the PR remained relentless, starting with the parade of animals and performers from the train to the building in the early morning hours before the sun licked the dew off the streets.
One of the prime publicity stunts was the guest clown; usually a reporter or some important local bigwig like the mayor. It’s hard to say who the very first guest clown was with Ringling Brothers but it goes back to at least 1917, when humorist Robert Benchley wrote about his experiences while embedded in clown alley for the New York Tribune Magazine.
Art Ricker handled the clowns for publicity. He was, in Western movie parlance, a tall drink of water. Towering over most of us, this balding, cigar-smoking Svengali inveigled various clowns into performing outside of regular showtime hours in order to go visit children’s hospitals or appear on a local kiddie TV show (usually at some ungodly hour like 7 a.m.). He it was who arranged for guest clowns to submit themselves to our tender ministrations. Our feelings about guest clowns were ambiguous. On the one hand, if they kept quiet and brought us donuts we didn’t mind babysitting them. On the other, if they were sneering know-it-alls who tried to tell us how to do our jobs and didn’t bring any treats for the alley we couldn’t wait to get rid of them.
Either way, they were made up with an easy makeup that we called ‘B.A. Clown’ and dressed in a green satin Yama Yama suit. ‘B.A.’ stood for ‘Busted Ass,’ because they were given a huge red mouth that suggested a . . . well, you get the picture. The Yama Yama suit was green with age; a one-size-fits-all jumper with black pom pom buttons that had its roots in a 1909 Broadway play called ‘Three Twins.’ That show featured a song called ‘The Yama Yama Man’, in which chorus girls cavorted in Yama Yama suits while a soubrette sang about the creepy Yama Yama Man -- if you want to see an authentic Yama Yama suit and hear the disturbing lyrics for yourself just watch the movie ‘The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle,’ which stars Ginger Rogers singing the song in costume.
As noted earlier, if the guest clown were docile he or she was treated without prejudice. The boss clown would give them a simple clown prop like an oversized foam rubber mallet to play with, and then one of the First of Mays would be detailed to escort the guest clown around and see that he or she did not get crushed by an elephant or peed on by the tigers (who have deadly aim up to twelve feet away). If the guest clown proved recalcitrant, wanting to go off on his or her own in order to get a scoop or chat up the showgirls, harsher measures were used. Squirreled away in one of the clown prop boxes was the ‘killer kangaroo,’ a diabolical sight gag that consisted of a foam rubber kangaroo stuffed with a large inflated exercise ball. The victim sat on the back of the kangaroo and bounced their way around the arena. It was an exhausting workout; a guest clown who managed to make it all the way around the track would stagger back to clown alley afterwards on the brink of cardiac arrest. That usually put paid to their disruptive nosiness for the rest of the show.
My first year in clown alley I started out as an eager beaver when it came to publicity. A rube from the wilds of Minnesota, I was delighted to get my name in the newspaper or be interviewed on an early morning radio program. Ricker took advantage of my naivete and gave me all the crap PR assignments. I went up in an Eddie Rickenbacker special to do a radio traffic report, in makeup and costume; the pilot decided to impress me with several loop de loops -- which ended in me yacking up my blueberry muffin all over his leather jacket. I was tapped to do a solo performance at a school for the deaf and blind. And Ricker had me handing out pamphlets between shows, in makeup and costume, detailing how well our elephants were treated, when PETA decided to picket the show.
I finally wised up, like the rest of clown alley, and whenever the click of his dress shoes echoed along the corridors near clown alley and the noisome stench of his cigar warned us of his approach, it was all hands abandon ship and devil take the hindmost. We scrambled through the thick blue curtains that separated clown alley from the prying public to scamper away like rabbits. The veteran clowns had no worries; they had paid their publicity dues long ago and were immune from normal requests. They only got the plum assignments, such as interviews with reporters from the New York Times or Chicago Tribune. They also did all the network TV. I still recall fondly the time Prince Paul was asked to do the Phil Donahue Show. He kindly asked me to accompany him, so I could be on national TV. When Donahue inevitably requested us to ‘do something funny’ Prince was prepared with a large shaving cream pie; he ground it into Donahue’s face without a moment’s hesitation.
I’ll say this for Art Ricker; he never held a grudge. Even though I had taken to hiding out whenever he was in the market for another victim, he still tracked me down when we played Anaheim so I could be in a Sesame Street segment, featuring the Ringling clown car. It took several hours to film, and I missed lunch for it, but it was worth all the bother. I recently discovered that clip on a website and shared it with my grand kids. Even though you can barely make me out, they were duly impressed. I don’t know how long I’ll remain a big shot in their eyes, but it’s a mighty fine feeling while it lasts.
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